Kognitiv Spark RemoteSpark vs Microsoft Remote Assist

Jun 10

At Kognitiv Spark, we focus on the delivery of secure and reliable worker support systems, its our sole focus.

Kognitiv Spark is a Microsoft Gold Mixed Reality partner. Microsoft is a great ally in the Mixed Reality (MR) space. They are the world’s leading MR hardware provider and support a community of 1000s of MR application developers.

Microsoft doesn’t just foster this community, it develops MR software as well. Dynamics 365 Remote Assist is their solution for providing remote guidance to workers. While these two tools, Remote Assist and RemoteSpark, may appear to solve the same problem, they serve different use cases.

This article highlights the differences between the two applications in order to help industrial organizations select the solution best equipped to solve their specific challenges. In some cases, an organization might even want to use both!

Off the top, the two applications enable a remote worker to digitally connect to a subject matter expert. Once a connection has been established, subject matter experts can see what the remote worker sees. The two parties can communicate verbally and leverage various tools and functionalities offered by the two platforms to solve problems and to keep operations flowing. Both solutions can reduce travel and equipment downtime while improving knowledge transfer.

Where these two applications differ are in their holographic functions, how they integrate into an organization’s network, and licensing. Remote Assist is like Skype for HoloLens and RemoteSpark extends this use case by adding mixed reality feature to help the worker.

Deep dive: How are these products different?

Infrastructure

A notable difference between the two options is bandwidth requirements, network & connectivity requirements, licensing, and additional software requirements. Your organization’s data governance policies may also affect which solution you’re able to operate within your company.

  
    Infrastructure
    MS Remote Assist
    Kognitiv Spark RemoteSpark
  

    Secure Encrypted Video Calls
    Yes
    Yes
  

    Bandwidth Requirements
    1500+ kps or greater
    128 kps or greater
  

    On Premise Available
    No
    Yes
  

Annotations & Content

The 2D content for both products is very similar. Both support holographic annotations (drawn live by the expert user), arrows, PDF files, and photos. RemoteSpark also adds the ability to load 3D content during the call (saved as glTF) for complex task support. These assets can be static, animated (to show one task), or step-by-step animated (to show a sequence of tasks). To experience the true value of mixed reality 3D content is a must!

  
    Annotations and Content
    MS Remote Assist
    Kognitiv Spark RemoteSpark
  
     Holographic Annotations
    
      Yes
    
    Yes
  
    Holographic Arrows
    Yes
    Yes
  
      Photo Capture
    
    Yes
    Yes
  
      3D Holographic Mentor Files
    
    No
    Yes
    
      JPG and PDF
    
      Yes
    
      Yes

Application Features

Here is a list of core features for both solutions.

  
    Application Features
    MS Remote Assist
    Kognitiv Spark RemoteSpark
  
      Voice Commands
    
    Yes
    Yes
  
    Group Calling
    Yes
    Yes - Coming in v2.1
  
    Independent of Additional Software 
    No - Requires Office 365 (Teams)
    Yes
  
    Offline Mode
    No
    Yes
  
      Screen Sharing
    
     Yes
    
      Yes
    
    Pin Digital Content in Physical Space
    No
    Yes
  
    Organizational Content Library
    No
    Yes
  
    Personalized Content Library
    No
    Yes

Licensing

To login to Remote Assist, you need a proper Office 365 account. With RemoteSpark, as it can run in the cloud or air-gapped, you can use an Office 365 account, if using the cloud version, or use a RemoteSpark account for either the cloud or on-premise installations.

With Remote Assist every separate user needs an account and that costs. With RemoteSpark there is a flat fee per HoloLens and unlimited users can use that device, plus the Expert software is free.

  
    Licensing
    MS Remote Assist
    Kognitiv Spark RemoteSpark
  
      Accounts Supported
    
      AAD or Office 365
    
      AAD, MSA, Office 365 or RemoteSpark
    
    Licensing
    Per User
    Per HoloLens Device

Aftercare

With a support team that is dedicated to your success, you will never be a number to us.

  
    Aftercare 
    MS Remote Assist
    Kognitiv Spark RemoteSpark
  

     One-to-One Account Management
    No
    Yes
  

    Dedicated Training & Onboarding
    No
    Yes
  

Matching your use case to the technology

As you can see by the charts above, RemoteSpark and Remote Assist possess different strengths that lend themselves to different use cases within a variety of conditions and operations. We focus on industrial situations that might have low bandwidth, require a higher security profile and leverage the HoloLens to use 3D content.

When should your organization use one, the other, or both? Now that you know the technical differences between the MR platforms, here are six questions you should ask yourself.
Does my organization’s data governance policies allow adopted technologies to operate in the cloud? If so, both applications are an option. If your organization cannot leverage cloud, RemoteSpark can operate on-premise or completely air-gapped .
In what environment will end users be making MR calls and how connected are these areas? This is an important consideration as RemoteSpark and Remote Assist have different internet bandwidth requirements. If your environments are remote and have poor connectivity, RemoteSpark is the better choice. If end users are calling from office-to-office, factory-to-factory with reliable connectivity in these locations, both products will work effectively.
Will my end-users need support from people outside of my organization? If calls are only being made within your organization, and remote and expert users are connected via Microsoft Teams, Remote Assist fits this use case well. If support from outside your organization will be required, RemoteSpark was created for this use case.
Are my remote users and expert users connected via Microsoft Teams? If your organization is already connected with Microsoft Teams, leveraging Remote Assist is relatively seamless. If you wish to use this MR tool but don’t have Teams, you’ll need to adopt Teams first. RemoteSpark can be accessed with a RemoteSpark Account (only an email address is required) or Microsoft account.
What kind of guidance will my use case require? Consider what kind of support your remote users will require now and and in the future. Both RemoteSpark and Remote Assist allow for pdf transfer, shared voice and video, live annotations, and images. RemoteSpark allows for the transfer of animated and multi-step animated holograms.

Selecting an application will likely come down to the complexity of the tasks you’re looking to support and your future roadmap for Mixed Reality adoption. If just looking for a video call, Remote Assist works well, if looking to leverage the power of Mixed Reality and 3D content then RemoteSpark is your only option.

Conclusion

There are certainly other solutions for remote worker support on the market. Many of these solutions operate only with 2D remote worker support, using a phone or tablet. At Kognitiv Spark, we believe that the most effective and intuitive way to interact with data is in 3D, like how the human brain interacts with anything in the real world.

As you can see above, both tools provide their own, unique value. There are plenty of features and benefits to using either or even both. As both have free trials you can take each for a drive and see which one fits your use cases. If you have any questions, please reach out on Twitter at @RyanGroom or on LinkedIn.

Interested in securing a demo? Contact our implementation team here.

Ryan Groom