InstallerSHOW 2026: Our Stand Was Overwhelmed

This week we took TrainAR to InstallerSHOW 2026 at the NEC in Birmingham, the UK's biggest gathering of heating, plumbing, water, air and energy professionals. Stand 5A53. We knew there was appetite for what we are building. We did not expect the stand to be this busy.

From the moment the doors opened it was non-stop. Engineers, trainers, training providers and merchants stopping to watch the AR glasses in action, then staying to talk. The same themes came up again and again: the skills gap is biting, experienced engineers are retiring, and getting new starters competent quickly is the problem everyone is trying to solve.

What resonated

Three messages on the stand did the heavy lifting:

• Skilled engineers on every site. Put the expertise of your best engineer on the glasses, so every job is guided.
• Deploy engineers in weeks, not years. Compress time-to-competency instead of waiting on the traditional training pipeline.
• Your best engineer, guiding every job. Capture what they know once, and let every trainee learn from it.

It turns out you do not have to explain the skills crisis to a hall full of installers. They live it. What they wanted to see was a practical answer: hands-free guidance, real procedures, on real kit. The new Parts Arena integration, with exploded diagrams and live part lookup right there in the lens, landed especially well with the heating crowd.

Thank you

To everyone who stopped by, tried the glasses, and shared what training looks like in your business: thank you. The conversations were brilliant and the energy was exactly why we do this.

If we did not get to finish a conversation in the crush, or you want a proper look at TrainAR for your team, book a demo and we will pick up where we left off.