Ultimate VR/AR productivity tool lets you connect to the tools you already know and love, improves real time editing and note taking
Spatial, the leading VR/AR collaboration platform that turns any room into a 3D workspace to more effectively connect remote teams, today announced that it is available on the Oculus Quest Store, making it accessible on the most widely used headset today. Spatial is also announcing a host of new features that will take the immersive collaboration app to the next level and allow everyday people to be more productive. These include; Slack, Google Drive and Figma integration, a new whiteboard tool for note taking, vastly improved text readability, embedded live web pages, hand tracking, multiple video conference feeds and more – all designed to more accurately support the best of both in person and digital collaboration.
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Video conference fatigue has become an unexpected but very real issue for workers in 2020, as many of us continue to work apart from teammates. These work tools are not set up how we naturally think or to best suit our needs, yet business travel costs companies $251 billion annually. Spatial is tackling these workplace inefficiencies – saving money, time and the environment, as well as addressing issues of loneliness brought about by Covid-19. Stepping into a Spatial virtual environment creates a deeper sense of presence and connection, and an entirely new way of working that is reviving isolated and disengaged teams, bringing them closer and allowing them to think bigger and 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, Co-founder and CEO 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 work and interact in a physical office.” Co-founder and CPO Jinha Lee added, “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 the platform in May with free access during Covid-19 to all users via headset or desktop, and 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 and weekly team meetings or hangouts.
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“I’ve been using Spatial for several months and have found it to be a great space to hold collaborative group meetings with my business partner, colleagues, and my clients”, said Rob Merrilees, Co-founder of Get Real. “We use the platform for client introduction meetings to display pdfs, artifacts, screen sharing, as well as internal working and brainstorm sessions with Ed Haravon, my Co-founder. Being able to share more than one doc at a time is really helpful and conducive to productivity. We love introducing new people to the space because their first words are always, “Oh, wow!” No surprise — it’s a very connecting experience. The team at Spatial is also so passionate about building an intuitive experience that will drive the way people will work and collaborate in the future.”
New Spatial features available today in the Quest Store, include:
- Cloud integrations to bring Slack, Google Drive and Figma into VR – Automatic importing of your Slack channels, Google Docs or Figma boards right into Spatial, making it easier to collaborate on the content you care about. No more manual uploads.
- Improved text readability & embedded web pages – Text is now incredibly crisp for screen-shares and web pages thanks to Oculus OVR layers.
- Real time productivity – Share and capture ideas with the digital note taking whiteboard tool and pull up live web pages for real-time editing.
- Expressive hand gestures – Goodbye controllers, you can now interact purely with your hands, on Quest for an even more intuitive interface. Celebrate by clapping your hands or high fiving/fist bumping a friend and watch the fun particle effects come out.
- 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.
- Go Pro – Spatial is introducing a Free and Pro version. Go Pro for unlimited storage for your collaborative rooms.
Spatial works across VR and AR enabled devices including; Oculus Quest, Nreal, Magic Leap, Microsoft HoloLens, and PC/Mobile via the web and is continuously adding more hardware options to the mix.
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