Spectar — Q&A with CEO
Of all the emerging technology trends in construction, augmented reality (AR) stands out as one of the most futuristic sounding — but it’s also already making a real impact for construction field teams.
As described by their CEO, Spectar is the information bridge that brings BIM from the home office and makes it accessible to the field. We speak here about Spectar’s journey, what exactly it is that AR can do for construction, and how they’re on the path to own the frontline construction worker’s experience in AR.
Do you mind talking a bit about Spectar, your own history, and what your vision for the company is?
Spectar started as an R&D shop for a wall and ceiling contractor in the Los Angeles area. Initially, we envisioned a future where every single trade professional and apprentice can be in an augmented reality (AR) device — the idea being that you never need to look at 2D plans, you’re always looking at a 3D BIM model. Furthermore, that model is always current, it is easy to understand, is very visual, and basically has all the data that you need and is accessible for everybody onsite.
That was the initial thesis and what we tested was whether it would create value. Would it speed up the installation? Would it benefit that specific wall and ceiling contractor? How can it benefit the industry overall?
The test was to frame a typical nine-foot wall and a bathroom pod. And it turned out that when we gave the AR device to an apprentice who had never used it before, that apprentice was 60% faster — still not the speed of the journeyman, but he was 60% faster, and the journeyman was around 15% faster, compared to the conventional method.
This is when it dawned on us: we shouldn’t look at it as the fastest — it’s not the Formula One. It’s not about making your best journeyman go from 70 linear feet of framing per day to 90. No, it’s about getting an apprentice to go from doing 20 and saying, “Hey, you can do 32 with this new tool.”
We’re not going to make the best one faster. We’re going to take people from horse and carriages and put them in cars.
We ran these successful proofs of concept to a point where it was clear for everyone involved that we could make this a product. A product that is scalable, beyond the company and beyond any one trade — we were convinced that it could cover the entire breadth of construction.
So, we’re still in 2016. Your proof of concept was validated quickly, correct?
In that year we did a lot of quick tests. Since then, we’ve been established as a company and building our product. We started with a robust back end because everything up to that point was duct tape and glue. The goal was to build a proper infrastructure and ensure that everything touching BIM was secure and reliable.
We decided to focus on what Microsoft calls the frontline worker — we in the industry call it the trade professional.
Our plan is to be the leader in the “AR for Trade Professional” category for construction. Despite being one of the most difficult industries, it’s a category that will move the needle significantly. If we’re able to have somebody install backing 20% faster and hangers 40% faster, suddenly, each subcontractor is completing a lot more “work in place” with the same amount of time and this delivers real value for the entire value chain.
Taking a step back for the uninitiated, what is augmented reality and why is it important for construction?
What users do is overlay building information models (BIM) into existing conditions at 1-to-1 scale. Site folks wear what they call “BIM helmets”, which is a Trimble XR-10 with Microsoft HoloLens 2 that runs Spectar software.
When they are in Spectar, they see the geometry of the constructed space and overlay of a virtual model in existing conditions. Imagine, there is an existing pipe and there is a pipe in the model, you will see a virtual pipe overlay the real one — and once you’re looking at this overlay of that pipe, you can get data from it.
There’s a lot of data that is already embedded into every single model that BIM detailers create, especially if you think of the Revit families. So, you can look at that pipe and you can find answers to these types of questions: “What is this pipe? Who’s the supplier? What’s the dimension, size, material, elevation, is it insulated, what’s the distance from the bottom of insulation to benchmark and so on.”
And we don’t just stop at static data. We also go into dynamic data, meaning if there is a database.
Everything is Internet of Things (IoT) today. So, you can look at a pump, for example, and say, “Is this pump running or not? What are the RPMs of the pump? How much is this pump pumping? What is it pumping?”
From the Smart Jobsite perspective, it can also be, “What’s the item’s specifications? Who’s the manufacturer? When is it going to be delivered? When is it going to be installed? How do we schedule it with work that we’re doing currently?” It becomes dynamic when you’re able to interact with construction planning. And I imagine augmented reality is the opportunity to do that.
Yeah. And by the way, the static data includes all your submittal information. You’re spot on — you can schedule it; you can assign attributes to it. Has it been delivered? Is it installed? Is it operational and so on, so forth?
When you look at any study on productivity in construction, so much of it comes down to digitization. I think what that implies is coordination, communication, and the ability for the office and the field to be in sync with each other. And so those designers aren’t just designing arbitrary things. They’re designing things that are going to be useful and digestible by the craft in the field — and the craft in the field, when they come upon latent conditions or conditions that were unexpected, they’re able to relay that information back to the designers and just complete that cycle. It’s, again, very basic, but it’s very difficult to do in construction.
When a lot of people look at construction, they start by saying “AEC Industry.” But our stance has always been that AEC is not an industry, AEC is a series of industries.
We can make very; very big statements and you hear thought leaders talk about billions of dollars in total addressable market. But that doesn’t sit well with a lot of mechanical contractors or wall and ceiling contractors or electrical contractors because their life is very focused on their specific firm and building things that their craft employees are experts in.
And these folks say: “It’s great that BIM creates all this transparency. The biggest beneficiaries of BIM thus far have been owners, architects, and engineers. Please explain to my foreman how he can connect the design to field?” With Spectar, the field has a product where any foreman can give it to the trade professional and say: “I have all of the BIM data and a record of all the constructability decisions that were made on this project so far, this will help you get your job done.”
Where is Spectar in terms of your dependency on other emerging technology trends. You’ve mentioned Microsoft HoloLens2. I imagine a lot of your applications and use cases are leveraging Microsoft in some way. Do you see a lot of other hardware providers coming down the road that provide augmented reality specifically for construction job sites?
Most of our revenue comes from construction GCs and subs doing the work. And when we talk about how these companies envision doing work, they’re very clear — the hands of the person in the field need to convert material, time, and effort into a building. The hands of the trade professional are not a cost center, they’re a profit center for a subcontractor.
So, it’s very clear that they need to have a safety-rated wearable device where people can see real lifelike elements, with hands that are holding tools and materials. They’re also very clear about the “user experience” and the fact that the pipe should look like a pipe, not lines, and so on, and so forth.
To accomplish all of that, when you start putting together specs that the construction world needs: OSHA-approved device, that works in large spaces; and it needs to work with conditions that change every day. And it needs to render huge BIM holograms reliably and accurately. We’re working with a client today, they 29 different trade layers in the model with three mechanical contractors on one project. These are huge five gigabyte models.
To be successful in construction, AR devices need to become tools. The device has to be really powerful, and it needs to as reliable as the rest of their tools. So far, I don’t see anybody but Microsoft being able to come up with a device that can meet this requirement. Trimble is making it very field-friendly in terms of providing this last mile delivery of safety, which is a must. I think Microsoft with Trimble XR-10 hardware will continue to dominate the market mid-term.
That said, I do think that there are other players who will step up. I believe Apple will step up and will give Microsoft a good run. And there are other devices that are shaking up the industry. Microsoft needs to have competition, we need to see the overall market grow, so all the devices get better and faster.
There’s no doubt that in five years, we’re going to have AR devices that are lighter, they’re going to be more powerful, and can be safely used on job sites while providing reliable AR experiences to end users.
Nate Fuller is Managing Director of Placer Construction Solutions, advising leadership teams to transform their organizations in ways that improve performance and agility at the field level.
He provides construction companies with a field assessment that delivers transformative information about their field operations and is proven to accelerate innovation & technology adoption for Top ENR contractors.
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