AR Genie Remote Assist Use Case in Elevator Maintenance
On a busy Monday morning, almost around 8.30 AM, Chen's phone rang. Being a facility manager of a highly named 32-story office tower in a major metropolitan city in Seoul, Chen knew that these early morning calls hardly bring any good news. He picked up the call and heard a panicked voice of his employee. “Mr. Chen, this is Jiang from the 18th floor. The elevators in the east are stopping between the floors and making alarming noises. People here are getting nervous about using it, and the elevator’s wait times are approaching 15 minutes”.
Chen immediately acknowledged the situation that this can disrupt the entire workday, if not resolved timely. With over 1,500 professionals working in the office complex building and only 3 elevator banks, a faulty elevator during the morning rush can create an operational crisis.
Almost by 8: 47 AM, Chen contacted their Premier Elevator Services company and took the east elevator out of service. The elevator service provider’s dispatch team explained “ We understand your situation but all the senior service technicians are already assigned to other emergency calls across the city. We can send Mike, one of our newest technicians who has been working with us during the past 6 months. He handles such routine issues well, but if there is a complex controller or drive system problem, he might need to escalate it. So, you might have to wait until tomorrow for our senior technician, Diane." Chen had no option left out to agree, “ Send Mike as soon as possible”, replied Chen, hoping the issue would be simple and get resolved quickly by today itself.
The maintenance technician, Mike, arrived with his toolkit at 10:30 AM and proceeded to the mechanical room and started examining the elevators’ control panel. He found an error code related to the door safety circuit. After checking the timing belt, rollers, motor, control board and door operator mechanism, he couldn’t pinpoint the accurate issue.
After 45 minutes of troubleshooting, Mike said, “ I have checked all the possible issues, but the problem could be in the optical curtain sensors or electronic door detector system. This needs specialized expertise & our senior maintenance professional, Diane can solve this, but right now she is out of town”.
Chen got more tense after hearing this as he wanted to get the elevator issue resolved by today itself. "Is there any alternative to waiting until tomorrow?" Chen said. Mike paused for a while, but then suddenly answered, "Actually, we have recently implemented a new remote visual assistance system that might help us resolve this by today."
Mike took out his tablet and opened the “ AR Genie Remote Assist App ”. “Our company has invested in this Augmented Reality Technology powered Remote Support and Maintenance Software to connect on-site field technicians with our most experienced specialists. Diane is unavailable, but she might be able to give us her 20 minutes through this platform to resolve this issue”.
In the meantime, a link code was sent to Diane for joining the remote session. On the other side, Diane, who was at the other maintenance site, took her time from her maintenance task to open her laptop to join the remote session link shared by Mike. Within moments both Mike and Diane were remotely connected via a live video call using AR Genie Remote Assist.
"Hey Mike, what's the situation?" the senior technician asked. Mike explained to her the whole situation and the error on the elevator controller. Diane, who was connected to the remote session through AR Genie Web Portal, guided Mike remotely using AR Genie’s Augmented Reality powered remote support technology.
Using AR Genie Remote Assist Screen Share feature, Diane shared a detailed diagram showing exactly how to bypass the transistor temporarily for testing. She then guided him using AR tools to replace the faulty component. If this remote session would have been a normal video call, Mike would have to describe which transistor by saying. But with AR annotations, the expert Diane, pinpointed the exact component that needed to be checked or replaced, all of them were highlighted in Mike’s real environment. Chen watched, impressed, as Diane drew guidelines showing the proper insertion angle for the replacement part.
Almost around 12:15 PM, just 1 hour and 45 minutes after Mike had arrived, the elevator was back in service. Chen was thoroughly impressed with the efficiency of the solution and he asked Mike, "What would have happened without this AR system?
"Honestly? Without this AR Remote Support, I would have had to secure the elevator, return to our shop to consult with Diane, or more possibly wait for parts, and schedule a return visit. It could have taken an evening to resolve this issue or maybe two or three days in case of shipping the parts”. Mike answered.
As they completed the documentation, Mike explained to Chen, how the AR Genie Remote Assist system worked:
"The app runs on mobile devices, tablets / iPads or AR glasses. When I share my video feed, experts can place digital annotations, arrows, and even 3D markers that appear to 'stick' to real-world objects. It is not just like a normal video chat where you cannot highlight a specific object. It is like having the 15 years tech experience of a specialist right here in front of your eyes, seeing exactly what I see and being able to point to things in my physical environment. The best part is, we both can annotate on the objects for precise accuracy”.
He further elaborated on features particularly valuable for elevator maintenance:
"The real game-changer is how it bridges the expertise gap," Mike noted. "I'm still learning these complex systems, but with AR Genie, I effectively work with the skill level of someone with decades more experience."
Two weeks later, Chen received a performance report from Premier Elevator Services, highlighting the impact of their AR Genie implementation:
The report included a specific note about the recent incident: "Estimated 2.5 days of elevator downtime prevented through AR-assisted diagnosis and repair."
This case demonstrated the impact of using AR remote support and maintenance tools for quick issue resolution. Without requiring Diane to travel across town, the team efficiently diagnosed the complex electrical fault through visual collaboration. The AR annotations provided precise guidance, allowing Mike to identify the faulty MOSFET component despite his initial uncertainty. This technology not only reduced elevator downtime but also enabled knowledge transfer between technicians in real-time. The combination of remote expertise and augmented reality visualization transformed what could have been hours of troubleshooting into a focused, successful repair operation, ultimately improving both service efficiency and building occupant satisfaction.
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