Verizon x NHL

Immersiv.io has been selected as the service provider for the 5G and MEC trial of Verizon at the Prudential Center during an ice hockey match. Verizon wanted to showcase the future uses of 5G & mobile edge computing in sports arenas, with higher bandwidth and connectivity. It will allow innovative digital solutions to be at the center of the fan experience for thousands of fans during live games.

Our white label solution, ARISE stadium, has been tested during a game of the professional ice hockey regular season, to provide hockey fans the most innovative augmented reality app during a live game.

It was also the occasion to present the huge opportunities offered by digital innovation and immersive technologies for teams and leagues. It will be crucial to offer outstanding experiences to fans when they’ll come back to sports venues. ARISE coupled with Verizon’s connectivity has permitted to let users to display real-time statistics over the ice and to interact with player’s and AR visualizations. It will offer every fan the chance to personalize their own viewing experience and to interact freely with hundreds of real-time data.

With 5G Edge, users saw a roughly 35% improvement in end-to-end latency meaning stats could be viewed instantaneously with no staggering or lag and stats were updated in real-time as the game progressed.

In the continuity of this project, we’ve kept working on tomorrow’s hockey fan experience in stadiums.

For the past few years, Verizon has been expanding its 5G ultra-wideband network and deploying it in stadiums across America. It will allow innovative digital solutions to be at the center of the fan experience for thousands of fans during live games. In order to showcase the future uses of 5G & mobile edge computing in sports arenas, with higher bandwidth and connectivity, Verizon trusted us once again.

In partnership with Amazon Wavelength and NHL’s official data provider SMP tracking, we’ve presented for the 1st time in the US the latest version of our white label solution Arise Stadium during the NHL Partners Summit Showcase in April. The app was available on IOS and NReal AR glasses.

Every stat is gathering player’s heatmap evolving in real-time so that the user can see directly on the field the best defending and attacking areas of a specific player. Small AR pings also show the precise place from where shots or interceptions were made for example. With augmented reality, the users can focus on the players they want, and display pieces of information on-demand to get a better understanding of the game.

With the Player Page, users also had also access to many match stats for every player on the 4 core stats (for the shooting skill for example, they can see the goals, shots blocked, missed, %…).

Finally, an Interactive Timeline offered a global view on the match events, to see the substitutions, goals, fouls… And to keep an eye on the game’s progress.

During April’s showcase, among the new features fans experienced:

• faceoff probabilities – a new next-gen NHL metric
• time on ice
• puck fire trail – which changes colors regarding the speed of the puck. This has been a true life-changer for the fans that sometimes had trouble following the puck from the stands
• shot map – with pins tagged in the arena

This year, fans could also try on the NReal AR glasses to immerse themself fully in the experience.