The idea of augmented reality has been around for a very long time. A few years ago at TMC’s (News - Alert) first New York Wearable Tech Expo, Paul Travers, who is the CEO, president and director of Vuzix, a company that manufactures and sells computer display devices and software was there to talk about the future of augmented reality devices. At that time, we were shown a very impressive simulation using Vuzix’ M100 smart glasses.

The Vuzix M100 smart glasses have become the world's first commercially available hands-free display and wearable computer designed for enterprise users. Running on the Android (News - Alert) platform, the M100 can be wirelessly connected to most standard networks and smartphones. In addition to the virtual display and integrated camera, the M100 also features a powerful processing engine. Vuzix holds 39 patents and 12 additional patents pending and numerous IP licenses in the video eyewear field.

On February 25, 2015, Vuzix announced that it has entered into a partnership with Pristine. To be more precise, the M100 smart glasses will take advantage of Pristine’s EyeSight platform. EyeSight is Pristine’s flagship platform designed to power secure and scalable audio and video streaming for hands-free collaboration and remote support in several fields including life sciences, industrial and manufacturing environments, field services and healthcare.

Dan Cui, who is vice president of business development at Vuzix, said "Pristine's EyeSight platform is a killer app for the exploding smart glasses market and enables users to collaborate in industries and locations never before imagined. Having Pristine's solution optimized for our award-winning smart glasses will open new opportunities and deliver real value and ROI to customers around the world."

As technology continues to evolve and more ahead, we find that we are no longer tied down to sitting at a desk to work on PCs or use the desktop phone. One offering that this collaboration will bring to the table is the combination of industry leading hardware and software. Together they will bring to market one of the best telepresence solutions. This is a way for enterprises to make notice improvements in the way that teams remotely collaborate in a hands-free environment.

Co-founder and CEO of Pristine, Kyle Samani, had the following to say, "Our customers are generating incredible ROI. What used to cost them $2,500 per day now costs next to nothing. Using Vuzix technologies, we are delivering an incredible telepresence solution for clients in life sciences, industrial equipment, field service and healthcare."

These cost saving can be seen in the way the Vuzix M100 smart glasses and Pristine’s EyeSight are used in combination. Once the device is powered up, a user can say “request support” and relevant colleagues are notified. At this point, they can call into the M100 that initiated the request and they can all collaborate to resolve any issues.

The fact that the cross-platform architecture is built on open source technologies and hosted in the cloud means that there is no need to have any hardware on site. This allows users to get up and running quickly with zero capital investment, combined with incredible ROI it does seem like a winning combination.