ContinuumAR vs Help Lightning
Help Lightning is a remote assistance platform built around its patented Merged Reality feature, which blends two live video streams so the expert's hands and physical gestures appear within the technician's environment. It targets large enterprise customers across service, manufacturing, and customer support. ContinuumAR is a purpose-built AR headset platform for industrial field operations with integrated ticket management and workflow tools. The two platforms reflect different approaches to the same core problem.
Bottom line: Help Lightning is the stronger choice if Merged Reality's visual communication model is a priority, or if your organisation needs to support consumer mobile devices alongside smart glasses at enterprise scale. ContinuumAR is the stronger choice if your field team uses purpose-built AR headsets, you need ticket lifecycle management and checklist workflows built into the same platform, and fast deployment without complex licensing is a requirement.
| Criterion | ContinuumAR | Help Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | AR remote assistance for industrial AR headset deployments with integrated ticket and workflow management | Enterprise visual remote guidance with patented Merged Reality for service, manufacturing, and customer support |
| Field device support | Android-based AR headsets — RealWear Navigator 500/520/HMT-1, Six15 ST1-RA | iOS, Android, mobile browsers, web expert stations, and various smart glass environments |
| Voice command operation | ✓ Native hands-free voice control via AR headset | Available on supported smart glass environments |
| Merged Reality (blended video streams) | Not included | ✓ Patented feature — expert's hands and gestures merge into the technician's live view |
| AR annotations | ✓ Live drawings, arrows, labels on the technician's headset view | ✓ 3D spatial annotations; objects can be placed within the merged view |
| Ticket management | ✓ Full ticket lifecycle: status, notes, linking, CSV and PDF export | Not included as a native feature |
| Checklist and workflow engine | ✓ Rule-based conditional workflows, mandatory completion gates, locked states | Automated visual procedures for guided self-help and pre/post session steps |
| AI assistant | ✓ Conversational chatbot for ticket queries, call summaries, status lookups | AI speed-assist, asset recognition, smart knowledge folders via IntelliAssist |
| Analytics | Call and ticket records with export | ✓ AI value analytics tracking session performance and resolution metrics |
| Target customer | Industrial field operations teams on AR headsets: manufacturing, oil and gas, EV, pipeline, field service | Large enterprise across field service, customer support, and Fortune 500 service organisations |
| Pricing | Custom quote | Custom enterprise quote; user license-based |
Merged Reality versus standard AR annotations
Help Lightning's most distinctive capability and what it means in practice.
Help Lightning's Merged Reality blends two separate video streams into a single shared view. The expert can hold up their own hands, tools, or physical objects, and those appear overlaid within the technician's live environment as if the expert were standing beside them. The company describes this as the only remote assistance product with this capability, and it changes the quality of physical demonstration during a call.
For situations where showing a hand gesture, grip technique, or component handling procedure is faster or clearer than trying to draw it as an annotation, that merged view reduces back-and-forth. It is particularly useful for customer support and service call centre environments where the person needing help is not a trained technician.
ContinuumAR uses standard AR annotations: the remote expert draws arrows, labels, and highlights onto the technician's live headset view. The technician can also annotate. This is the prevalent model across the AR remote assistance category and is effective for guiding experienced technicians through known procedures. The absence of Merged Reality is a functional difference rather than a deficiency; the right choice depends on how much physical demonstration is part of your typical support interaction.
Headset focus versus device breadth
Different starting assumptions about where the field worker is and what they are holding.
Help Lightning supports iOS, Android, mobile browsers, web expert stations, and smart glass environments. That breadth is designed for enterprise organisations where the technician or end customer might be using whatever device is in their pocket, without any specialist hardware requirement. For customer-facing service programmes, that accessibility is a material advantage. The call initiates from a link, with no app download required for the guest participant.
ContinuumAR requires Android-based AR headsets on the field side. This constraint reflects a specific deployment context: technicians working in industrial environments where hands-free operation is a practical requirement, not a preference. RealWear and Six15 headsets are built specifically for this context, with noise-cancelling microphones, sunlight-readable displays, and voice command navigation. For teams that have made or are planning that hardware investment, ContinuumAR is built around those devices in a way that broad-platform tools are not.
The two platforms serve genuinely different field profiles. A utility company sending technicians to substations will have different needs than a manufacturer running a customer support centre for complex equipment.
Ticket management and operational structure
Where ContinuumAR addresses a gap that Help Lightning does not fill.
Help Lightning is built around the call itself. The session analytics, knowledge management, and AI tools orbit the support interaction. It integrates with CRM and FSM platforms via APIs and has a Salesforce AppExchange listing, which means ticket data can flow to and from existing systems if configured. What it does not include natively is a ticket management system of its own.
For large enterprises with existing Salesforce, ServiceNow, or SAP Service deployments, that integration model works because the ticket already exists in the FSM system. For smaller industrial operations without an FSM in place, that leaves a gap. ContinuumAR includes its own ticket system, so teams do not need a separate tool to track which issues were called on, what was found, and whether the problem was resolved.
ContinuumAR's checklist engine adds another layer: structured workflows with conditional triggers, mandatory completion gates, and classification types such as Safety or Diagnostic run as part of the field session. Help Lightning's automated visual procedures cover pre-call and post-call guidance steps, which is a lighter version of the same idea without the rule-based workflow depth.
Who should choose which
Choose ContinuumAR when
- Your field team uses RealWear or Six15 AR headsets and needs hands-free voice-operated calling
- Integrated ticket management and checklist workflows are operational requirements, not nice-to-haves
- You do not have an existing FSM or CRM in place to handle case tracking
- Your use case is industrial field service, maintenance, or inspection rather than customer support
- Fast deployment with minimal configuration overhead is a priority
Choose Help Lightning when
- Merged Reality's visual communication model — expert hands appearing in the technician's view — is directly useful for your procedures
- Your support operations include consumer-facing use cases where guests connect from personal devices without app downloads
- You have existing Salesforce or other CRM investment and want AR calling to feed directly into that system
- You serve a large enterprise with multiple departments across service, support, and manufacturing
- Advanced AI value analytics and session performance reporting are important to your business case
See ContinuumAR in your environment
A live demonstration using your devices and a scenario from your operations takes under 30 minutes.