Release 22.03 of CareAR Assist delivers the following new features and capabilities:

· Zoom Tool

· UI/UX Enhancements

· Improved handling and recovery of lost connectivity

· Additional Windows installer options

Zoom Tool

Session hosts now have a new tool that enables local zoom of their view up to 8X. This applies to the following situations:

· Video stream

· Paused (frozen) stream

· Shared Image

The zoom tool is provided in the host’s toolbar and can be activated at any point during the session. While in zoom mode, the host can re-center the zoomed portion of their view.

The feeds presented from any of the supported CareAR Assist applications, including mobile app, browser app, glasses app, and drone app, can be zoomed by the host.

Note that the zoom function is local to the host, meaning that the zoomed view is not distributed out to the other session participants.

While the zoom function is active, the annotation tools are not available to the host. However, other participants in the active session can freely annotate in the session per existing supported behavior. If non-host participants make annotations, then these are visible to the host even while the display is being zoomed.

The following actions are available to the host when in zoom mode:

The tools that are accessible to the host when in zoom mode are described below:

2. CUSTOMER BENEFITS

The primary benefit of the zoom function is that hosts can magnify their view to get deeper understanding of the image or video that’s displayed. With this additional information, a host can provide better guidance in the remote solve session.

2.2 CONFIGURATION

No configuration required as this expands the host’s default toolset.

UI/UX Enhancements

Several enhancements have been made to the Assist application’s user interface and visual behaviors.

Recording Countdown

Prior to release 22.03, when a host begins recording, it may appear that recording is active at the very start, but the first couple of seconds is not captured as the recording service must activate. The video recording function is cloud based and can take 1-2 seconds to start capturing the video feed. This artifact is not uncommon in similar cloud-based solutions.

Now, when the host starts recording, a visual, numeric countdown is presented prior to starting the recording activity.

Updated Rules of Ending Screen Presentation

We changed the presentation of the ending screen. Our users found that if one or more survey questions (i.e., KPIs) are present, when we then present the “Thank you for using CareAR” screen after the questions are answered, this confused users. The change here is to remove the “Thank you” screen if there are survey questions.

Extended Laser Pointer Decay

We extended the duration of the laser pointer decay from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.

Added Empty States for Mobile App

We added empty states (the visual filler for “null states” that invites a user to do something) for Favorites, Recents, and Contacts.

Rework of Toast Notifications Framework

Toast messages (ephemeral notifications) are used throughout the CareAR Assist application to convey information of various status types. Historically these messages were implemented prior to our revised UI system design, and often appeared as popup modals.

With release 22.03, we introduce our revised notification framework to deliver a more systematic approach to toast messages. In addition to being more visually appealing, there is more consistent use of color and presentation.

General Cleanup of Minor Issues

We had several minor issues that were identified in previous releases that we’ve cleaned up, including occasional issues with the color borders, oddities relating to image cropping and sharing when in landscape mode, and the font sizes for the test connection tool.

Improved Lost Connection Handling

Through the usage of the app (from login, to starting a session, ending a session, and all points in between), it is possible to lose Internet connectivity. Prior to this release, we handled these scenarios in different ways.

With release 22.03, in general we’ve improved the handling of the lost connection events, how and when we notify the user of the lost connectivity, and when we detect connectivity is restored, we improve the recovery flows.

With these improvements, the overall user experience more robust and improved.

Additional Microsoft Standard Installer Options

DisableAutoUpdate

Enterprises often have certain requirements relating to auto-update behaviors that they need to have control of. Citrix installations (which are typically managed by the enterprise’s IT team) are updated and pushed in the form of image updates. In these scenarios, as a rule, applications should not auto-update when there is a new release.

With release 22.03, we introduce a new Microsoft Standard Installer (MSI) parameter called DisableAutoUpdate with possible values true (1) or false (0). Both string and 0/1 are allowed. All other values are assumed to be false. If this parameter is not provided, then the CareAR application works with default value set to false and will enable automatic upgrade when there is a new desktop application released.

DisableNetworkCheck

We have a built-in function that checks Internet connectivity using the network tool ping. However, we needed an option enable/disable this check. The motivation is that some enterprise’s internal networks have disabled ICMP traffic, and ping is disallowed (and will always timeout).

As such, we introduce a new MSI parameter called DisableNetworkCheck that can take on values of “true” or “false” or “0” or “1”. The default value is false. When set to false, the Internet connectivity check is enabled and when set to true, the connectivity check is disabled and the Windows CareAR Assist app will assume Internet connectivity is always present.

Framerate

You can adjust the framerate used in the application using the MSI parameter, Framerate . This is optimal for Citrix deployments where fine tuning and management of CPU occupancy is needed. Suggested value is “10” .

To install using Command Line Interface,

msiexec /i CareAR_Assist.msi FRAMERATE="10" DISABLEAUTOUPDATE="true" DISABLENETWORKCHECK="1"