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[CraigerGamer]

From slick deals

While it was originally locked down to verified developers with invitations, then made unavailable due to low quantities, it's now available again in the Microsoft Store. This time, anyone in the U.S. and Canada can purchase up to five. A Microsoft account (Outlook/Hotmail/Xbox/etc.) is required for checkout.

$3,000 at the Microsoft Store

https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us/development-edition

From MS Site

Developers can order up to five devices through the online store, with shipping to the US and Canada. Join the community and start developing for Microsoft HoloLens.

We currently ship to the United States and Canada.
You need a Microsoft Account (MSA) to make your purchase. If you don’t already have one, create your MSA here.
Please note that the Development Edition hardware and apps are in English only.

I hope this tech takes off within the next few years.

 

[Rellik]

I'll take two.

 

[OBias]

I wonder how Magic Leap will compare to HoloLens once it is properly revealed.

 

[gamz]

I wonder how Magic Leap will compare to HoloLens once it is properly revealed.

If it ever gets revealed.

 

[Sidewinder]

Put a Pokemon GO sticker on it and call it a day.

 

[HotHamBoy]

What, no price-gawking for the VR killer?

In all seriousness, this will be a really cool thing in 5 years.

 

[Figments]

It'd be really interesting if Microsoft opened up the hardware down the line so that users can install alternate operating systems. Would be cool to see an AR OS arms race. Sadly, the wait for open-standard an continues.

 

[Zedox]

If I had a spare $3k I would for dev purposes but yea...I'll wait. I think the people at my job is trying to get one (or did get one, I need to talk to him). I'll try it out here instead. But I can't wait for it to be better, and cheaper.

 

[wondermega]

There has been a notable lack of particularly constructive threads about Hololens discussion on this forum, maybe it's a good time to steer this thread that way?
My day job is doing AR design for a few years now, I got into the first wave of Hololens shipments and have been building a personal project on it, in fits and starts for a couple of months. Hoping to put it onto the UWP store before too long, as there's not much compelling up there yet and it should be easy to get a little attention with something interesting.

The excitement of the week has been the Xbox One S release, and with that a branded controller that works with Bluetooth. I picked it up and connected it to my device, it works with other apps but no Unity "plug and play" connectivity yet. I'm kinda waiting on that before getting much further with the mechanics of my project's

Any other devs on gaf who've been using this thing, or gamers/enthusiasts eager to get a little positive discussion about Hololens and AR gaming going?

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Young Conker is very expensive.

 

[soultron]

$3000? So 1.35 million $CAD, then. Perfect.

 

[speedomodel]

Oh, nice up to 5. I'll take 5!

 

[Cyneck]

Put a Pokemon GO sticker on it and call it a day.

Please don't play with my heart.

 

[Nickle]

I'll wait till it's $100

 

[anothertech]

Does it work with Xbone?

 

[cakely]

Up to five? The hell I wanted six.

 

[Zedox]

There has been a notable lack of particularly constructive threads about Hololens discussion on this forum, maybe it's a good time to steer this thread that way?
My day job is doing AR design for a few years now, I got into the first wave of Hololens shipments and have been building a personal project on it, in fits and starts for a couple of months. Hoping to put it onto the UWP store before too long, as there's not much compelling up there yet and it should be easy to get a little attention with something interesting.

The excitement of the week has been the Xbox One S release, and with that a branded controller that works with Bluetooth. I picked it up and connected it to my device, it works with other apps but no Unity "plug and play" connectivity yet. I'm kinda waiting on that before getting much further with the mechanics of my project's

Any other devs on gaf who've been using this thing, or gamers/enthusiasts eager to get a little positive discussion about Hololens and AR gaming going?

I'll be one of those people with a positive discussion.

One thing that I always wondered was continuum from a Windows 10 mobile device to HoloLens. Having a UWP app that's on your phone and if you connected it to your HoloLens, show the HoloLens version (or even the "desktop" version). Have you tried that if you have a Windows 10 Mobile device?

 

[Raticus79]

There has been a notable lack of particularly constructive threads about Hololens discussion on this forum, maybe it's a good time to steer this thread that way?
My day job is doing AR design for a few years now, I got into the first wave of Hololens shipments and have been building a personal project on it, in fits and starts for a couple of months. Hoping to put it onto the UWP store before too long, as there's not much compelling up there yet and it should be easy to get a little attention with something interesting.

The excitement of the week has been the Xbox One S release, and with that a branded controller that works with Bluetooth. I picked it up and connected it to my device, it works with other apps but no Unity "plug and play" connectivity yet. I'm kinda waiting on that before getting much further with the mechanics of my project's

Any other devs on gaf who've been using this thing, or gamers/enthusiasts eager to get a little positive discussion about Hololens and AR gaming going?

Things have certainly been quiet on the HoloLens front.

Some basic specs:
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/hardware_details

Any more detail about that gaze tracking? I'm guessing it's not quite fast enough for foveated rendering or it would have been making more waves.

 

[MXRider]

If anyone has any questions I might be able to answer. I work at a research lab that has two. I've probably used it for 5-10 hours.

There aren't many apps available for it yet.

 

[sja_626]

I've been in since wave 1 of the dev program via work and I must say HoloLens is a really, really impressive piece of tech. The stability of the tracking is pretty astounding IMO and the product as a whole well exceeded my expectations.

Not convinced of its usefulness for gaming, although Young Conker and RoboRaid are fun novelties. But for work and perhaps even general purpose computing I think this could be absolutely massive after a couple of generations of refinement.

 

[HowZatOZ]

If anyone has any questions I might be able to answer. I work at a research lab that has two. I've probably used it for 5-10 hours.

There aren't many apps available for it yet.

What's the FoV like at the moment? And I guess what is the actual functionality like right now, can you stick things onto walls and they persist outside of vision?

 

[psyfi]

I'll wait for the black friday deals.

Only $2000!

 

[Nubian Star]

Wow! That's two copies of No Man's Sky.

 

[KatamariOnTheRocks]

What, no price-gawking for the VR killer?

In all seriousness, this will be a really cool thing in 5 years.

I'd much rather have a potentially infinite world in my limited playspace than to have a limited environment be projected onto my real world playspace.

 

[Azure Dream]

I got to try one of these the other day, and I would recommend consumers wait for Gen 2, at least, whenever that is.

But it is really cool, for what it is. It's way more lightweight than I expected, easily comparable to my Vive, maybe lighter. Tracking is top-notch, the overlaid graphics work pretty damn well in the confined area they work in. The guy said it gets about 3 hours of battery life, and considering it's all built into the unit, that was pretty surprising.

Trying to use your finger to mouse-click doesn't seem to work the best, though. They really need a better control method than that, or way better finger tracking.

The FOV is definitely a limiting factor, but you can see where the tech is going, which is fantastic. Microsoft definitely needs to stick with it.

 

[nynt9]

What, no price-gawking for the VR killer?

In all seriousness, this will be a really cool thing in 5 years.

If Microsoft don't give up in 5 years after releasing an underbaked initial version that they stop supporting, like the Kinect.

 

[dragonelite]

Company I worked for just got a hololens just so we have one if we want to hold a hackathon..

 

[CraigerGamer]

If Microsoft don't give up in 5 years after releasing an underbaked initial version that they stop supporting, like the Kinect.

that's my concern. I hope MS see the value in trying to push the AR limits. The technology is so much more social than VR

 

[MXRider]

What's the FoV like at the moment? And I guess what is the actual functionality like right now, can you stick things onto walls and they persist outside of vision?

The FoV is about the size of a smartphone 3-4 inches away from your face. It's the only thing really limiting about the device. The holograms work like in the trailers. They stay where you put them until you delete them, even if you leave the room or walk half a mile away.

 

[Trojan]

And people are freaking out about the cost of the Titan X. I'm still shocked they haven't brought the price down at least a little from their initial dev version.

 

[Tezzeractor]

I'd much rather have a potentially infinite world in my limited playspace than to have a limited environment be projected onto my real world playspace.

It wouldn't take much to make an AR headset do both.

If Microsoft don't give up in 5 years after releasing an underbaked initial version that they stop supporting, like the Kinect.

Doesn't Hololens use Kinect technology to allow users to interact with its holograms?

 

[RoyalFool]

Trust Microsoft to head down some stupid dead end route when the real future is clearly fully immersive VR with camera inputs.

I have no doubt the tech justifies the cost, but with MS' track record they won't even support this thing by the time 2017 rolls around. Hefty price to pay for a fancy version of Minecraft.

 

[Azure Dream]

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: The audio works pretty damn well, considering it doesn't use headphones. It's very clear to the user, but very hard to hear for anyone standing near you.

Trust Microsoft to head down some stupid dead end route when the real future is clearly fully immersive VR with camera inputs.

I have no doubt the tech justifies the cost, but with MS' track record they won't even support this thing by the time 2017 rolls around. Hefty price to pay for a fancy version of Minecraft.

Theoretically you're talking about six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. An ideal AR unit would be able to cover the user's vision entirely when so desired with content. An idea VR unit would be able to blend in real-world camera tracking without lag or disconnect to create an AR effect.

Right now it's a matter of which side they're putting more focus on, but eventually they'll be the same thing.

 

[RoyalFool]

Theoretically you're talking about six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. An ideal AR unit would be able to cover the user's vision entirely when so desired with content. An idea VR unit would be able to blend in real-world camera tracking without lag or disconnect to create an AR effect.

Right now it's a matter of which side they're putting more focus on, but eventually they'll be the same thing.

That was my (badly made) point - VR will do it this better - and cheaper.

The field of vision is really tiny, when I had a go a while back (might have improved since) things just clipped in and out of a very small square - far smaller than a monitor, almost akin to holding a phone close. Made it unusable

 

[wondermega]

What's the FoV like at the moment? And I guess what is the actual functionality like right now, can you stick things onto walls and they persist outside of vision?

FOV is centrally small (20 degrees?) but it's nowhere near the deal breaker the whiny media would have you believe. It breaks immersion when you are trying to view something large (a life sized model of a car, up close, for instance) but for smaller things it's really not a big deal at all. Imagine sitting at your desk and manipulating a scale model of something, and it's just perfect.

The game I am building is presented somewhat like that Minecraft E3 demo they showed last year. That means it's contained within a "stage" area, and in such a case things always fit within view when perceived from a sensible distance.

Anyway I don't wanna make tons of apologies for it, it is absolutely an issue and will be resolved in due time, no doubt. For a development kit it's more than suitable.

And as far as the tracking is concerned, it's downright magical. It doesn't sound like much but when you experience it yourself, it's absolutely mind blowing. You can place objects in different rooms, everything is persistent (you can walk away, power off and back on later) - everything stays exactly where you left as if it were real. Must be seen to be believed, and even with the FOV issues it still does a remarkable job of fooling your brain into believing that something is really in this physical space with you. Add to this, the fact that the device is untethered and you can walk thru a much larger area than say the Vive "room space" (or just seated in the case of Oculus)

 

[Bronetta]

$3000 CDN? No way they're not gonna gouge Canadians.

 

[Azure Dream]

That was my (badly made) point - VR will do it this better - and cheaper.

While I will say that I prefer VR, this approach does have the added benefit of not having to find a sensible way of capturing and presenting again the real world view, it's just there, as you would normally see it. Eye spacing and other issues can make camera placement on VR goggles difficult, even when you can move them around, and we'll probably end up with some kind of camera array and added reconstruction to truly match what people would already see with a transparent display.

This is also being designed right now as a 100% portable solution, like a GearVR, but even less bulky and with way better tracking. That has some merit to it.

It's a different way of tackling things, and it does kind of work. I'm hoping the next version of the hardware, if there is one, will address a lot of the drawbacks the current version faces.

 

[justsomeguy]

I'll be one of those people with a positive discussion.

One thing that I always wondered was continuum from a Windows 10 mobile device to HoloLens. Having a UWP app that's on your phone and if you connected it to your HoloLens, show the HoloLens version (or even the "desktop" version). Have you tried that if you have a Windows 10 Mobile device?

Not sure what your scenario is? Hololens is stand alone. If you want to use a uwp app just run it on the Hololens...

 

[4Tran]

Trust Microsoft to head down some stupid dead end route when the real future is clearly fully immersive VR with camera inputs.

I have no doubt the tech justifies the cost, but with MS' track record they won't even support this thing by the time 2017 rolls around. Hefty price to pay for a fancy version of Minecraft.

Hololens isn't a gaming product, and it's not designed to be profitable in the short term so there's no danger that Microsoft will dump it any time soon. However, AR is a nascent technology so newer and cheaper units will keep getting released when more companies get on board. It's like VR - don't expect a first generation Hololens to be competitive for very long.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Trust Microsoft to head down some stupid dead end route when the real future is clearly fully immersive VR with camera inputs.

I have no doubt the tech justifies the cost, but with MS' track record they won't even support this thing by the time 2017 rolls around. Hefty price to pay for a fancy version of Minecraft.

I totally disagree. Being able to see holographic things in the real world through a pair of transparent glasses is a killer feature. A huge sensory-blocking thong with a stereoscopic camera will not look like the real world

 

[Noobcraft]

I totally disagree. Being able to see holographic things in the real world through a pair of transparent glasses is a killer feature. A huge sensory-blocking thong with a stereoscopic camera will not look like the real world

New band name. Calling it.

 

[cakefoo]

I totally disagree. Being able to see holographic things in the real world through a pair of transparent glasses is a killer feature. A huge sensory-blocking thong with a stereoscopic camera will not look like the real world

Even when you consider that the color reproduction and black levels are severely lacking?

 

[daTRUballin]

They just want this thing to bomb, don't they?

 

[Zedox]

Not sure what your scenario is? Hololens is stand alone. If you want to use a uwp app just run it on the Hololens...

Fuck a scenario, I just want to know. Also, not all apps are made for HoloLens or released for HoloLens so having Continuum would help in that regard but that's a small edge case.

But my real reason is for an idea I have for a game.

They just want this thing to bomb, don't they?

How is it going to bomb? The price for something that doesn't have a consumer version? Don't expect that version for quite some time.

 

[Conduit]

That's a affordable price.

 

[Huge Succeeded]

They just want this thing to bomb, don't they?

2000:

"6500$... for a flat screen HDTV? They just want HD to bomb, don't they?"

2007:

"600$... for a telephone? Apple just wants to bomb, don't they?

 

[RowdyReverb]

Really interested to see the applications for this tech now that anyone (with $3000 lying around) can get one. There's a lot of potential here

 

[daTRUballin]

How is it going to bomb? The price for something that doesn't have a consumer version? Don't expect that version for quite some time.

What? I thought this WAS the consumer version? Why does the thread title say "non-devs" then?

Edit: I guess these are developer versions still. I kind of got confused by the title haha

2000:

"6500$... for a flat screen HDTV? They just want HD to bomb, don't they?"

2007:

"600$... for a telephone? Apple just wants to bomb, don't they?

That's not really comparable.

 

[wondermega]

What? I thought this WAS the consumer version? Why does the thread title say "non-devs" then?

Edit: I guess these are developer versions still. I kind of got confused by the title haha

Yeah they simply got rid of the application process and the need to wait for a distribution wave. Anybody can get one but it's essentially priced such that only developers would be interested at this point, which makes sense at this early stage.

 

[daTRUballin]

Yeah they simply got rid of the application process and the need to wait for a distribution wave. Anybody can get one but it's essentially priced such that only developers would be interested at this point, which makes sense at this early stage.

Yeah. There's no way they're going to sell Hololens to consumers for $3000. So this makes sense.