Firefighters often risk their lives, to save people in burning buildings. Especially dense smoke can end disastrously for them if they lose each other. Stress, heat, panic and noise do the rest. Although they train for these difficult conditions regularly, it can happen from time to time, that they can’t escape from these difficult situations. This leads to that they can not save people anymore and in the worst case they become a victim too.

The “westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau” created exactly for these situations a respirator with data glasses, to help the rescuer to find their way even in poor visibilities. Via these special glasses, they can get very important information in their field of view, for example, instructions of the management, their vital values, building plans or escape plans.

The biggest challenge during the development was to make the highly sensitive data glasses work reliably even in the big heat. Moreover the optic, electronic and the power supply had to be integrated airtight into the respirator so that the firefighters don’t get handicapped in their field of view.

These Glasses, which the “westfählische Hochschule Zwickau” is using for the firefighters are AR (augmented reality) glasses. You can expand the reality withe these glasses through a micro screen which fades additional information in the field of view.

The other type of glasses is VR (virtual reality) glasses.

The glasses are connected to a computer and through a sensor, it recognizes the movement of the body and head. In this way, the spectacle wearer can move through time and space.

Wireless VR glasses are connected to a smartphone which is connected to the glasses. Thereby they can overlay the virtual and real worlds like holograms.