Some of you techies may be familiar with the new Google Glass, a type of wearable technology that comes with an optical head-mounted display which shows information like a smartphone – hands free with voice commands.

Now, the “wearable computing” can be actuality in an industrial environment. This week at Pack Expo, Beckhoff and Matrix Packaging Machinery are partnering up for technology study where Matrix will connect Google Glass to a vertical/form/fill/seal machine in the Matrix booth. This demonstrates the openness of Beckhoff PC-based control hardware and TwinCAT automation software.

This exciting demo showcases Google Glass as an emerging concept for packaging machine operation in an Industry 4.0 framework.

According to Beckhoff, the augmented reality glasses, primarily developed for the consumer market, integrate a heads-up display for information as well as a digital camera among numerous other features.