As the pace of technological advances increases, Flypay’s Tom Weaver looks at what is likely to happen in the near future, how it could help your business and whether full investment is necessary now
The most technical innovations hit consumers first, rather than businesses. The reasons are obvious, consumers find it easier to be early adopters and buying one piece of technology for one person is affordable – however, equipping an entire workforce can prove expensive.
Yet sometimes it really is businesses, not consumers that drive technology forward. Drones, for example, will probably be able to thank the military for their existence, but businesses (in particular the delivery industry) for their early adoption and growth.
Introducing augmented reality to the hospitality industry. The big tech giants –Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Google are all reportedly pouring billions into the technology, which is widely viewed as the ‘fourth wave’ next big ‘disruptor’ after mobile changed our world, the internet before that and the PC before that.
Adoption of next technology
Augmented, or mixed reality, is where our vision or audio is directly overlaid with digital information, enabling us to then interact with that information. Microsoft HoloLens is the current best example of this being available publicly – at a mere $3,000 (£2,370). While bulky, it shows impressive capabilities. Moreover, there are already prototypes showing how most of the capabilities of a computer and phone can be integrated in – such as Outlook’s mail and calendar capabilities rendered as if they were on a desktop. Now we’re seeing new ‘mixed reality-first’ design and development agencies, like Loook in Seattle (note the Microsoft connection) popping up to begin helping companies shape products directly onto available technologies such as HoloLens.
It’s hard to say who will be the early adopter for what’s known as augmented reality, both vision and hearing. My view is that this will be consumers and businesses together. It will be an instant shift that will change our world within three to five years.
Technology like Magic Leap and other mixed reality start-ups (and next generation versions of those with other disruptive but simpler tech like the new Snap glasses from Snapchat) will put anything that could be on a screen into our personal field of vision. Audio technologies like Doppler Labs’ Here Earbuds will prove invaluable to the industry. The technology has the power to allow staff to change in real time what they are hearing. For example, staff could make a customer’s voice in front of them clearer and background buzz go away. And finally, cheap, unbundled sensors will allow them to connect in new data streams.
What will this mean for the hospitality industry in – let’s say five to 10 years’ time? It will take a little while for the technology to settle and come down in price. We are only a decade past the launch of the smartphone and it is finally affordable to put touch screen technology into the hands of staff.
Firstly: staff will have access to better information and in real time. They will be able to see live notifications. For example, table five’s food order is ready to go, table seven has paid and table nine just ordered extra fries. As we start to connect with customers’ identities via loyalty apps, it will be possible for operators to also give a heads up on key customer information. Perhaps the customer at table two is severely allergic to nuts. The customer at table three loves your brand and spends a lot of money visiting multiple sites so you will want to pay that customer a great deal of attention.
Secondly: staff will be able to act on that information – placing orders, confirming dishes are ready, updating drink stocks – without going to a separate terminal.
The main shift to anticipate here is, just as we used to have one phone for our house and now have at least one phone each, staff will have access to personal devices at greater scale. Of course, that is also possible with mobile devices too, but augmented reality will simply make it vastly more accessible and possible for busy front-of-house teams to interact with this information on the fly, without hunting for a phone on their belt.
Current options
The closest we are to this now is the Apple Watch. While not directly in our field of vision, the Apple Watch is predominantly designed to bring better notifications to consumers without having to access one big device. Since having an Apple Watch, I’ve discovered it’s much better than using my phone to add items to my shopping list using Siri, and to keep track of what’s important for incoming messages and
notifications without needing to take my phone out to check each one. I can also use walking navigation via Apple Maps without needing my phone out in front of me.
This is what early augmented reality will be like for the hospitality industry.
So what does all this mean now for the hospitality industry?
Expect disruption: physical EPoS, kitchen screens and staff input devices will be-
come obsolete. The ability to place orders and see information will all come through augmented reality – improving service levels. Add artificial intelligence into this mix and customer requests can be filtered and acted on much easier – smarter recommendations can be made and allergy information be instantly available. In turn, mistakes will be reduced, service opti-mised and customer satisfaction increased. Operators will question what life was like before it arrived.
The challenge for operators: plan for it now. Technology innovating cycles are shortening, however, purchasing cycles are not. Operators need to be asking themselves these questions: “How long ago was my last EPoS system installed?” “How long do I expect the current generation to stay?” Normally we see a good 10-year lifecycle – more than the amount of time we would expect to see something like augmented reality race through the adoption curve. Therefore, how do you keep as much flexibility and structure in your systems now, to enable you to swiftly adapt when everything changes – as it will!
■ Tom Weaver is CEO of Flypay, a producer of mobile technology in hospitality
