
Ask HN: What are your impressions of the HoloLens so far? - rmccoy6435
Microsoft shipped out their HoloLens development kits within the past few weeks. If you happened to receive one: what has your experience with it been like? Information is relatively sparse online recently about the HoloLens, and I kind of expected more blogging to be done about user feedback and what kind of projects are being worked on, but for the most part there hasn&#x27;t really been all that much posted.<p>I intend on doing a project with one in the next few months and I want to get other developers feedback on the device and kind of a general synopsis on the feelings regarding it, as the emulator can only give so much &quot;immersion&quot;.<p>There also hasn&#x27;t been much discussion about this device on HN (at least for a few months) and I&#x27;d like to know how developers feel about it: pros, cons, first impressions, etc.
======
Analemma_
Some bullet points I wrote when I tried it:

\- The display technology is very nice. I was very impressed by how good the
object permanence was: when you put an object somewhere, there is no lag or
jitter when you move your head and it stays anchored to the spot. The
holograms are reasonably bright and opaque.

\- Also, when you pin an object somewhere, it stays there even when you walk
around the room. It even stays if you pin it in like the middle of the room
where there are no obvious reference points or anchors to use.

\- The field of view is neither great nor terrible. It's usable but more would
of course be better.

\- The major downside is the interaction: "air-clicking" is not great and the
gestures to trigger various actions aren't very reliable. It really needs hand
controllers like the Vive has.

\- The unit itself is comfortable, much more so than the Vive. There was an
annoying lens-flare-like glare below the field of view. Not sure if that was
my unit not set up correctly or a problem common to all of them.

Overall I'm quite impressed, although I probably wouldn't buy one even if I
had $3,000 to burn. V2 will probably be the one to get, if they expand the
FOV.

~~~
longerthoughts
> The major downside is the interaction: "air-clicking" is not great and the
> gestures to trigger various actions aren't very reliable. It really needs
> hand controllers like the Vive has.

I agree on the gesture reliability being a current limitation, but wouldn't a
move towards hand controllers sort of be a step backwards? Interested to hear
what other people think but seems like moving away from hand controllers is an
inevitability, will just take some time and further investment in gesture
control.

~~~
WorldMaker
Why not both? Gestures are great for broad things, controllers are great for
fiddly things. Use whatever combination of gestures and controllers feels
comfortable to what you are working on.

~~~
longerthoughts
That's definitely true for now, but shouldn't the goal be improving gesture
control to the point where the difference is trivial? Might make for a less
versatile product today but a better product down the road.

~~~
WorldMaker
I think Microsoft's research is somewhat proving/showing that we will always
be multi-modal in input schemes, for the very least for accessibility reasons.
A person might not be physically capable of making an accurate enough gesture,
whether that is due to disability as one example or tiredness/exhaustion as
another. On the flipside, a person may struggle with a controller but have no
difficulty making extremely accurate gestures...

Speech, gestures, touch, controllers, keyboards, mice, trackpads, trackballs,
everything else in the giant spectrum of input devices, all have different
pros/cons and different accessibility. A failure often in sci-fi virtual
reality is that everyone magically switches to a single mode of input, when
even computing today suggests that every mode of input may be welcome (or even
necessary) to users. VR/AR doesn't shift those accessibility needs as some
imagine.

The interesting thing is that AR/MR suggest _new_ input modes as well. There's
a reverse skeumorphism that becomes more apparent in AR, along the lines of:
in real life to accomplish a task I might turn some knob and that knob has
seen decades of being the right tool for that task, why can't the AR respond
to that knob as well. As AR/MR become more common and you start to see more
"reality" in computing bleeding in from the other side, digital objects
responding to physical ones, I think you'll start to see an expansion of what
it even means to provide input to a machine. You might think of that as
gesture controls, at least at first glance and some that may simply be
advanced enough gesture recognition, but I think there's going to be a lot of
bleed-over into the IoT space for custom controllers and sensors and touch
surfaces. Some of those are going to look like existing physical objects, but
extending their footprints deeper into "digital spaces" (many already are to
one extent or another: your car's steering wheel, as one among many examples,
may already have a digital footprint of some sort). I wouldn't be surprised if
some of that leads to entirely novel seeming input devices in specific
subdomains of human behavior.

------
doublerebel
I've been making apps on it since mid last year. It's an amazing device, the
image stability and quality is very good and in a well-designed app the small
FOV becomes an afterthought.

Clicking/selecting objects with gaze is often an antipattern. Much better to
use alternate input.

Analytics is kind of a mess.

Everybody recommends unity but performance will suffer. I wrote my own
framework instead. Most of the open-source code is bad, if you have figured
out how to make apps it's a competitive advantage. MS wrote literally
thousands of new APIs for UWP and mixed reality so many many features are
barely documented with no real world examples.

It's a totally new paradigm in UX. Most designers fall back to poor decisions
like using small buttons or overly detailed models.

Feel free to ask anything specific I'll do my best to answer.

~~~
monk_e_boy
Is AR the future?

I demo'd google cardboard VR to a bunch of kids (prob about 200 ish) who
thought it was amazing. They really enjoyed it and the feel from teaching them
using VR was that this was another tool people will use in the future.

Kids are already wired up with headphones, phones in pockets, phones wired to
external battery boosters. I say this because I thought cumbersome cables from
phone to goggles would be a no no and the technology would have to wait for a
wireless solution. But I think I am wrong, kids already have cables snaking
around their bodies.

Personally I think external cameras that can show 'the outside world' inside
the VR world is the future. I'm interested in your thoughts on AR... this I
see as a great tool for industry, but not for the general public?

~~~
doublerebel
I've believed it's the future since long before I had a hololens, so I am
biased. But to me AR is far more than glasses, AR should be a natural
extension of human function for all senses.

People really don't like the concept that I can see a world they can't
experience. Some people become offended. Making people feel comfortable has a
long way to go, but as you mention kids start with no preconceived notions so
this may not be a stigma for future generations.

~~~
NotQuantum
> People really don't like the concept that I can see a world they can't
> experience. Some people become offended

This is the /exact/ kind of elitism that killed Google Glass. The whole "I
have this and you don't" mentality is childish and damaging.

~~~
doublerebel
It's not the attitude of the wearer, I and other devs I've met really enjoy
sharing it with everyone and wish it was more accessible. But I don't have a
case full of hololenses to create a shared experience. Nevertheless in a group
if one or two people are nerding out sometimes somebody finds it unpleasant. I
can understand.

~~~
Klathmon
Do you think a dedicated "streaming output" would help?

When I use my Google Daydream, being able to "cast" my screen to a TV and it
really helps with this feeling as everyone else can watch along.

If the cost didn't increase too much, I feel that an onboard camera that can
overlay what the user is seeing to show a 3rd party could help with that
feeling. (Or if it already has a camera onboard, perhaps some better software
to make casual sharing of your perspective easier)

~~~
doublerebel
Yes, it's possible to do this using the HTTP server that hololens runs. It's
pretty sweet it streams performance data as well as the muxed camera+virtual
stream. We got some really good results today recording a demo that way.

Microsoft did an awesome job with providing built-in tools and the vast
majority of MIT open source hololens examples.

It's very technical and dev heavy, it would be great to see an app that will
provide the streaming feature without the admin pairing currently necessary
for the "server" access.

------
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

~~~
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.

------
neom
Been using HoloLens for about a year now, it's awesome, probably my fav bit of
tech I've tried since the first iPhone. It's kinda exactly as you'd expect, a
pretty decent but not mind blowing projected holographic interface augmented
into reality. FOV is very mediocre, and you have to put that aside to enjoy
the device, but if you're willing to look past the FOV, you really get a sense
for where this will go. As others have said, the gestures are super annoying.
It also doesn't really fit well and hope they refine the actual way the device
sizes to your head. We do software for cities, so as you can imagine there are
very many places you can take AR and city planning. FWIW: I think there is a
lof of VC cash deployed into this space, but I also think it's a paradigm-
shifting technology and is one of the few things I feel the hype around is
justified. As a side note, I went to college for digital imaging technology
and started a started a studio out of college with a buddy (13 years ago) - we
took advantage of the transition from analog to digital filmmaking and ended
up winning three Emmys and building a 10MM rev business. If I wasn't doing
what I was doing, I'd be focusing on that shift here, there will be a lot of
opportunity for very forefront startup VR studios. Here is a video of me
messing around with a hololens at office last year:
[http://john.je/iDpX](http://john.je/iDpX)

------
yodon
HoloLens is cool but most of the HoloLens applications you write will be
consumed on the $299 software-compatible Mixed Reality headsets that ship
later this year (it's amazing how few people are paying attention to this
announcement - Microsoft uses Mixed Reality as its branding but these are
basically high end VR headsets with integrated tracking for a third the price
of Rift and Vive devices)[0][1]

From an application developer's perspective, the only difference between
HoloLens coding and Mixed Reality coding is that when constructing 3D scenes
your HoloLens app should have a transparent background so the person can see
their room through the viewport because that's what they're buying the
expensive headset for and in Mixed Reality you should have an opaque
background because it's VR not AR.

The really big thing though is that $299 is roughly what you'd otherwise pay
for a pair of big monitors. Full on virtual desktop support with floating
windows for these devices is being shipped to every Windows 10 machine
starting this week via Windows Update with the intent being you don't need
old-school monitors just work in the headset, or with your monitors, or
however you want.

Windows now has (or will shortly depending on your Windows Update timing) a
built-in developer mode simulator for application testing of Mixed Reality
code without a physical headset. The simulator is still a little buggy and
incompletely undocumented (remember to shut it off when you're not using it)
but it's pretty incredible and more than enough to start building and testing
applications.

[0] [https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/12/acer-microsoft-vr-
mixed-...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/12/acer-microsoft-vr-mixed-
reality/)

[1] [https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-
reality](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality)

~~~
mistermann
> Full on virtual desktop support with floating windows for these devices is
> being shipped to every Windows 10 machine starting this week via Windows
> Update with the intent being you don't need old-school monitors just work in
> the headset, or with your monitors, or however you want.

Are you implying hololens could replace my monitors (in a practical sense I
mean)?

~~~
falcolas
I have to admit, if the resolution was good enough (the equivalent of
1920x1024 at arm's length would be sufficient to my mind), I'd be quite OK
with this. Virtually unlimited screen space for tiling applications would be
pretty awesome.

One of the biggest problems I run into is even with a 30" 4k display, I'm
always out of room to run concurrent windows.

~~~
obsurveyor
You'd need like a 6k display to even start getting close to the 1920x1024 at
arm's length equivalence. That's at least a generation or two ahead of where
we're at today. That's why all this Mixed Reality stuff coming out of
Microsoft today is just so much talk.

I'm not arguing against them working on it, there should be a foundation but
we're currently at the equivalent of the late-90s, early 2000s VR devices when
it comes to HoloLens and AR.

~~~
yodon
If you've not worn a HoloLens, I think you'll be surprised. There are plenty
of things to complain about with the HoloLens but the resolution is amazing.

~~~
yodon
I'm fascinated by the downvote someone gave the parent, because I've never
heard anyone complain about the resolution on the HoloLens after using it. If
you're still in the thread and are able to discuss the scenarios where
resolution was a problem, you have me curious.

~~~
obsurveyor
Because the discussion was about replacing physical monitors, not complaining
about the resolution. You're jumping at shadows.

------
rtfs
I was recently at a Microsoft Training Centre, where we also had a chance to
test the Hololens. All in all, it's crap. It is pretty heavy, so I can't
imagine wearing it for more than 10 min. The latency was ok, but still
somewhat disturbing. The gesture recognition was bad. I, and later on also the
Microsoft guy, had to tap twice several times to trigger an action. The shown
floor shop example was a bad choice. Speed at the shop floor is key, for
workers and for other functions, and this is what the Hololens didn't have.
During the show off they had to restart the Hololens - a clear fail I would
say, but judge for yourself.

~~~
epmaybe
I was wearing it for multiple hours straight without any fatigue. You need to
tighten it and use the right nosepiece, having it rest on your forehead rather
than your nose.

Gesture recognition was really good when I was testing it, it really doesn't
take long to learn. Rarely would I have to tap twice. The standard gesture is
bringing your index finger and thumb together, I definitely had a hard time
explaining that to users.

~~~
Gaessaki
The gestures are easy if the device is well adjusted, otherwise it's hugely
inconvenient (usually the case when demoing).

The clicker makes things easier however.

~~~
epmaybe
Yeah, I couldn't find the clicker when I was using it! I wish I had a chance
to use it or get people to demo it with the clicker!

------
toolbox
Last year I was able to play with one for a couple of hours. The most
impressive and exciting part for me was that it wasn't bad. I don't know about
others, but I had expected an unpolished feel, and to be continuing to say "oh
this will be great when they ______". The latency is _much_ lower (comparable
to modern VR) than I expected; the occlusion of virtual objects by real ones
works surprisingly well, even with weird shapes; even the gesture recognition
worked well. My overall takeaway was that it was much further along than
expected. It was genuinely fun to play with, and I felt able to walk around my
office while wearing it. Obviously the FOV is an issue to be worked on, but
overall I was just impressed. I wish I still had one I could play with.

~~~
cjCamel
This is pretty close to my thoughts when I've tried it. One additionally thing
is how good the object tracking is, placing virtual objects in the real world
is very cool.

------
epmaybe
I've used it over a period of a few months.

Pros: Very intuitive controls after maybe 5 minutes of using it. Building in
voice commands is easy in Unity, can't speak for other platforms. AR has more
_practical_ applications (but VR is more mature). Microsoft listens, and will
try and add features that people ask for. The forums were very helpful for
someone a year out of programming to come back and learn. Spatial mapping was
really cool. I didn't think something could be that accurate in the space of a
few minutes.

Cons: Controls can be a steep learning curve for older individuals (based on
my experience). Development setup was hard when I started, but has gotten much
better from what I hear. Trying to show what you're doing in the hololens live
was very hard. Had to build that in, but I think now they've cleaned that up
as well through Unity. I think the previous con points out that this is a very
new platform, and things are going to change. Keep that in mind, and don't get
too mad if things break. It's not super powerful, so you'll have to move to
directx if you want to pull every inch of performance out of it. Shaders are
your friend (I'm a newbie when it comes to game dev, so this was a lot of
learning for me).

I know that people mentioned that FoV is bad, or could be improved, but
honestly I didn't have a problem with it. With AR, and how you can still see
the world around you, it wasn't a hindrance for users that would demo. That
being said, I wouldn't oppose an improvement!

------
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

------
Animats
As hardware, it's a nice job. It's self-contained and wireless. The form
factor is tolerable. Compare the HTC Vibe, which is as clunky as the VR
headsets of the 1990s and still needs cables. The HoloLens has much better
balance, too; the VR headsets are far too front-heavy. None of this gear is
really compatible with wearing glasses, though.

It's surprisingly good at "drawing dark". It can't, really, so it just puts a
neutral density filter in front of the real world to dim out the background.
This, plus some trickery with drawing intensity, allows overlays on the real
world. At least the indoor real world; the grey filter is fixed, and the
display will be overwhelmed in sunlight.

The field of view is too small for an immersive illusion. The resolution is
too low for the "infinite number of monitors" some people want. It's useful
for putting an overlay on what you're working on, which suggests industrial
and training applications.

It's not clear there's a mass market for this. Certainly not at the current
price point. If it became cheap enough to sell to the Pokemon Go crowd, it
might work for that.

A useful metric is, "Is it good enough for Hyperreality?"[1] As yet, it's not.
But it could get there. Watch that video. What hyperreality needs is 1) really
good lock to the real world, 2) adequate but not extreme resolution, 3)
wearability, 4) wide field of view, 5) useable under most real-world lighting
conditions, and 6) affordablity. The Hololens has 1 under good conditions, has
2, arguably has 3, lacks 4, 5, and 6. Not there yet.

[1] [https://vimeo.com/166807261](https://vimeo.com/166807261)

------
king_magic
There are a lot of very impressive things about the device, but for me, the
dealbreaker is the FOV. It's distractingly small. I haven't done development
on it though (just tried it out).

~~~
milani
I had the same bad experience.

------
ncrmro
I was at a talk with someone who demoed building an application from scratch
in about an hour using the unity hololens vr toolkit(?).

And I was able to try on on at a meetup.

Considering all the whole thing is self contained and is handling the
rendering on the device is amazing. With some of the dev tools you can see it
building models of everything and one in the room in real time.

I played the Conquer game which was fun to watch the characters hide behind
chairs and stuff. And the maps sort of build them selfs to the room and worked
even with lots of people in the meetup.

Getting the hand gestures take's a second but are pretty intuitive with
"clicking" stuff sort of pinching your index and thumb together.

The field of view is actually only the glasses under the visor. The visor I
believe is more to help with improve contrast and block a bit of light.

------
znebby
I'm quite biased on the whole AR thing, as I worked at Meta for almost three
years, but I think that the HoloLens is a fantastic piece of technology, and
that Augmented Reality Head Mounted Displays will be the next big computing
revolution.

Currently I'm working on a large HoloLens project for the aircraft industry.
But the amount of possibilities I can think of with a HoloLens (or similar
device) is limitless.

The HoloLens has amazing tracking and latency. In a couple more years, when
HoloLens and/or competitors release a device with a large field of view,
HoloLens-like tracking/latency, and leap motion-like hand recognition, it's
going to be very exciting.

------
yread
There have already been some developers asking for feedback and other
discussions on
[https://www.reddit.com/r/HoloLens/](https://www.reddit.com/r/HoloLens/)

------
PrimalPlasma
It's a revolutionary device. I was blown away during a demo. When the public
sees it they are going to go apeshit.

------
corbinpage
The demo will blow your mind. My biggest takeaway was that AR probably has
more potential in the long-term than VR. VR is immersive sure, but you quickly
run into physical boundaries or your mind becomes out of sync with your body.
AR has all the benefits of VR but layered on top of your physical environment,
enriching it and providing a reference point.

To speculate, I'd say VR will find its killer app in gaming/entertainment
(similar to TV), and AR will become the next great I/O interface between
humans and computers (similar to phones/tablets).

------
HoloHerald
We received our unit in August of last year and have documented our
experiences with it using our YouTube channel: The Holo Herald. Some quick
things that we noticed:

-While the FOV is less than ideal it is not experience breaking

-The device is more comfortable than most headgear technology out today(there is also adjusters such as a nose piece and headband that make it more comfortable for a long duration)

-It is intuitive. This device can and will be easily picked up by many people. We found older people who could barely stand trying to operate a smartphone throw it on and almost instantly understand it. There is just something about this device that makes people feel like they can handle it without too much work. And the fact is that they can, it is very simple to use and the hand gestures may be the main reason for it.

-While the hand gestures may not be the most reliable it does come with a clicker that remedies this quite satisfactory. To give this Vive-esque controllers would completely ruin the experience and what Microsoft was trying to accomplish.

-The UI and operation are unobtrusive which means that while it doesn't have much productivity use right now, it will in the future.

If you would like to get a better idea of what the HoloLens does and can do we
urge you to find our YouTube channel. We try and deliver our content in a non-
technical way as to explain how an end user really see's it without all the
tech jargon getting in the way.

~~~
Time2Listen
You can definitely see the quality in apps increasing through your videos. The
more recent apps you preview are a lot more intense than the ones in the
beginning! Cool Channel!

------
pmontra
I tested one in November.

Very narrow field of vision: I had to fish for objects turning on myself and
looking up and down. Not good for AR.

No black, obviously. They can't block light from going through rendered
objects. This in turn makes colors somewhat ghostly.

Very stable. Once I get an object I can walk around it and it stays there like
a real one.

"Clicking" on an object is hard, but maybe it was hard with a mouse when I
used it for the first time.

------
ylem
I had a high school student working with me last summer who did some
development on it (no previous experience with unity/c#). His goal was to
visualize crystal structures. My main comment is that the FOV is small and the
question of what makes for a good user experience is still open. I wish I had
more time to play with it.

------
andrewstuart
I'd be impressed if someone could give me a grab bag of real world use cases
for the mass market. I'm just super not convinced that this isn't a Kinect
sitting on your face.

And Lego/Minecraft on the tabletop.... no thanks I don't want games set in my
lounge room, that's an incredibly boring place to set a game in.

~~~
rm_dash_rf
TV replacement...Imagine having 5 large screen tv's in your living room
watching every march madness game that is currently happening all at the same
time.

~~~
andrewstuart
I have a tv.

~~~
monk_e_boy
Not on the ceiling above your bed. Not on the bus. Not in the passenger seat
of your car.

~~~
andrewstuart
A TV everywhere I go and in any direction I choose to see one is not something
appealing in the least. In fact it's a repelling idea.

~~~
monk_e_boy
Don't buy it then.

I think glancing out to sea and seeing who owns the ships and where they are
going would be neat. Then bringing up aperture and shutter speed for my old
rangefinder so I can take the perfect photo. Looking up into the sky and
identifying the planes and birds and stars and planets.

Seeing people's name tags next to them, maybe with some recent photos from
facebook.

All stuff I can do on my phone, but without having to take it out of my
pocket.

And before you go all Luddite on me ... "That sounds terrible!" I actually
rarely take my phone with me and 90% of places I go have no signal. So for me
this technology is almost like magic (if they can make it work)

I would like to remove my TV and put a plant there.

~~~
jff
> And before you go all Luddite on me ... "That sounds terrible!" I actually
> rarely take my phone with me and 90% of places I go have no signal. So for
> me this technology is almost like magic (if they can make it work)

The way applications are written today, your HoloLens won't be able to show
you information about planes and ships and such without an Internet connection
:(

------
NotQuantum
I've had the opportunity to develop with two HoloLens. From a consumer
standpoint, it's a wash. You're spending $3,000 device on a device that can't
do more than pin UW apps to your walls. There are no killer apps yet.

From a developer standpoint, it's terrible. Unity only just now supports UWP
apps and only just, many many libraries just don't work. We are making a
collaborative 3D app that needs access to the entire screen and a lot of
system level resources. The only nice thing is that the anchor system is an
operating system level abstraction.

TL;DR: After using one regularly for a few months, I'd say pas on this device,
it's a barely usable AR platform with poor battery life and poor FOV, and it's
absolutely unusable AR gaming platform.

------
psyc
I worked on HoloLens software at MS, so I was more or less using one all day
every day. We all just sort of pushed them to the backs of our heads while we
were coding. Anyway, my impression is it's fucking amazing.

------
rm_dash_rf
Customers love it. It a huge wow factor when you bring it into a place.

Positive: Voice Commands, No Computer needed, Unity is great - development is
easy

Negatives: Field of view is just weird, Not as intuitive as it could be,
Cannot sell it - dev only

------
JCharante
I've tried the development hololens from the March 30, 2016 batch several
times.

My observations:

Getting it to recognize my air clicks is the bane of my existence. Object
permanence works very well.

Before I used it, I thought people were hyperbolic when mentioning the narrow
AR FOV. It really limits the experience.

Moving objects around is very annoying when it doesn't seem to recognize half
my gestures. However when it does recognize my gestures it's fairly straight
forward to move objects on each of the three axis.

Peers make fun of you for wearing something cumbersome.

------
kirillzubovsky
My initial review was here -
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5w3MwzG3IiQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5w3MwzG3IiQ)
\- where I was really impressed with great industrial design and very
promising features.

After playing with it for a while though, I have to conclude it's not yet a
consumer product and probably won't be for many years. Maybe it will find a
Place in the enterprise.

------
miheermunjal
Have done significant work for it (source: work in consulting) and its feeling
like a new paradigm much more than VR or anything else. Biggest thing is the
"layer on the virtual world" onto what you are looking at.

I would say info isn't _that_ sparse (as it used to be). Search the
Holographic Academy, watch their youtube channel, and subscribe to the Windows
MR blog/newsletter.

Have demos of stuff I built, feel free to DM if you want to see.

------
iplaw
Underwhelming, to say the least. I've had the opportunity to use HoloLens on
many occasions, interacting with many different types of applications, and in
many different environments. The extremely limited FOV cripples user
experience and usability. There is no feeling of immersion whatsoever.

It's a fun proof of concept, but not much more.

~~~
epmaybe
Honestly, if interacting with physical objects around you at the same time,
the FOV was actually more of a benefit. You do however need to be strategic
with what objects you're virtually placing in the scene to improve the
experience.

------
lewisgodowski
Have only used ours a few times since we got it. I like the display tech and
image stability. I dislike the incredibly narrow FOV, imprecise and cumbersome
gestures, and how difficult it is to get a comfortable fit on my head. I
wouldn't pursue the first generation unless they make tons of progress on FOV
and fitting.

~~~
0xcoffee
I have the opposite opinion. The gesture recognition works perfectly and its
easy to wear. However the voice recognition was really flaky in my experience.
(Tried integrating voice into a Unity app)

There is a trick to getting the hololens comfortable, just make sure the
inner-strap is tilted ~45 degrees. This might sound obvious but I observed a
lot of people just leaving the inner strap horizontal, which means a lot of
weight is on the nose and the strap has to much pressure on the forehead.

As for the tech, same opinion as everyone else. Idea is awesome, works great,
FOV is limiting factor.

As for development, was super easy. Unity has inbuilt support, so just press
play in unity and it automatically gets sent to the Hololens.

I developed for the Hololens and wore it a lot over a couple of weeks.

------
moron4hire
Almost completely useless as an actual device for doing real work, but much
more in line with what future such devices will be like. In contrast, the HTC
Vive is useful, usable, and a much more pleasant experience all around, but
also kind of a dead end in terms of design.

Get a Vive now, wait 2 years before getting an AR device.

------
lbtuda
The AR experience is great, but the hardware in the HoloLens is a bit slow,
only 2 GB of RAM. If You develop bigger apps you will notice some lag, ie
separation of white lines into red, green and blue when you move your head.
But overall an nice Gadget.

------
vezycash
Is there any reason why HoloLens can't be both VR & AR?

If I want to watch a movie in a public area for instance, I'd love a VR mode
to tune out everything else.

~~~
falcolas
I think the biggest problem is that even if you (and I'm basing this off the
original models) darken the entirety of the visor so you can only see what's
being showed by the built-in screens, you'll still get a ton of peripheral
light and noise. To get to VR levels of visual isolation would require
something closer to what you get with a Rift or Oculus headset.

~~~
true_religion
So we could have a good be setup in a darkened room? Like people have with
projection TV's?

------
iLoch
I've spoken about this before on here. We developed on HoloLens for a couple
months. Working on the HoloLens app was actually my first foray into 3D
development, and also required converting ThreeJS JSON into Unity models which
was a mess.

The user experience \--------------

HoloLens is mesmerizing. I'm not big into VR or anything, and will often make
the arguement that VR hype will die out and is a fad. But there's something
very different about what Microsoft is doing. The ability to incorporate
reality as a first class citizen in your 3D applications (or vice versa) is
groundbreaking. People often complain about the FOV when they first try it
out, and I had the same complaint, but your brain is able to compensate once
it gets used to it, and then you stop noticing it. That's something you don't
get from a short trial of it at a tech demo. The user inputs are indeed very
clumsy still. We'll need vast improvements in this area before HoloLens can
feel immersive. But the amazing thing is that this first pass isn't _that_
bad. It can track your hands and it's a computer that sits on your head. I
mean, come on! I'm only 22 and even I think that's amazing.

The developer experience \------------------------

One of the major short comings of HoloLens development is its dependency on
Unity. C# isn't the problem. I love C# and use it daily now for web
development. The problem is Unity uses .NET 2.0, and good luck finding C#
libraries that are compatible. So for every new thing you want to do, you're
going to have to find a "Unity compatible" C# library, which is very annoying.

Unity will work for what you need most of the time, but it turns out if you
want to try something custom (like your own gestures) then you're out of luck,
because the Unity APIs are limited in that way.

I suppose I'm mostly just not a fan of Unity's component model. Constantly
switching between adjusting settings in the IDE and coding feels like a bad
way of developing.

Okay, so maybe you want to try something a little lower level. Microsoft
offers a C++ API as well, and for the most part this is what you want if you
need to harness the limited power of the HoloLens. I haven't played around
with all of the APIs, but I know of one in particular that left a bad taste in
my mouth (this applies to Unity too) -- the spatial anchor API. For those of
you who are unfamiliar, the spatial anchor API is the only way to acquire a
durable and persistent reference to a real world location. This is done (I
think) with sensor data (orientation, lighting, and images captured by the 4
on board spatial mapping cameras.) This is really an incredible feat of
engineering, however it produces a binary which is around 15MB. Far too large
to store in a database at scale. I'd like to see MS open up raw access to
those sensors so middleware developers can try their hand at improving this
aspect of HoloLens.

If C++ isn't your thing, there's a library called HoloJS. You guessed it, it's
a JS runtime for HoloLens with access to native libs. I actually started my
own variation on this (called HolographicJS) before Microsoft released theirs,
but I'm happy they've taken over.

The future \----------

So what does this all mean for a device that seemly has its share of problems
to overcome? Well, after trying it I'm fairly confident that MR as Microsoft
calls it, is here to stay. The ability to mix reality with virtual reality,
and augment that with a layer of environmental understanding is really
incredible. I think we're just scratching the surface of the possiblities.

HoloLens is the first in a new field of devices that I believe will come to
replace all forms of computers we currently use: phones, laptops, desktops,
tablets, etc. Even things like IOT devices. Why spend time building your own
interfaces when you can just augment the users'?

If v2 had better FOV and improved input tracking, I'd consider it a major
success. But if it also included improved spatial mapping and a reliable GPS,
that could bring us into a whole new world, quite literally.

The way I see it, the first company to solve outdoor use of an MR device, and
solve what I'm calling the "universal spatial map" problem, will run the world
of tomorrow.

Imagine every machine being capable of interfacing with you without the need
for a screen or separate device. Imagine walking down the street, gesturing to
a restaurant and placing an order before you even get inside.

Further down the line. What if we could transfer consciousness out of a dying
car crash survivor into a computer. What if that person could then be
virtually transferred back to the scene of the accident, to be greeted by
those who are augmented.

Anyway, that's all crazy futurism; but the point is that reality starts with
what is being done with HoloLens, and I think it's an incredible thing to be a
part of.

To me, HoloLens feels like the Apple II.

