
Magic Leap One Teardown - jrnkntl
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Leap+One+Teardown/112245
======
PascLeRasc
Ifixit is such a treasure trove these days. Their guides are so well-made,
accessible to all audiences, and they don't seem to have any biases towards
any one platform/technical agenda. I really hope they're able to stay
independent and not get bought out by Microsoft or Facebook.

~~~
craftyguy
I've used them a number of times to take apart various devices I've come
across for repairing/replacing things. I would love to meet the ultra-super
patient folks who create these guides.

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oflannabhra
One big takeaway is the confirmation that ML-1 is using focus plane sequential
LCOS SLM with waveguide optics. Perennial Magic Leap critic KGonTech correctly
called this in 2016[0] based on Magic Leap patents.

[0] - [https://www.kguttag.com/2016/11/20/magic-leap-separating-
mag...](https://www.kguttag.com/2016/11/20/magic-leap-separating-magic-and-
reality/)

~~~
lhl
Just as an FYI, Karl posted an update referencing the iFixit teardown today:
[https://www.kguttag.com/2018/08/23/ifixits-magic-leap-one-
te...](https://www.kguttag.com/2018/08/23/ifixits-magic-leap-one-teardown-
confirms-kgontechs-analysis-from-november-2016/)

For more technical information about the Magic Leap rendering stack and their
dual-focal plane approach, here's the deck from a SIGGRAPH talk:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h36TJRkK4KteRUVcoXAnbHzTFfu...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h36TJRkK4KteRUVcoXAnbHzTFfuz6m-q/view)

~~~
DmenshunlAnlsis
Damn, that’s someone who really knows where their towel is. He nailed it two
years ahead of time, through a morass of hype, based on patents alone and got
it all right. Looking over more of his site he correctly predicted why the
view of the real world would be so dark, that they’d be limited to only 2
focus planes, and pretty much everything else.

Wow.

~~~
yohann305
It won't be surprising at all if Karl gets approached by ML for a job
opportunity

~~~
curiousgal
Or a lawsuit for some reason.

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AndrewKemendo
No matter what you think of Magic Leap generally, they did some amazing
engineering here and I think that's worth appreciating. The stacked waveguide
model is a great hack around the varifocal plane (accommodation) problem, but
to make it work in a form factor that isn't gargatuan was a feat. Yes, it's
only two planes, but it's a step forward.

Not to mention that it runs on batteries and is a fully integrated development
environment - you gotta hand it to them that this was an engineering feat.

~~~
CydeWeys
Practically speaking, what does only two planes mean? Does this mean they can
only overlay elements at two different apparent distances in the environment?
Are these distances fixed or variable?

~~~
Ajedi32
The headset can overlay elements at any distance, but when it does there may
be a mismatch between the point your eyes look at and the distance they focus
at. This can cause the images you see to appear blurry and out of focus. This
is called vergence-accommodation conflict, and it's a common issue in VR and
AR.

Magic Leap attempts to address this by having two fixed planes where it can
focus the projected images. This does help, but according to reviewers it
seems like two fixed planes still isn't enough to eliminate the problem
entirely. Future headsets may be able to address this by using more planes, or
by allowing the plane(s) to dynamically change focus (varifocal displays).

~~~
CydeWeys
> The headset can overlay elements at any distance, but when it does there may
> be a mismatch between the point your eyes look at and the distance they
> focus at.

So basically it can only _correctly_ overlay elements at two distances, then?
Any other distances are going to be out of focus to varying degrees, which
will start looking increasingly incorrect the farther they are from the
correct focal distance?

Does the hyperfocal distance come into play here? Is there some range around
each focal length that is acceptable, or do the eyes work differently from
camera lenses here?

~~~
Ajedi32
I'm not an expert on the on the inner workings of the human eye, but yes I
believe the severity of the "blur" effect depends on the difference between
the distance of the focal plane the object is rendered on and the actual
distance your eyes are focusing on. As long as it's "close enough" you won't
notice. (Though I have no idea how close "close enough" is for the average
human.)

------
soneca
My takeaway: Magic Leap is definitely not vaporware. It is a solid first
product.

I agree with Ajedi32 comment that _Overall it 's evolutionary, not
revolutionary_, which is great per se.

The hype was unacheivable, as their marketing videos are (were?) misleading to
say the least. Which I think is a strategic mistake that can hurt its
adoption.

If they have a chance to return all of their investment, it depends of what
they will be delivering in two or three years. If it continue its evolution
agressively or this product is all they have.

~~~
TrainedMonkey
If the choice comes to "be an optimist, over-hype, get funding, and survive
until engineering investments pay off" or "be realist, get less funding,
deliver even more mediocre product (because less funding = less engineering
talent), and die" which one would you chose?

In the end what matters is runway and culture. With enough runway and solid
engineering management they have a pretty high chance to eventually release
revolutionary product.

~~~
jonny_eh
Has the former option ever worked?

~~~
TrainedMonkey
Yes, former option includes every company that bootstrapped, for example
whatsapp.

~~~
arrayjumper
> be an optimist, over-hype, get funding, and survive until engineering
> investments pay off

> whatsapp

What did whatsapp over-hype?

~~~
TrainedMonkey
I meant latter option^^

------
maxxxxx
I am kind of glad that they actually have a real product. IT still feels like
they took in way too much investment but at least they are not a complete
fraud like I started to suspect.

~~~
modeless
Yeah, it may have taken a billion dollars but a billion dollars doesn't
guarantee success. The product is impressive, even if Hololens stole their
thunder two years ago. The engineers should be proud.

I don't see a market for it though, so it's hard for me to see how the company
can survive until the technology matures enough for the mainstream. I think it
will be more than 5 years, possibly 10. Timing is so important for a startup
and Magic Leap is too early.

~~~
garmaine
If it was $100 it would revolutionize the world. At $1000 we should dust off
our Magic Leap obituaries.

~~~
HammadB
I think even if Magic Leap was $100 it would not revolutionize the world. I'm
bullish on the potential of AR, I just think the form factor has years of hard
technical work ahead to "revolutionary".

~~~
garmaine
I don't like the design. It's really ugly. But in principle, this technology
could be discreetly put behind the rim of stylish glasses like you'd expect to
find at a department store. The technology hasn't been miniaturized to that
degree yet, and you'd still have to drive it with something but for non-AR
applications it needn't be complex.

At $100 people would be willing to use this for various new applications.
Education comes to mind as a particularly good application. Maybe sports
commentary? Maybe pop-up AR booths in malls. That would be enough to jump-
start an ecosystem, while the hard technical work is done.

~~~
Aeolun
We already have phones in our pockets. Allow me to stick a cable from my HMD
into my phone and I’ll be perfectly content to carry the extra weight around.
It just has to look decent at the ‘head-mounted’ part.

~~~
garmaine
[https://www.tomsguide.com/us/apple-ar-glasses-akonia-
hologra...](https://www.tomsguide.com/us/apple-ar-glasses-akonia-
holographics,news-27927.html)

------
wilsonnb3
Can anyone out there tell me if the Magic Leap One is as revolutionary
compared to similar products as they want me to think it is?

I'm not that familiar with the AR/VR/HUD space and I'm having a hard time
cutting through the marketing.

~~~
Ajedi32
My current impression is that it's a decent, incremental step up from the
Hololens. It's cheaper, more comfortable to wear, has a wider FOV, and
supports displaying images at two different focal planes (which helps with
realism when viewing objects at different distances).

Overall it's evolutionary, not revolutionary.

~~~
yohann305
So was the iPhone when it came out. It was an evolution over the available
phones at the time. BlackBerry Razor if i recall correctly was the hottest
phone at the time. Actually the dominance of the iPhone was all but certain at
the time. I remember a female friend sticking to Blackberry because it was
easier for her to type on a physical keyboard than a touch-screen with her
long nails.

Good job to Magic Leap team for getting us closer to the last stroke in MR
that will trickle down a plethora of innovations

~~~
danielvf
When the iPhone came out, it felt like someone had handed you a little bit of
Star Trek. It was nothing like using any other phone at the time - the entire
way the device was designed and the way you interacted with it was a new
paradigm.

~~~
chadash
When the iPhone came out, it was pretty much identical to the already popular
iPod Touch, but with a phone included. It was a very obvious next step for
Apple to take, although I'm sure Apple had planned to launch the iPod Touch as
an intermediate step to a phone.

The original iPod was not all that much different from other MP3 players at
the time, it simply had great design (both from a UX and aesthetic
perspective). Similarly, the iPod Touch or early iPhones were technologically
not much more impressive than a Blackberry. Touchscreens were nothing new at
the time. But I agree with you that the way you interacted with the device was
a new paradigm. Sometimes little evolutions make a big difference, especially
when they make something easier to use, which is probably the most important
factor for mass adoption.

~~~
CydeWeys
In addition to getting your release timing off, as the other commenter has
pointed out, the iPod Touch and iPhone are essentially the same thing, only
the latter has a cellular radio and the respective features that enables.
Regardless of which came out first, it's this _platform_ that was truly
innovative. So they should be considered together as the revolution.

------
exikyut
I jaw-dropped at something not yet mentioned here.

Taking a look at Step 9
([https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Leap+One+Teardown/1122...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Leap+One+Teardown/112245#s214896))
where the LCOS display is revealed, I took a look at the linked PDF.

That PDF says the pixel size is 4.5um. 1000/4.5 is 222, which I think means a
single row or column has approximately 222 pixels in it.

I ran the display through [https://www.sven.de/dpi/](https://www.sven.de/dpi/)
(specifying a display size of 0.4 inches), and it decided the display has
5507.27 PPI.

The PDF says that the active area is 8.64mm x 4.86mm, so that PPI rating isn't
perfectly accurate - but _ _wow_ _, 1080p in less than 1cm x 0.5cm. Ha.

The LCOS module is shown 2nd from right in Step 15.
[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Leap+One+Teardown/1122...](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Leap+One+Teardown/112245#s214987)

I'm not sure how to properly interpret "4.5um pixel size" within the context
of a non-square module. The pixel dimensions (square? slightly rectangular?)
aren't in the PDF. I'm also not sure how to compute how many 4.5um pixels
there are within 1 sq mm, which I would very much like to do.

~~~
exikyut
Wow, I was really distracted when I wrote the above. Specifically

> _...which I think means a single row or column has approximately 222 pixels
> in it._

No no. This was supposed to say that, at 4.5um, 1 millimeter of space has 222
pixels in it per row/column! (So given any 4.5um column, a 1mm width/height
span will have 222 pixels in it.)

------
pome
Still no real demos? :-) [0]
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/06/magic_leap_revealed...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/06/magic_leap_revealed/)
[1]
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/magic_leap_neither_...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/magic_leap_neither_magic_nor_leaping/)

~~~
kalleboo
The Tested review has actual footage shot through one eye of the goggle
[https://youtu.be/Vrq2akzdFq8?t=958](https://youtu.be/Vrq2akzdFq8?t=958)

------
syntaxing
iFixit videos have becoming better and better. I really like this teardown
where they explain the technological motivation behind the placement of parts.
One thing I do not get is why the control board seems so weird. It's as if
different teams worked on different parts and just decided to slap things
together on a board without any sort of optimization. Have anyone seen
something like this before?

~~~
defterGoose
As someone (without a huge amount of experience) designing some hardware in
the space, me too. The two usb controllers was the first thing that made me
double-take. Maybe one is only capable of doing back-forth on the external
line and one is dedicated to control for the camera/light hardware? My huge
takeaway was, "yep, charging 2k for a bunch of last year's good phone hardware
means you can stuff A LOT of it in without worrying about your BOM too much".

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kbumsik
Tegra X2, Myriad 2, Intel MAX 10 FPGA and a lot of other vision-related chips.
etc. Wow a lot of expensive chips. As a dev reference kit, the BOM and the
hardware development cost can justify the $2000. Glad to see they at least
made a real hardware.

------
sspencer
Wow! Anyone else reminded of the gargoyle rig from Snow Crash?

I went from "probably vaporware" to "I should look into buying one of these"
just from looking through this teardown.

~~~
portlander12345
I absolutely love that they went with a 90s cyberpunk look.

~~~
VectorLock
I'm not seeing it other than the cameras-sprouting-everywhere thing. What
about this makes you think 90s cyberpunk look? The dark gray casing?

~~~
mattnewport
It bears more than a passing resemblance to this image:
[https://www.walldevil.com/wallpapers/w07/dystopia-sad-
cyberp...](https://www.walldevil.com/wallpapers/w07/dystopia-sad-cyberpunk-
virtual-reality.jpg)

------
reilly3000
I became really rapt in the early days of Magic Leap PR ~14-15 ' on the basis
that Neil Stephenson was joining their team in a creative capacity, and they
had lots of job openings for writers and other creatives. It seemed that they
may be trying to build a true virtual world with neat hardware to access it.
I'm not certain that dream is dead, but the emphasis has been squarely on the
hardware thus far. I'm really pleased to know that it isn't vaporware.

------
pnathan
Be interesting to hook up a jtag to the SoC and fpgas to pull out what they
do. that's going to be the secret sauce for all the super speedy stuff.

------
AstralStorm
The fun question is the lifetime of lasers used in this thing. I'd bet on
10000 hours or so to 50%. Not that long at all.

~~~
CydeWeys
10,000 hours is five full work years. That's a really long time. The device
itself only costs a few thousand dollars, and it's going to be technologically
obsolete long before the lasers wear out.

I can't think of anything I own in my life that lasts for 10,000 hours of use,
except for housing. Hell, cars don't last nearly that long, not without major
maintenance. 10,000 hours of highway driving is a _million_ kilometers.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
The lithium-ion battery in this thing will be toast long before the lasers
dim, but 10,000 hours is a relatively low bar. I'm still using a 5-year-old
laptop, with no component replacements (other than the battery, and an SSD I
installed shortly after buying it) and it still works fine.

I know that batteries wear out in use, and expect that. Not everyone does. I
did not know that laser diodes wear out that fast, and I'm glad to have the
information.

~~~
jonny_eh
Isn't this a developer kit?

------
stefan_
Feels like that Juicero thing all over again, billions of dollars, many many
years spent on a freakishly expensive, outrageously complicated hardware
design that is all over the place. While out there in the real world, it was
Microsoft of all companies that got the MVP done and out there, and is
actively learning and improving.

------
newphoneguy
Why does anyone think this is a viable first product? What plan is there to
turn the discreet focus levels into a continuous variable field of focus? What
plan is there to make objects appear opaque instead of clear? What do they say
about increasing the fov to beyond a tiny patch? This is indeed vaporware.
When conventional VR headsets mature, cameras can be mounted to them and they
will achieve the exact same thing as the ML but be infinitely better.

