{"id":1120,"date":"2022-03-10T15:15:28","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T15:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/10\/the-magic-leap-2-isnt-a-revolution-but-its-a-visible-improvement\/"},"modified":"2022-03-10T15:15:30","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T15:15:30","slug":"the-magic-leap-2-isnt-a-revolution-but-its-a-visible-improvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/10\/the-magic-leap-2-isnt-a-revolution-but-its-a-visible-improvement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magic Leap 2 isn\u2019t a revolution, but it\u2019s a visible improvement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/10\/22969007\/magic-leap-2-augmented-reality-headset<\/a>
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I\u2019m looking at a mountain range projected on a wooden table. The mountain range isn\u2019t part of a flashy game or art project. I can\u2019t reach out and touch it like a real object. Thanks to some still-in-progress software optimization, it glitches a little when I move. And I\u2019ll never purchase the high-end augmented reality headset that\u2019s creating the illusion \u2014 the Magic Leap 2, set for launch later this year. But the scene is remarkable for an important reason: I can actually see all of it at once.<\/p>\n

Magic Leap was once known for its theatrics and huge promises, but the massively funded yet embattled startup has spent years trying to get back to Earth. It laid off a huge portion of its workforce and changed CEOs in 2020<\/a>, scrapping its mass-market AR plans to focus on healthcare, manufacturing, and defense. The Magic Leap 2, formally announced in 2019<\/a>, is supposed to cement its presence in those industries. In reality, the company\u2019s future still seems uncertain. But based on a limited demo of a version with complete hardware and in-development software, it\u2019s launching a genuinely improved second-generation device including a markedly better field of view \u2014 taking a step toward assuaging one of AR\u2019s enduring pain points.<\/p>\n

Like the 2018 Magic Leap 1, the Magic Leap 2 includes a pair of dark gray goggles wired to a puck-like computer that you can hang from a shoulder strap or clip on a belt. Those goggles refract light from small LCOS displays through multilayered lenses that project holographic images into your surroundings. But they\u2019re doing it in a much trimmer package. The Magic Leap 2 weighs 248 grams to the original\u2019s 316 grams, which was already svelte compared to the 566-gram Microsoft HoloLens 2. Between the weight reduction and an optional over-the-head strap, it fit me more easily and firmly than almost any other smart glasses I\u2019ve tried \u2014 albeit for a roughly 30-minute demo, which is far from the full workday Magic Leap says it\u2019s designed for.<\/p>\n

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The Magic Leap 2 (left) in comparison to Magic Leap 1.<\/figcaption><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The new iteration of Magic Leap\u2019s puck computer.<\/figcaption><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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An inside view of the headset.<\/figcaption><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

You won\u2019t find a dramatic design overhaul in the Magic Leap 2\u2019s simple motion-control remote, but internally, the company has made a significant change. The Magic Leap 1 tracked its controllers\u2019 movements with electromagnetic fields. But, citing problems using magnetic sensors around some industrial equipment, Magic Leap has switched to optical tracking that incorporates both headset-based sensors and cameras mounted in the actual controller<\/a>. The remote isn\u2019t built to give you full-fledged virtual hands the way many VR controllers do, and I didn\u2019t get to try any complex object manipulation, but it certainly feels functional enough for simple point-and-click interfaces. (I checked out an extremely unofficial Magic Leap Beat Saber <\/em>clone, but it\u2019s hard to judge hardware performance from a rough prototype app.)<\/p>\n

This is all potentially great for Magic Leap\u2019s enterprise customers, around 35 of which are testing the Magic Leap 2 ahead of a release scheduled for the third quarter of 2022. But it doesn\u2019t mitigate the device\u2019s long-running tradeoffs. Offloading electronics to the puck makes the headset lighter and more comfortable than the self-contained HoloLens, for instance, but it means you\u2019re walking around with a long wire attached to an odd-looking computer. While Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson says this hasn\u2019t been a major issue for current customers, who use the device for things like training simulations and medical diagnoses, it indicates the limitations that high-end AR headsets still face.<\/p>\n

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The Magic Leap 2 controller.<\/figcaption><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The controller uses inside-out tracking cameras.<\/figcaption><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In an evenly lit and monochromatic demo room, the Magic Leap 2\u2019s holograms look great by current AR standards. (That means the images are still a bit transparent, but they\u2019re crisp and vivid, and text is easy to read.) A new feature can also make them stand out against the real world by dimming parts of your vision to near-darkness \u2014 bright lights still poked through, but I had to strain to identify other objects while using it. And while I didn\u2019t check out any sophisticated blends of real and virtual space, objects stayed pinned to one place in a way consumer headsets like the Nreal Light<\/a> can\u2019t manage. That makes sense, of course, given the Magic Leap 2\u2019s far higher price point: it\u2019s supposed to cost slightly more than the Magic Leap 1, which starts at $2,295.<\/p>\n

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