Atheer and Xciel Partner to Bring Advanced AR Smart Glasses to Workers in the Oil and Gas Industry

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Atheer, the company pioneering the AiR™ (Augmented interactive Reality™) computing platform, today announced a partnership with Xciel Inc., the manufacturer of Intrinsically Safe (IS) family of portable devices, to bring advanced smart glasses technologies to workers in the oil and gas industry. Improving safety and enhancing productivity, oil and gas professionals can now experience the full promise of hands-free computing with IS AiR Glasses.

"The oil and gas workplace is hazardous and today's workers need durable and dependable smart glasses that will help them get their jobs done no matter where they are working," said Alberto Torres, CEO of Atheer. "We're thrilled to be collaborating with a proven partner in the IS space and look forward to building with them the industry's first AR based smart glasses specifically created for oil and gas workers."

Intrinsic safety is applied to electrical equipment designed to operate in potentially hazardous environments such as flammable gas or explosive dust. Xciel currently designs IS cases for iPhones, iPads and other electronic devices. The Xciel solution involves sealing devices in either a specially designed aluminum, rubber or nylon enclosure to protect them from both the environment and potential physical abuse in an industrial setting.

"Mobile devices are crucial for risk engineers and fields inspectors that need to capture data and collaborate in real-time with remote experts," said Xavier Balourdet, co-founder and general manager at Xciel. "As wearables like smart glasses become commonplace in today's workplace, I'm thrilled to bring Xciel's proven experience to the AiR Glasses and set a new standard with intrinsically safe computing and communications."

As gas and petroleum companies continue to move towards digital audit tools to improve inspection efficiency and reduce risk, this opens up an enormous opportunity for smart glasses to be deployed in such a highly complex workplace. Atheer's AiR platform, composed of the AiR Glasses, AiR UX (Gesture recognition) and AiR Suite, provides an immediate solution that allows friction-free access to digital information, like checklists, work manuals, PDF's, and 3D models without compromising safety. Wearers can team up with colleagues via video calls and receive guidance through real-time image annotations to resolve problems quickly, all while keeping focus on the task at hand.

A prototype of the smart glasses will be shown in the Xciel booth #3030 at Subsea Tieback Forum and Exhibition in San Antonio, Texas.

About Atheer

Atheer is the pioneer of AiR™ (Augmented interactive Reality) computing that is designed to enhance the productivity and safety of deskless professionals at Fortune 1000 companies. The award-winning Atheer AiR platform combines the power of immersive augmented reality with intelligent gesture, voice and head-motion interactions as well as real-time rich-media collaboration, all on a mobile smart glasses platform. Wearing the see-through AiR Glasses enables viewing rich information critical to workflows, interacting with the information naturally and collaborating with remote peers like never before – without the need to hold any device. Leveraging the Android-based AiR OS and the collaboration-centric AiR Suite, developers and companies around the world are creating next-generation enterprise productivity applications and workflows to empower the 21st century workforce. Atheer is based in Mountain View, CA and is backed by prominent investors including Bobby Yazdani, founder and managing partner of Cota Capital and Signatures Capital, and Farzad Naimi, co-founder and managing partner of RONA Holdings. For more information, please visit http://www.atheerair.com. Follow Atheer on Twitter and LinkedIn and like us on Facebook.

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SOURCE Atheer