Virtual reality (VR) is taking professional training to a new level. While some forms of VR have been successfully used for decades — flight simulators, for example, are a long-standing and crucial training tool for new and aspiring pilots — the proliferation of handheld consumer VR devices, like the Oculus Rift, has brought VR into the mainstream. Today, VR is used for training in several professional fields: education, healthcare, retail, and, increasingly, HVAC.

Interplay Learning is the market leader for VR training of HVAC professionals. Their platform offers immersive, hands-on simulations that help users develop and practice technical skills in a safe, controlled environment, enhancing both learning efficiency and retention. However, the tech and its integration are still relatively new, and a few innovative technical and community colleges are taking bold first steps in VR by being early adopters.

VR offers an immersive environment that’s engaging and safe. It’s also more cost-effective than one might presume, requiring little more than a VR headset and a software module to go with it. But it’s not without its challenges, either.

How HVAC Instructors Use VR Training

One of the early adopters of VR training for HVAC is Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) in Reno, Nevada. TMCC’s involvement with VR began with an interest in using it as a marketing tool that could reach prospective students in the areas just outside of Reno. VR was a portable way to introduce people to what was available at TMCC and what HVAC was like as a career option. The first VR module was rudimentary and grounded in theory: it covered thermodynamics and refrigeration. It started as an experiment.

“The goal,” says Wes Evans, Lead HVAC/R Instructor at TMCC, “was to try and take it out to those small towns outside Reno and introduce people to what they might see in refrigeration and/or air conditioning.”

The next step at TMCC was to integrate the VR module with Canvas, an online learning software popularized during the pandemic, so it could be used in the upcoming semester’s curriculum. The implementation came with some challenges, and by the time Evans was ready to get his first cohort of around 20 students up and running with VR, they’d already moved beyond the introductory theory that the module included.

“There was some redundancy there,” Evans said. “But I told the guys to focus on the animation and focus on what they see in the VR compared to what we have in the labs here at the school. They have to keep an open mind.”

In the VR, Evans’ students walk into a building, talk to a receptionist, and locate a particular piece of equipment. When ready, they click forward, and the module will help explain and identify what the student is looking at, and how the equipment and its underlying thermodynamics work. But it presents that in a way that wouldn’t be visible in the real world.

“With refrigeration, the equipment takes the heat load and absorbs it into the refrigerant, and then it takes it out to the condenser and rejects it,” Evans says. “So that’s what you’re seeing in the VR. You’re seeing it literally.”

This module is, again, theory-based and thus more instructional rather than quest-oriented. There may be some quiz-type questions to respond to, but it’s still relatively basic. If it was someone’s very first HVAC class, the module might take them an hour to work through; if introduced later in the semester, it would take far less.

Challenges in VR Training for HVAC

Bringing VR into the HVAC classroom at TMCC was a completely new experience — no other discipline used the technology. But student uptake was surprisingly good. Only one student out of the roughly 20 total started out wholly against the idea of VR, and Evans was able to persuade them to try it in the end.

However, there were still some downsides to VR as a whole, with some users citing nausea, claustrophobia, and other physical side effects after prolonged exposure.

“Most people were able to stay in VR for about 20 minutes without getting nauseous,” Evans says. “The younger guys in my class did a little better than the older guys.” Evans administered a survey to measure how his students felt about the VR experience. In a class where ages typically ranged from 18 to 40, the older students were less interested in VR than the younger ones.

“The younger group was able to navigate the VR a lot easier, which made it so they could focus on the content,” Evans says. “Whereas someone older is trying to figure out how to work the VR, on top of figuring out what’s in the lesson. So there’s a bit of an impact there.”

Adapting to the technology is also an issue for instructors, who are generally older than the students they’re teaching. But as it stands, the VR portion of the HVAC training is still very limited—one hour, maximum, out of a whole course — so capabilities can be built up over time.

The Future of VR Training for HVAC

Evans is interested in the possibility of expanding VR training into other areas of HVAC training. The next logical step might be the basics of electrical theory. But the module itself has to be precise and accurate, without dragging on, so that the learning is efficient. It also has to be technically up to snuff, especially the imaging — as good or better than 3D animations on YouTube.

“The graphics really need to be there,” Evans says. “VR brings a reality to what you’re learning, puts it in motion, so you can see it.”

The technology underpinning VR is going to get more sophisticated. Already, the Apple Vision Pro is changing what headsets are capable of. As consumer costs come down — eventually — VR could ultimately help reduce student costs for books and other training materials. And as more people get hands-on experience with VR tech, the learning curve of adaptation should smooth out as well.

“If the money was there, you could create a complete course with VR,” Evans says. “At this stage, though, for us here at Truckee Meadows, we’re just using it for supplementary material, and out at career fairs.”

VR is relatively new, but it can, over time, have a big effect. America needs more HVAC professionals, and it needs more HVAC students; using VR to advertise what the profession is and how it’s being innovatively taught can help address that.

“In HVAC, we are trying to do everything we can to market this trade, and VR is part of that,” Evans says. “We can go out to career fairs, and all we have to do is set up the headset, plug in the code, and then hand it to a potential student.”

This article was republished with permission from https://www.hvacclasses.org/.