RealWear HMT-1Z1 — specification and verdict
The HMT-1Z1 is not a headset you look through. It is a small LCD on a boom arm that parks below one eye and reads like a tablet held at arm's length. At 854x480 across about 20 degrees, monocular, it carries a checklist, a work order or a live video call and nothing more demanding. There is no stereoscopic image, no positional tracking and no controller, so an immersive safety course cannot be staged on it at all. Everything runs by voice through WearHF, with four microphones tuned to stay usable in plant noise and a loudspeaker sitting above the ear. For training purposes it belongs to the remote-mentor and guided-procedure category, not to simulation.
The unit weighs 430 g on its own and clips into a hard hat or bump cap, which is how most Zone 1 sites ran it; the overhead strap and rear pad are in the box, hard hat clips are an accessory. The 3400 mAh battery is not removable, RealWear rates it at about eight hours of typical use, and it charges only over the supplied micro-USB cable with its inline safety box, so a lost cable becomes a distributor order rather than a trip to a shop. RealWear has declared the whole HMT series end of life and end of support, with no further security patches, so any new deployment means an unpatched Android 8.1 fleet with no vendor device management behind it. WearHF's built-in speech recognition covers Polish and German, which mattered for EU rollouts. Buying one today means the second-hand market or leftover distributor stock.
Do not buy this for training. If you need a hands-free computer inside an ATEX Zone 1 area, RealWear's own answer is the supported Navigator Z1; if you need immersive EHS training, buy a standalone VR headset and keep the HMT class for remote assistance and document navigation. Existing HMT-1Z1 fleets still work, they just stopped moving forward.
How it compares within its class
The axis runs from the lowest to the highest published figure among the AR — industrial devices in this catalogue. The grey tick is the median of that class.
Median for this class: 24°, from 14 models that publish the figure.
Median for this class: 188 g, from 14 models that publish the figure.
Median for this class: 480 min, from 12 models that publish the figure.
Median for this class: $1499, from 11 models that publish the figure.
Controllers and hand tracking
Operated by Voice.
Bare hands
No hand tracking.
Full specification
An em dash means the manufacturer does not publish that figure.
- ManufacturerWho makes it — and who you buy support from.
- RealWear
- CategoryWhich kind of product this is. It decides which rows below make sense at all.
- AR — industrial
- Device typeWhere the computing happens, and therefore what you need to run it.
- Standalone AR
- AnnouncedThe day it was shown, which is not the day it shipped.
- 2018-05-31
- ReleasedYear the model went on sale. Older is not automatically worse in this category.
- 2018
- AvailabilityWhether you can still order it new today.
- Discontinued
- Support endsThe date the manufacturer stops supporting it. Decisive for a fleet you are about to buy.
- Support ends: not published by the manufacturer
- DisplayHow the image is produced. "No display" is a real answer in this category, not a gap.
- LCD, one eye
- Eyes coveredOne eye or both. Over a full shift this is a real difference in fatigue.
- One eye
- Resolution per eyePixels delivered to each eye. Higher means small text and labels stay readable.
- 854x480
- Refresh rateImages per second. Higher feels smoother and helps people prone to motion discomfort.
- Refresh rate: not published by the manufacturer
- Field of viewHow much of your view the image covers. Bigger is more immersive, not automatically better for work.
- 20°
- Pixel densityPixels per degree of view — the honest way to compare sharpness between a headset and a pair of glasses. Higher is sharper. Only shown where somebody published it; we never compute it ourselves.
- Pixel density: not published by the manufacturer
- BrightnessIn a plant or outdoors, brightness decides legibility more than resolution does.
- Brightness: not published by the manufacturer
- WeightThe device alone. Anything above roughly 150 g is felt within an hour.
- 430 g
- Visible field of viewWhat the eye actually sees through the optics, by axis.
- Visible field of view: not published by the manufacturer
- Rendered field of viewWhat the device draws. Never smaller than what you see.
- Rendered field of view: not published by the manufacturer
- Binocular overlapWhere both eyes see the same thing — this is where depth happens.
- Binocular overlap: not published by the manufacturer
- Average pixel densityPixels per degree across the image. More is sharper.
- Average pixel density: not published by the manufacturer
- Peak pixel densityThe sharpest point, usually the centre of the lens.
- Peak pixel density: not published by the manufacturer
- Subpixel layoutHow the coloured dots sit in a pixel. A stripe looks cleaner on text than PenTile.
- RGB stripe · 3 subpixels per pixel
- Foveated renderingWhether detail is dropped outside where you look, to save performance.
- Foveated rendering: not published by the manufacturer
- Vision correctionHow somebody who wears glasses uses it, and in what dioptre range.
- Fits over glasses
- DimensionsWidth, height and depth of the device itself.
- Dimensions: not published by the manufacturer
- Weight with strapWith the strap it ships with — the weight you actually wear.
- Weight with strap: not published by the manufacturer
- Head strapSoft band or a rigid one. Decides how the weight sits over an hour.
- Headband
- MaterialsShell and facial interface, in the vendor’s words.
- plastic
- ColoursColours the manufacturer sells it in.
- Black
- Haptics in the headsetVibration in the headset itself, not in the controllers.
- No
- TrackingWhether content stays put in the room (6DoF), follows head rotation (3DoF) or is simply fixed.
- 3DoF (rotation only)
- Tracking camerasHow many cameras it uses to know where it is.
- Tracking cameras: not published by the manufacturer
- Tracking rateHow often position is recalculated. Higher is steadier.
- Tracking rate: not published by the manufacturer
- Depth sensorA dedicated sensor for distance, on top of the cameras.
- No
- Hand trackingWhether bare hands can operate the interface, without a controller or the phone.
- No
- Face trackingTracks facial expression — for avatars, not for training scenarios.
- No
- Body trackingHow much of the body the device knows about. Estimated legs are not tracked legs.
- None
- Controllers includedWhether motion controllers come in the box, or are bought separately — or the device is hands-only.
- No
- Controller tracking6DoF controllers track position and rotation, so a hand reaches in space; 3DoF only point. “None” means hands only.
- None (hands only)
- Other controllersWhether the headset works with controllers other than the ones it ships with.
- Other controllers: not published by the manufacturer
- Other input methodsWays in beyond controllers and bare hands.
- Voice
- Where it computesWhether the device computes on its own or depends on a phone, PC or belt-worn puck.
- Standalone (own computer)
- ProcessorThe processor and memory inside. This is what the performance grade above is derived from.
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 625
- CPUCores and clocks, where the manufacturer publishes them.
- Octa-core 2.0 GHz
- GPUThe graphics part of the chip.
- Adreno 506
- MemoryRAM on the device. Together with the chipset it sets how complex a scene can be.
- 2 GB
- PlatformThe platform an application is built against — and what an MDM has to speak.
- Android (AOSP) with WearHF 8.1
- StorageOn-board space for downloaded courses. More matters for an offline library in several languages.
- Storage: not published by the manufacturer
- SD card slotWhether storage can be added with a card.
- Yes
- BatteryRuntime as the manufacturer states it. A hot-swappable pack matters more than the figure.
- 480 min
- Battery capacity (Wh)Energy in the cell. Bigger is longer, given the same power draw.
- Battery capacity (Wh): not published by the manufacturer
- Battery capacity (mAh)The same fact in the other unit vendors use. We never convert between the two.
- 3400 mAh
- Charge timeFrom empty to full. Rarely stated by the manufacturer, so it usually comes from whoever timed it.
- Charge time: not published by the manufacturer
- ChargerPower of the supplied charger — it decides the charge time above.
- Charger: not published by the manufacturer
- External batteryBattery on a cable or a puck instead of on the head.
- External battery: not published by the manufacturer
- Charging caseExtra runtime carried in the case the glasses ship with.
- Charging case: not published by the manufacturer
- Hot-swap batteryWhether a charged battery can replace the empty one without ending the session. This is what decides if a headset can hold an all-day training station.
- No
- Third-party appsHow a third party's application reaches the device: an ordinary Android package, a vendor-only SDK, or not at all.
- Ordinary Android app (APK)
- Runs Skillsive appsOur own statement about whether Skillsive training applications run on it today.
- No
- Suitable for trainingOur judgement on whether it survives real deployment: comfort, hygiene, fleet management.
- No
- Kiosk mode / MDMVendor tooling to enrol devices, push an app and lock the headset to it. Practically required above ten devices.
- No
- Business tierAn official business tier, so devices belong to the company rather than to employees’ personal accounts.
- No
- CertificationsIndustrial certifications stated on the manufacturer's own page. Empty means unconfirmed, never "probably fine".
- ATEX Zone 1 (II 2G Ex ib IIC T4 Gb) · ATEX Zone 21 (II 2D Ex ib IIIC T135°C Db IP6X) · IECEx Ex ib IIC T4 Gb · NEC 500 Class I Division 1 Groups A-D · CSA C1/D1 · IP66 · MIL-STD-810G
- PortsPhysical sockets and charging contacts.
- Micro-USB · 3.5 mm headphone jack
- Wi-FiThe Wi-Fi generation — it decides how well wireless streaming holds up.
- 5 (802.11a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz)
- BluetoothFor controllers, headphones and accessories.
- 4.1 LE
- Video from a computerWhether a computer can drive it, over a cable or wirelessly.
- Video from a computer: not published by the manufacturer
- AudioBuilt-in sound. Matters most where somebody has to hear a remote expert while working.
- Built-in speakers · Headphone jack
- MicrophoneBuilt-in microphone — the other half of talking to a remote expert.
- Yes
- MicrophonesHow many. An array picks a voice out of a noisy hall; one does not.
- 4
- CameraA camera is what makes a remote expert call and photo documentation possible.
- Yes
- Price bandThe band it sits in, rather than a price that goes stale.
- Enterprise
- Launch priceThe manufacturer's launch price. Fixed history, so it never goes stale.
- $6000
- Price by configurationWhat each configuration cost at launch.
- Price by configuration: not published by the manufacturer
- Price todayApproximate current net price in USD — a general figure, since these barely differ between regions once tax is stripped out. A snapshot from the date shown, not an offer.
- Price today: not published by the manufacturer
Who this device is for
Refineries, chemical plants, gas distribution and offshore operations that standardised years ago on hands-free work instructions inside explosive atmospheres, plus EHS managers auditing what a legacy fleet can still legitimately do. It is the wrong device for anyone shopping for VR training hardware.
What is missing, and what the manufacturer does not publish
RealWear never published dimensions, display brightness, refresh rate, charge time or a watt-hour rating for this device, so the record carries none of them. The end-of-life notice gives no calendar date for end of sale or for the last security patch, so we cannot state a discontinuation year. The 6000 USD figure comes from VRcompare rather than RealWear, and that same source lists a different Snapdragon model number than RealWear's own datasheet, which we followed.
RealWear HMT-1Z1 in independent reviews
Reviews we consider worth your time, each with a note on what the reviewer actually tested and why it matters for a training rollout. We do not own this hardware, so the tests are theirs — the reading of them is ours.
- Intrinsically Safe Store2018
Covers the only thing that separates the Z1 from the ordinary HMT-1: intrinsic safety certification for hazardous areas, named here as Class 1 Division 1 and ATEX Zone 1. If you are not working in an explosive atmosphere, you want the cheaper model.
Watch on YouTube - Cadsyst2022
A short integrator demonstration of the intrinsically safe variant in use. Footage of this SKU is rare — it is sold into refineries and chemical plants, not to reviewers.
Watch on YouTube - UtilityAR Limited2020
A review of the standard HMT-1 rather than this variant. The two share the software, the display arm and the voice control entirely; only the certification and the price differ.
Watch on YouTube
Nothing is sent to YouTube until you press play. Once you do, Google receives your IP address and device data and may process them outside the EEA — see our privacy policy for the details.
RealWear HMT-1Z1 — frequently asked questions
- Is the RealWear HMT-1Z1 really certified for ATEX Zone 1?
- Yes. RealWear's datasheet lists ATEX II 2G Ex ib IIC T4 Gb and II 2D Ex ib IIIC T135°C Db IP6X, IECEx Ex ib IIC T4 Gb, and NEC 500 Class I Division 1 Groups A to D, alongside IP66 and MIL-STD-810G. It was the first head-worn computer to carry that combination, which is the whole reason the device existed.
- Does RealWear still support the HMT-1Z1?
- No. RealWear lists the HMT series as end of life and end of support, with no technical support and no further Android security updates, and recommends moving to the Navigator series. The devices keep working, but a fleet frozen on Android 8.1 stops receiving patches, and that is usually where an IT security review refuses to renew it.
- Why does the HMT-1Z1 only charge with RealWear's own cable?
- Because the intrinsic safety rating depends on the charging path. RealWear supplies a micro-USB cable with an inline safety box that limits the energy reaching the device, so a generic cable is not a substitute inside an ATEX Zone 1 area. The 3400 mAh battery is also sealed in and not user-replaceable, so a long shift is planned around chargers and spare units rather than battery swaps.
Compare this device
Consider these too
The nearest devices in the same class, ranked by availability and launch price — not by our opinion of them.
Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08. Manufacturer's specification
Product and company names used here are the trademarks of their respective owners and appear only to identify the hardware being compared. We are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of these manufacturers. Illustrations are our own.