XpertVR at FDIC 2026: The Year the Questions Changed

Two and a half days at Lucas Oil Stadium. Hundreds of firefighters in VR. A real shift in where the fire service is at with this technology.

Last month we were at FDIC 2026 in Indianapolis, so lets talk about it.

We set up in the Lucas Oil Stadium Sim Yard space for two and a half days, running 300+ firefighters and attendees through virtual scenarios. Most of our team came down, plus one of our advisors, John Truong, who’s a full-time firefighter himself.

It was a long week. It was also probably the best week we’ve had at FDIC so far. Here’s what stood out.

The booth: XpertFire, crew demos, and the fire extinguisher module

We had a big demo footprint this year. Two main areas:

A multi-user setup for XpertFire so a full crew could train and experience it together
A front-of-booth zone for SafeQuest’s FireScenarioXR fire extinguisher module

Both pulled heavy traffic.

The crew demo let people see how a captain, suppression, search/rescue, and RIT can all work the same scenario at the same time. The fire extinguisher demo brought in a different crowd, including public education folks who saw it as a real option for community training.

Mixed reality was the surprise hit. Showing the value of MR for both public education and crew training, in person on the floor, changes the whole conversation.

The shift from 2024 to 2026

Here’s the thing that struck us most.

We were at FDIC in 2024 for the first time. Back then, a lot of conversations sounded like:

“I’ve heard about VR, it’s interesting, but not for me right now”
“Doesn’t it make people nauseous?”
“Isn’t this really expensive?”
“Don’t you need a whole team to run it?”

Those are the standard misconceptions, and we’ve spent the last 2 years working to put them to rest. This year, those questions barely came up.

Conversations sounded like:

“This is incredible, I want it in my department”
“I’m evaluating VR options right now, what makes you different?”
“When can we get it and what’s coming next?”

Folks showed up already further down the conversation. They’d done demos at other booths, they had opinions, they were openly comparing.

That’s a huge sign for the industry. VR/XR firefighter training has moved into “which one do we pick” territory.

Top requests: pump panel and medical sims

Two pieces of feedback came up over and over.

Pump panel operations. People want this built into the full training suite, so one crew member runs pump ops while the rest of the crew handles suppression, search/rescue, RIT, and incident command. We already knew there was demand here. Hearing it as the #1 ask at FDIC cemented it. It’s now in active development.

Medical simulations. This was a far second but still a large request. We’re now looking at it in 3 tiers, all on different timelines (nothing confirmed yet):

Basic medical: triage wristbands, basic triaging support, light patient interactions
AI patient conversations: a firefighter can talk to a bystander to check if they’re okay, or speak with an injured patient to understand the injury and pull useful info
Paramedicine-level sims: through partnerships or our own builds, much more complex medical training on the paramedicine side of fire and EMS training

We want to be clear. We’re not firefighters and we’re not paramedics. We’ll build these the same way we’ve always built things. Hundreds of hours of feedback from people who actually do the job.

Manufacturers, partners, and Smart Firefighting

A few of the manufacturers we’re starting to work with came by the booth. We put them in VR, showed them where their equipment lives in our sims, and got direct feedback on what to tweak.

To our surprise and pleasure, what we heard from most of them was: “You’re already 80-90% of the way there. Let’s work together on that last 10-20%.”

That’s the kind of partnership we’re after. Their equipment, our sims, real-world accuracy.

Talking about partnerships, a huge thank you to Kevin Sofen and Smart Firefighting. We sponsored their hootenanny event, shot interviews and quick videos with Kevin throughout the week, and got him into VR for the full experience. Through the Hootenanny we met a ton of fire service leaders and other tech companies we’re already lining up collaborations with.

The Team Side

The part we weren’t expecting to feel so strongly: how good it was to have most of the team in one place.

We rented an Airbnb together. Cooked dinners, ran feedback sessions over breakfast, watched movies at night while prepping for the next day.

John Truong kept saying it felt like being back at the fire station with his crew. Hanging out, talking shop, eating, just being together.

We left FDIC with a list of new sim ideas, sharper product feedback, and a clearer picture of what to build next. That doesn’t always happen when the team is spread across 6 different cities. More importantly we got to spend time chatting and bonding outside of work.