Devin Marble

Their argument is that head-worn computing spent a decade on the first two because immersive headsets fit those tasks, while the roughly 2.7 billion people who work without a desk are doing work nobody built for. Marble calls this category first-person computing: glasses workers already know how to wear, with a point-of-view camera and optional in-lens text, rather than holograms anchored to the floor.

A technician atop a silo or in a confined space who needs a second set of expert eyes; an aircraft mechanic who cannot break sequence to check a manual; a new hire learning with a veteran’s voice in their ear instead of a binder in their hands.

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Smart glasses preserve vision, are wearable all day, and never pull the worker out of their environment.

• Some have no display; others add a HUD that serves text into the line of sight without blocking real vision.
• True AR, by contrast, means binocular, world-locked 3D overlays anchored to physical objects, with different hardware, ergonomics, and market size.
• Marble states flatly that a HUD is not AR and expects the distinction to shape any deployment plan.

Organisations targeting on-task workers with AR often needed smart glasses with a HUD or no HUD at all. But the 3,500-dollar spatial computing headset was the only tool on the shelf, so they bought it and, as the posts put it, used it as an expensive teleprompter.

Marble does not dismiss AR. One post tracks AR headsets as a category worth watching and expects true AR to own the on-task moment once the form factor lands.

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They describe wearables as an enterprise device category most organisations have no management strategy for. They point to remote-assistance sessions running in a controlled, managed, multi-device environment and describe ArborXR as the first device-management platform to support wearables—a setup IT can approve.

In a demonstration on a 1955 Ford F-250, a remote subject matter expert joins through the worker’s glasses, sees the same view, guides the worker to the drain plug, then switches device views to follow them to the workbench while the session stays on managed devices. The same lesson runs through the XR turnaround story, which credits success to a stack of partners rather than a product.

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Marble argues that the gap HoloLens left is real and that organisations paying attention will not be caught flat-footed. Their position: the OEM choice is not the point; organisations should stop treating emerging technology as only training for the job.

Gone or going: Magic Leap 2 reaching end of life and DigiLens Argo shutting down manufacturing, described as two promising devices and two cautionary tales. Worth watching: XREAL One and One Pro, the HMS SiNGRAY G2 as a HoloLens-style industrial device running Android, XREAL Project Aura as the first Android XR device, and Rivet for defence and industrial use.

The neutrality has limits. In the same roundup, Marble names Project Aura as the device they are most enthusiastic about heading into the rest of 2026—a stated preference, not a neutral read.

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Emerging technology, innovative software, and enterprise hardware move through channel procurement, sit in different companies, and require deep domain expertise to bring together so a deployment works. The payoff for the customer: the pieces are arranged so it feels as if someone pressed an easy button.

A turnaround credited to ArborXR, PICO XR, VR Expert, and three named collaborators: Dax Leepart, Marco Janmaat, and Allen Dulaney.

The focus later shifts from assembling a deployment to open-ecosystem and go-to-market outreach: a roundtable on go-to-market strategy at an industry expo, an invitation to partner, and mentions of ecosystem plays in the works.

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Start here to learn the difference between smart glasses and true AR before weighing product or vendor claims.

Marble refuses to treat head-worn devices as one category.

• Smart glasses, in this telling, preserve vision, work all day and never pull the worker out of the environment.
• Some have no display at all, with a camera, mic, speakers and an AI voice assistant; others add a HUD that serves text into the line of sight without blocking real vision.
• True AR is a different animal: binocular, world-locked 3D overlays anchored to physical objects, with different hardware, ergonomics and market size.
• Marble then splits a worker’s life into three moments: pre-work training, post-work review (recertification, after-action review, prototyping) and guided workflow—doing the actual job with hands engaged.
• The argument: the industry spent a decade optimising the first two because immersive headsets fit those tasks, while the population doing the work dwarfs the population training for it or reviewing it.
• A short kicker states plainly that a HUD is not AR.
• The post ends by naming the sectors covered in the accompanying video—manufacturing, logistics, field service, healthcare, energy and utilities, retail—for both no-display AI glasses and HUD glasses.

For brands planning a campaign

Use this piece to segment outreach before pitching: no-display AI glasses and HUD glasses address different jobs, and a campaign aimed at training or post-work budgets will miss the larger on-task population Marble identifies. It gives a vendor-neutral frame a software company can adopt rather than argue with.

Read it for the commercial thesis and diagnosis of the earlier buying wave.

Marble names the category First-Person Computing and anchors it in a number: roughly 2.7 billion people go to work without a desk.

• The critique: XR reached those workers mainly through training simulations, certification refreshers and after-action review—all preparation or debriefing—and nobody built for the job itself, where workers need information right now without stopping to look at a screen.
• Marble reports hearing the same story across separate enterprises: organisations that spent five years targeting AR at on-task workers actually needed smart glasses with a HUD, or in some cases no HUD at all.
• But the $3,500 spatial computing headset was the only tool on the shelf, so that is what got bought and then used as an expensive teleprompter.
• Two structural claims follow: the enterprise incumbent (HoloLens) has left the building, and the companies most likely to ship the ideal device are consumer social brands that have made clear they do not want to build enterprise ecosystems.
• Meta's Reality Labs spend is cited as required reading.
• The post asks readers to comment a keyword to receive a research paper.

For brands planning a campaign

This is the clearest statement of why a managed-wearables pitch should lead with the on-task moment rather than training. It also gives software companies a ready-made objection to answer: enterprises already own headsets bought for the wrong job.

Start here to see the workflow, not just the argument.

Marble narrates a first-person demonstration: wearing lightweight AI smart glasses as the frontline worker, checking a drain plug for a leak and prepping an oil change on a 1955 Ford F-250, flat on their back in a tight space under the front bumper with both hands occupied.

• A remote subject matter expert joins live through the glasses, sees the same view, walks the worker to the crossmember, oil pan and drain plug, confirms the leak is a non-issue, then switches views and follows the worker to the workbench to size sockets, staying on to watch for errors.
• The post stresses what is absent: no tablet propped against a tyre, no expert flown in, no guessing.
• It then makes the enterprise point that wearables have become a managed device category.
• ArborXR is described as the first MDM (mobile device management) to support wearables, so the session ran multi-device and multi-view in a controlled, secure environment IT can approve.
• Marble asks readers to swap the truck for their own hard problem—a technician at the top of a silo or in a confined space needing a second set of expert eyes, a warehouse worker servicing a complex machine for the first time, an aircraft mechanic who cannot break sequence to check a manual, or a new hire learning with a veteran's voice in their ear—and closes by asking what first problem they would solve.

For brands planning a campaign

This piece shows what managed wearables look like in the field: it pairs a named workflow with the management layer that makes deployment approvable. Its closing question is ready-made for a campaign built around frontline input.

Read it to understand the hardware risks in an enterprise wearables decision.

Marble runs through a reshuffled AR headset landscape.

• Gone or going: Magic Leap 2 reached end of life, and DigiLens Argo is shutting down manufacturing—two promising devices and two cautionary tales.
• Worth watching, in this account: XREAL One and One Pro as lightweight consumer-style AR that punches above its price point; the HMS SiNGRAY G2, with a HoloLens-style form factor running Android and built for frontline industrial work, positioned as the HoloLens 2 replacement many organisations have been waiting for; XREAL Project Aura as the first AR device built on Android XR and the one Marble is most enthusiastic about for the rest of 2026; and Rivet, purpose-built for defence and industrial, military-first with enterprise on the roadmap.
• The framing: the gap HoloLens left is real, and organisations paying attention will not be caught flat-footed.
• Marble closes by noting plans to attend Augmented World Expo for a go-to-market roundtable and the ArborXR booth, and invites partnership conversations around ecosystem plays.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for hardware-agnostic positioning: a software partner can cite this to show awareness of device churn and argue for management and software that survive hardware turnover, rather than a single-headset bet.

Read it for the partner-and-channel view rather than the technology case.

Marble argues that a turnaround takes a stack—ArborXR plus PICO XR plus VR Expert, with three named individuals credited—and that the strongest deployment design has the right partners in place, so the customer feels an easy button was pressed. The explanation of why this is hard in XR is specific: emerging technology, innovative software and enterprise hardware all move through channel procurement, those pieces sit in different houses, and assembling them into a working deployment takes deep domain expertise.

For brands planning a campaign

This post is useful when a prospect has stalled: it frames success as partner assembly and channel navigation rather than product features. It identifies the friction a managed-wearables offer should claim to remove: hardware, software and procurement sit in separate organisations.

The recurring argument is that the industry spent a decade on the first two because headsets fit those uses, leaving on-task guidance unbuilt.

• They frame the audience as the deskless workforce, citing roughly 2.7 billion people who go to work without a desk, and point out that many organizations that bought 3,500-dollar spatial computing headsets ended up using them as what the posts call an expensive teleprompter.
• The examples are concrete: a technician who needs a second set of expert eyes in a confined space, an aircraft mechanic who cannot break sequence to check a manual, and a new hire learning with a veteran’s voice in the ear.

A recurring three-moment split—pre-work, post-work, and on-task—repositions the same technology category across several posts.

For brands planning a campaign

For a managed-wearables pitch, lead with on-task guidance during the job, not training simulations or post-shift review. Focus on jobs where workers’ hands are occupied and they need information immediately—the use case Marble argues is both larger and less served.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

Smart glasses are described as vision-preserving and wearable all day, sometimes with no display and sometimes with a HUD that puts text in the line of sight without blocking real vision.

• True AR is described separately: binocular, world-locked 3D overlays anchored to physical objects, with different hardware, ergonomics, and addressable market.
• The posts state plainly that a HUD is not AR.
• They also introduce and reuse the label First-Person Computing for a computer that comes to work in a shape you already wear, with a point-of-view camera and optional in-lens data, but no holograms anchored to the floor.

This distinction does not mean AR is dismissed. The landscape post tracks AR headsets as a category worth watching and expects true AR to take the on-task moment once the form factor lands.

For brands planning a campaign

Do not pitch HUD-equipped glasses and world-locked AR as the same product. Name the device class in the brief and match the claim to it; an audience that already polices this distinction will notice conflation.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Wearables are described as an enterprise device category for which most organizations have no management strategy.

• Marble describes a remote-assistance session in a controlled, managed, multi-device environment that IT can approve, and says ArborXR is the first device-management platform to support wearables.
• The same theme runs through the recovery story about an XR program, which credits success to a stack of partners across software, hardware, and channel procurement.

For brands planning a campaign

Build the pitch around manageability. Showing how wearables fit existing device management, security, and IT approval processes addresses the objection Marble raises most often—and speaks more directly to it than device specifications do.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

They offer worker situations as swaps, not abstractions: a technician at the top of a silo in a confined space, a warehouse operator running a complex machine they had not serviced before, an aircraft mechanic who cannot stop to consult a manual, and a new hire guided remotely by a veteran. One post closes by asking readers which problem they would solve first if their frontline team had managed wearables tomorrow.

Named scenario swaps replace a specific demo subject with the reader’s hardest problem, moving from anecdote to broader claim.

For brands planning a campaign

Use the vertical list to tailor the brief.

• Pick one vertical and one worker situation for a specific angle; the posts have already modeled the language for each.
• A general device pitch wastes that groundwork.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Marble says directly that the OEM choice is not the point and that readers should stop treating emerging technology as only training for the job.

The neutrality has limits. In the same roundup, Marble singles out one device as the one they are most excited about heading into the rest of 2026—a stated preference, not a neutral assessment.

For brands planning a campaign

Expect an OEM-neutral frame. A pitch tied to one hardware maker will need to explain why that device beats the alternatives Marble already tracks publicly; a managed platform that works across several is a stronger entry point.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Field demonstrations use real hardware in a real task, such as a remote expert guiding a repair under a truck, then generalize the pattern. Audience engagement is built in: one post asks readers to comment with a keyword to receive research material, another asks which problems readers would solve first and promises the author will read every answer, and others invite direct messages or a meeting at an industry expo.

Video plus written companion, with a keyword comment prompt for lightweight distribution and lead capture.

For brands planning a campaign

A working template is ready to use: a field demonstration plus a written breakdown, with a comment prompt that surfaces real problems from the audience. A partnership can provide the setting or hardware for an episode and use the audience question as a lead source.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

It credits a three-partner stack with making deployment feel easy for the customer. A later post announces a roundtable on go-to-market strategy at an industry expo, invites partners to find the author and notes ecosystem plays in the works.

Named partner callouts paired with an in-person expo invitation turn the post into partnership outreach.

For brands planning a campaign

The posts express appetite for ecosystem partnerships and explicit go-to-market interest. A proposal built around joining a stack and bringing channel reach fits their ask better than a one-off sponsored placement.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Ask whether they have a formal relationship with ArborXR.

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Ask whether they have a relationship with any of the companies.

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Ask whether they have a direct relationship with Marble.

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Ask whether they have a direct relationship with Marble.

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Eaker describes what a headset shows a new hire before their first day to narrow the gap between expectation and reality—the same on-the-job reality problem Marble uses to build the case for guided task support.

Eaker's posts focus on training and onboarding in manufacturing, including recruiting and retention, and use VR headsets for those purposes. Marble argues that the larger, underserved opportunity lies in the task itself, adding the device management, security, and IT-approval layer Eaker's material does not cover.

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Regnier says AI projects will stall if organizations skip mapping how work is actually done and leave the frontline out of the loop.

• Marble says the hard part was never the glasses, but making them deployable, secure, and trusted.
• Both write for leaders responsible for an hourly frontline.

Regnier writes about supply chain execution, agentic AI, and warehouse workforce performance, addressing operations and industrial engineering readers rather than XR program owners. His posts do not cover wearables or head-worn devices.

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Both explain a technical industrial topic in structured, numbered terms and make a concrete business case: Evans with a worked cost calculation for duplicate CAD parts, Marble with a scenario swap from one field demo to the reader's own hardest problem.

Evans writes about engineering data and 3D CAD in aerospace and manufacturing, not XR or wearables. Readers looking for head-worn computing will find little relevant material on this page.

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Both posts argue that new hires quit because reality does not match what they were shown.

• One says companies buy sophisticated technology stacks while people leave before the end of week one, calls it a preview problem rather than an AI problem, and presents a headset walkthrough of the actual workstation as the fix.
• The other pushes back on the idea that immersive training is a gimmick aimed at younger workers, arguing it also works for experienced employees who sat through safety lectures they did not retain.
• A vendor selling workforce development, recruiting pipelines, or pre-hire and onboarding programmes to manufacturers would find the buyer’s problem already framed, with the setting named as Missouri manufacturers competing for talent.

The tradeoff is that this puts the value before the job—the argument Marble’s campaign is built against.

• Their position is that the industry spent a decade optimising pre-work training and post-work review, while the bigger market sits in the task itself: hands busy, needing a person or expert in the moment.
• A managed-wearables vendor running an Eaker-shaped campaign would be funding the training story the campaign argues against.
• Eaker’s posts also focus on headsets and simulations, not device management, multi-device fleets, security approvals or remote assistance.
• A management platform would need to source deployment and IT-approval proof elsewhere in the campaign.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

One post sets out three eras—transactions, visibility, and now execution—and names groundwork a wearable rollout needs anyway: mapping how work actually gets done, connecting planning systems to frontline activity, capturing the exceptions people handle every day, and defining what finished work looks like.

• The other speaks to warehouse operations leaders under turnover pressure and cites fulfilment and distribution operations with 20,000 to 200,000 frontline workers gaining an average 4% quality performance improvement and hitting productivity goals weeks faster with new hires.
• A vendor seeking a performance and readiness conversation with operations leadership would find the vocabulary already in place.

The tradeoff is topical distance.

• Neither post mentions XR, smart glasses or wearables; the subject is AI readiness and frontline performance.
• A managed-wearables vendor would be buying an adjacent placement and hoping the audience carries over, while supplying every device-class and deployment argument itself.
• The posts date from September 2026 and September 2022, showing a recurring theme rather than a continuous run of frontline technology commentary.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The posts make engineering-data arguments: shape-based search finds duplicate and near-duplicate CAD parts after mergers, acquisitions or PLM migrations, with a worked cost example of 50,000 parts, 15% exact or near duplicates, 7,500 parts to rationalise at two engineer-hours each and £60 an hour, about £900,000 of avoidable effort.

• The other explains how 3D CAD reshaped aerospace development through simulation, model-based definition, clash detection, rapid prototyping and supplier collaboration.
• A vendor selling engineering or PLM software, or an XR company seeking aerospace and manufacturing engineering buyers with a data-quality or time-to-market case, would be speaking to a writer who already frames the problem in those terms.

The tradeoff is a different buyer.

• Both posts target engineering, design and PLM/PDM audiences; neither discusses frontline workers, wearables, headsets, remote assistance or device management.
• A managed-wearables campaign here reaches people who specify and standardise parts, not the operations and IT buyers who approve a device fleet.
• The message would need rebuilding for that audience before placement.
• The CAD post closes with an enquiries contact address, suggesting company posts function as a marketing channel that a campaign would need to work around rather than fold into.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2