Adoption of voice-directed warehouse systems is growing rapidly, due to steady price decreases in recent years. Six years ago, a manufacturer with 75 concurrent users in the warehouse would have easily spent $500,000 on hardware alone. Factoring in software licenses, infrastructure costs, and implementation costs, the total would have been close to $750,000, which amounts to $10,000 per concurrent user.
Today's voice technology is much more affordable, thanks to lower hardware prices, which constitute the bulk of the per-user cost. Wearable PCs and headsets that used to cost $6,000 apiece are now lighter, faster, and available for less than $1,000.