Vaillant – AR Factory Tour

A flexible, digital system enhances Vaillant factory tours with Augmented Reality (AR) technology and visualizes production processes, product features and other noteworthy details in an unseen way.

Flexible tour system

The AR Tour is an iPad app that makes it possible to respond individually to groups sizes of one to over 30 participants in over ten languages.
Each visitor receives an iPad with which ‘check ins’ at certain points within the production area are possible. The guide manages the app centrally and triggers all contents such as images, videos and animated 3D objects on the visitors’ iPads synchronously.

Vaillant Augmented Reality Factory Tour Elastique Nature

Behind the scenes

In five different sections visitors gain deeper insights into the production process, technical features and general product benefits that would normally be impossible to display. This means that visitors who would not be permitted to get close up to the assembly line for safety reasons can view various stages of production virtually. A video can be played for all visitors at the same time to show process steps such as the manual soldering of heating circuits. Augmented Reality can even use real distances to visually demonstrate the product benefit of aroTHERM heat pumps that can be installed up to 30 metres away from the building.

Intuitive and easy to use
Group sizes of 2 to 20+ people
Over 10 languages
Multiple tours simultaneously
Robust – designed for everyday use

GIF Video VAI AR Factory Tour Guide Funktion

A synchronized experience

The Vaillant factory tour was realised as a synchronized augmented reality experience – the first of its kind to take place in the surroundings of a highly networked production hall. Visitors can explore the content together, because it is controlled for all visitors centrally on the tour guide’s iPad. This results in a collective, guided AR experience which makes the content more visually tangible and turns the transmission of the content into an experience in itself.

An agile production process

This project involved the use of cutting-edge technology which had not previously been tested in halls in daylight. For this reason, we created an agile, iterative structure for the project, so findings from each development phase could be gradually incorporated into the realisation of the other sections. The first section was a pilot project. After completion, thorough tests were carried out with guides and groups of test visitors. The remaining sections were only realised once the findings had been implemented and consolidated successfully. All of the scenes were designed on a traditional storyboard and their content aligned. They were then structured and ultimately realised in 3D for use in the Augmented Reality application.