Augmented Reality - Ultimate DIY

[JustCruisn]

BMW’s future service techs will use augmented reality to fix your car

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/03...-fix-your-car/

[Mrk_Mickey]

lol that looks really silly. This is what a cadetship/apprenticeship is for; you learn the trade specific to your kind of work for 4 years, and by that time you'll have enough understanding, knowledge and experience to be able to do this without any computer.

It does seem as though it will eliminate any mistakes made by human error though...

[Arctra]

Yeah, I agree it looks a little silly. But in the REAL world where properly trained personnel aren't readily available, things aren't quite so clear cut . Take for example rural areas that may see a BMW only occasionally, or let's say a 3rd world country where you have very capable mechanics that just don't have the backgrounds in sound mechanical apprenticeships available to them to gain the invaluable experience you speak of. In those circumstances something like this is genius!

I think we are going to see more and more of this. In the UK you have DIY garages where they supply all the tools and car lift etc that you need to service your car yourself, you just rent it by the hour. In places like that I reckon these sorts of augmented reality "helpers" will become very popular so that you can DIY at a fraction of the cost of getting a dealership to do it, and still be comfortable that you're doing a reasonable job in the correct sequence etc. It's the next logical step for someone like Bentley Publishers to go with their service manuals.

I love the idea. Thanks for the post.

[Whubbsie]

you'ld hope a dealers service centre would have staff that know what they are doing rather than need this... could see this being way more helpfull for DIYers or as a training tool. I'd love one for my car

[noone]

Totally pointless.

Yes it helps you remove trim, but when its a mechanical fault, then what?

Will it help you find the hole in your radiator? no.

Will it help you discover which hose has come loose? no

Will it assist you to see deteriorated parts or damaged components? no

Augmented reiality is such a gimmicky area, I don't see how this is going to help the tech do anything but look - Supercool

[gregozedobe]

Like any technology if it is done well it can be very useful, but done badly it will lead to all sorts of problems (old time programmers may recall "GIGO" ie Garbage In leads to Garbage Out).

But given the choice between a mechanic who has NFI about my particular car working on it by himself, and the same mechanic assisted by a decent knowledge based system (designed by people who know my car very well), I'll choose the second option every time.

And it can be very expensive to get the expert knowledge required for something like this to work properly, and it also needs to be kept up to date as new common problems are discovered.