In Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality News
September 3, 2020 – Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) collaboration platform, Spatial, which turns any room into a 3D workspace to help connect remote teams, has today announced its availability on the Oculus Quest Store.
Spatial has also announced a host of new features aimed at assisting with productivity. These include; Slack, Google Docs and Figma integration, a new whiteboard tool for note taking, improved text readability, embedded web pages, hand tracking, multiple video conference feeds and more – all designed to more accurately support both in person and digital collaboration.
Video conference fatigue has become an unexpected but very real issue for workers in 2020, as many people continue to work apart from teammates. Spatial aims to help tackle these sorts of workplace inefficiencies, as well help to save companies money, time and the environment by reducing physical travel requirements.
Another benefit of the app is that it helps address issues of loneliness brought about by social distancing due to COVID-19. Stepping into a Spatial virtual environment creates a deeper sense of presence and connection, and brings isolated and disengaged teams closer together, allowing them to iterate or troubleshoot more quickly.
“We constantly look to our customers to hear how to make the experience more personal and expressive for them – we want to make it so intuitive that it barely feels like work at all”, said Anand Agarawala, CEO and Co-Founder of Spatial. “Our power users spend several hours a day in Spatial, showing we are on a trajectory for holographic collaboration that not only replaces major meetings but transforms the way we work throughout the day, mirroring how we might interact with others in a physical office. Being featured on the Quest Store with our latest and greatest experience is a huge moment for us, as it breaks down the barrier to entry to a device that continues to be where we see our highest number of users.”
The company opened up its platform in May with free access during COVID-19 to all users via headset or desktop, and states that it has since seen thousands of customers spending hours in Spatial per day, to support team planning discussions, brainstorming sessions, immersive presentations, training and educational sessions, 3D model reviews, or weekly team meetings and hangouts.
New Spatial features available today in the Quest Store, include:
- Cloud integrations to bring Slack, Google Drive and Figma into VR – Automatic importing of Slack channels, Google docs or Figma boards right into Spatial;.
- Improved text readability & embedded web pages – Text is now clearer for screen-shares and web pages thanks to Oculus OVR layers.
- Real time productivity – Users can share and capture ideas with the digital note taking whiteboard tool and pull up and arrange live web pages for real time editing;
- Expressive hand gestures – Users can now interact purely with their hands on Quest for an even more intuitive interface;
- Larger room capacity – 20+ participants can join via video feeds from the Spatial web app with no loss in performance, in addition to 30 people in headset, for even larger collaboration.
- Pro version – Spatial is introducing a Free and Pro version. Users can upgrade Pro for unlimited storage for collaborative rooms.
Spatial works across VR and AR enabled devices including; Oculus Quest, Nreal, Magic Leap, Microsoft HoloLens, and PC/Mobile via the web. The company added that it is continuously adding more hardware options as well. To download, users can simply search for ‘Spatial’ on the Oculus Quest store.
Image / video credit: Spatial
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About the author
Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.