[Gaessaki]

I've been doing development on it for a bank for about two months now.

Things I like:

-Let's you have an infinite number of virtual monitors with applications such as word, outlook, browsers etc. -Developing for it is really easy with tools like Unity -Battery life is not too shabby, rarely have to take it off to charge while I'm doing something -Great demo piece

Things to work on:

-Field of view isn't terrible, but could still use improvement -Price point precludes a lot of consumer applications -Feels like you're always wearing sunglasses indoors. This takes away from the augmented reality bit as it can be pretty hard to interact with the real world sometimes (e.g. hard to read my real monitor when I have it on) -Gets kind of uncomfortable on your nose after a while, though that may depend on your face morphology -Interacting with voice commands in an office setting can be awkward/amusing -My colleagues think I'm never working

[erick06_10]

I'm thinking to buy hololens. But I'm concerned about some aspects i've been reading and watching. Hope you guys help me. My main use would be for write/read several documents in word at same time (like 10 different word documents). Do you recommend to buy hololens for this purpose? What about resolution for read/write? Is it possible to have 10 different documents working at same time? What about FOV, will it be enough for this use? would you recommend me hololens or meta 2 or magic leap. Or even Htc vive?. I'm opting to choose AR instead VR because I think it's better interact world and work(AR), instead only work (VR). Comments are welcome too

[rmccoy6435]

The price point is what was explained to me by a developer/project lead as the hardest hurdle. It's a hard sell when someone sees it's $3,000 and not available to consumers for at least another year or two. I have a two pronged question: Is this something you approached the bank about, or is it something they approached you about, and what is your level of autonomy on it (as it is the banking world and there are heavy restrictions on stuff).

Also, what steps did you take to fully learn the technology (MVA, Blogs, VRDC, etc.)?

[Gaessaki]

The bank had the HoloLens for a few months before I had started, but they never did much with it. Basically, they had a budget to expend on R&D and that's one of the tools they felt could be useful (and also probably to market the department to their higher-ups). Me having experience with Unity, the Kinect (the precursor technology to the HoloLens) and just barely with the HoloLens (had a chance to try it before it was publicly available while I was at Microsoft) made me an ideal candidate for the bank to hire and engage in AR projects with it.

I can do whatever I want with it. I was surprised to find out after I joined that the regulations are really not that bad, less even than when I was at Microsoft. I think it really depends on the department and the function. The HR department for example is a lot more stringent (though believe it or not, they also explored VR with our team).

They have a pretty good set of tutorials on the HoloLens site, though they're kind of monotone and over polished for my taste. I think the key thing is to know Unity, which I've mainly done through doing and exploring their API or youtube videos. MVA is a pretty good resource, though I haven't needed to use it.

[rmccoy6435]

Huh, I was expecting there to be a lot more invested in the technology if a bank already had it. That's actually very neat that you can just use it whenever you want, I'm kind of jealous about that.

I'll be doing a summer research project and senior capstone project with it (although I have yet to try it on, I saw a few other people demo it though), and I know enough about Unity to be dangerous. I was expecting more barrier to entry on it, thanks for the information!

[jakobegger]

I'm curious about the virtual monitors.

Are they usable for working? Is the resolution good enough that you can use virtual displays for coding / browsing / looking at YouTube videos?

[Gaessaki]

Definitely not for coding. Would code on a phone before I would on the HL. It's pretty handy when you just need a display to read or watch content off of while you do something else. For example, when youre looking at a solution on stack overflow while coding. Or perhaps when you're trying to replicate a circuit diagram using real components.

[soylentcola]

I think both FOV and price point are the most likely weak points to see continuing incremental improvements. Thinking back to my first smartphones in 2003-2004, it would've been easy to say "well yeah, the screens are too small, there's not enough RAM, and they're way too expensive!"

But over time, the steady improvement of touch displays, SoC's, and supply chains brought sub-$400 devices that are likely more powerful than my desktop PC at the time.

I think they made a reasonable compromise between FOV and ergonomics based on the current state of available hardware tech. While UI and software applications remain to be developed to make use of the tech, I'd be the least concerned about things like FOV going forward. It seems like a tradeoff that was made to avoid the bundles of tether cables and high-powered host machines seen in much of the current VR space.

[TheHoloHerald]

100% correct. First off as someone who uses the HoloLens daily FOV becomes less and less of an issue. People have to realize with FOV that it's a happy medium, most tech is about compromise and they did a great job with the hololens. Let's say they decided to add a wider FOV, they would have to add more glass, more processing power, longer battery life, more R&D, all of these things add up to a greater price, a heavier system and later release date. It's about equalibrium.

[Gaessaki]

I feel the same way. Not being tethered imo is a fantastic benefit that I aught to have mentioned. I don't really feel that FOV is a huge issue or anything, was just putting it out there.

Will be interesting to see where things go given they've switched suppliers for key parts supposedly in preparation for a 2019 release.

[evbots]

Is there any kind of image stabilization? Or is that not needed?

[Gaessaki]

In what sense do you mean exactly? the virtual objects stay perfectly stationary wherever you place them and though the gaze cursor is pretty sensitive, I never feel like I can't target what I want to interact with.