Firefly AR

SPT Labtech builds liquid handling, sample preparation and sample management instruments for life science research. Firefly, its genomics workstation, combines pipetting, dispensing, incubating and shaking in one compact unit – 670 × 570 × 800 mm and 120 kg. Seeing it in person makes the difference when selling to research facilities, pharmaceutical labs and academic institutions.

Getting it in front of prospects is the hard part. Shipping the instrument to every sales meeting isn’t practical, and lab spaces are often occupied, making on-site demos difficult. Photos and videos don’t convey what lab managers most need to judge: the physical scale and footprint, and whether it fits their bench and workflow.

We designed the app around real-scale placement. A sales rep places the Firefly with a single tap and it appears at true 1:1 scale, so the prospect can walk around it, see how it sits on their bench and judge whether it fits in their safety cabinet.

The app is built in Unity with AR Foundation on ARKit, using plane detection and anchoring to lock the model in place as people move around it – no floating or drifting to undermine trust. Overlays around the model pick out the pipetting head, the dispense heads, the gripper and other key components, and the interface stays deliberately simple: no AR expertise or technical training needed.

The app has become a core sales enablement tool for SPT Labtech’s team. Reps carry it on iPads to meetings, demos and conferences, giving prospects a tangible sense of the instrument without the logistics of shipping one.

It has proved particularly valuable with lab managers, who need to assess bench space and fit with their existing workflows before committing to a purchase.