Magic Leap

Magic Leap 2 Starting Price Positioned Slightly Less Than HoloLens 2, Release Date Set for September

July 12, 2022 From roadtovr

Magic Leap today announced pricing and release date details for the company’s latest AR headset, Magic Leap 2.

Magic Leap 2 Release Date and Price

Magic Leap 2 is finally set to officially launch on September 30th, 2022. The company says the headset will come in three versions priced for different groups:

Magic Leap 2 Base (for “professionals and developers”)

$3,300
One year warranty

Magic Leap 2 Developer Pro

$4,100
One year warranty
Access to developer tools, sample products, enterprise-grade features, and “monthly early releases for development and test purposes”

Magic Leap 2 Enterprise

$5,000
Two year warranty
Two years of access to enterprise features and updates
Manageable via enterprise UEM/MDM solutions

The headset’s starting price makes it clear that Magic Leap is positioning its latest headset as an alternative to Microsoft’s HoloLens 2; the $3,300 base price of Magic Leap 2 undercuts Microsoft’s offering by $200.

On September 30th Magic Leap 2 will release first in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Saudi Arabia. The company expects the headset to launch in Japan and Singapore by the end of the year.

Magic Leap 2 Specs

Alongside the announcement of the headset’s price and release date, the company also shared an official list of Magic Leap 2 specs:

Field-of-view	70 degrees
Resolution	1,440 x 1,760
Refresh Rate	120Hz
Brightness	20 to 2,000 nits
Colors	16.8 million
Weight	260g
Camera	12.6MP autofocus RGB camera 4k at 30fps or 1,920 x 1,080 at 60fps video
Storage	256GB
Volume-of-view	37cm to infinity
CPU	AMD 7nm Quad-core Zen2 X86 core (8 threads) 14 core CVIP engine Up to 3.92 GHz max with 512kB L2 per core 4MB total L3 cache
GPU	AMD GFX10.2: 1SE 1SA 4 WGP (8 CUs) 2RB+ 1MB L2 Cache 964 MHz / Max 1.8 GHz
Audio	Built-in stereo speakers
Sensors	3x wide FoV World Cameras Depth Camera RGB Camera Ambient Light Sensor 4x Eye-tracking Cameras 4x IMU 3-axis Accelerometer and Gyroscope 2x 3-axis Magnetometer 2x Altimeter
Battery	3.5hrs continuous use 7hrs sleep mode
Security	WPA3 AMD Platform Security Processor TMR Security fencing between x86 and CVIP

Interested in Magic Leap 2? Check out our recent hands-on with the device.

Hands-on: Magic Leap 2 Shows Clear Improvements, But HoloLens 2 Retains Some Advantages

June 10, 2022 From roadtovr

Magic Leap 2 isn’t available just yet, but when it hits the market later this year it will be directly competing with Microsoft’s HoloLens 2. Though Magic Leap 2 beats out its rival in several meaningful places, its underlying design still leaves HoloLens 2 with some advantages.

Magic Leap as a company has had a wild ride since its founding way back in 2010, with billions of dollars raised, an ambitious initial product that fell short of the hype, and a near-death and rebirth with a new CEO.

The company’s latest product, Magic Leap 2, in many ways reflects the ‘new’ Magic Leap. It’s positioned clearly as an enterprise product, aims to support more open development, and it isn’t trying to hype itself as a revolution. Hell—Magic Leap is even (sensibly) calling it an “AR headset” this time around instead of trying to invent its own vocabulary for the sake of differentiation.

After trying the headset at AWE 2022 last week, I got the sense that, like the company itself, Magic Leap 2 feels like a more mature version of what came before—and it’s not just the sleeker look.

Magic Leap 2 Hands-on

The most immediately obvious improvement to Magic Leap 2 is in the field-of-view, which is increased from 50° to 70° diagonally. At 70°, Magic Leap 2 feels like it’s just starting to scratch that ‘immersive’ itch, as you have more room to see the augmented content around you which means less time spent ‘searching’ for it when it’s out of your field-of-view.

While I suspect many first-time Magic Leap 2 users will come away with a ‘wow the field-of-view is so good!’ reaction… it’s important to remember that the design of ML2 (like its predecessor), ‘cheats’ a bit when it comes to field-of-view. Like the original, the design blocks a significant amount of your real-world peripheral vision (intentionally, as far as I can tell), which makes the field-of-view appear larger than it actually is by comparison.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if only the augmented content is your main focus (I mean, VR headsets have done this pretty much since day one), but it’s a questionable design choice for a headset that’s designed to integrate your real-world and the augmented world. Thus real-world peripheral vision remains a unique advantage that HoloLens 2 holds over both ML1 and ML2… but more on that later.

Unlike some other AR headsets, Magic Leap 2 (like its predecessor) has a fairly soft edge around the field-of-view. Instead of a hard line separating the augmented world from the real-world, it seems to gently fade away, which makes it less jarring when things go off-screen.

Another bonus to immersion compared to other devices is the headset’s new dimming capability which can dynamically dim the lenses to reduce incoming ambient light in order to make the augmented content appear more solid. Unfortunately this was part of the headset that I didn’t have time to really put through its paces in my demo as the company was more focused on showing me specific content. Another thing I didn’t get to properly compare is resolution. Both are my top priority for next time.

Tracking remains as good as ever with ML2, and on-par with HoloLens 2. Content feels perfectly locked to the environment as you move your head around. I did see some notable blurring, mostly during positional head movement specifically. ML1 had a similar issue and it has likely carried over as part of the headset’s underlying display technology. In any case it seems mostly hidden during ‘standing in one spot’ use-cases, and impacts text legibility more than anything else.

And while the color-consistency issue across the image is more subtle (the ‘rainbow’ look), it’s still fairly obvious. It didn’t appear to be as bad as ML1 or HoloLens 2, but it’s still there which is unfortunate. It doesn’t really impact the potential use-cases of the headset, but it does bring a slight reduction to the immersiveness of the image.

While ML2 has been improved almost across the board, there’s one place where it actually takes a step back… and it was one of ML1’s most hyped features: the mystical “photonic lightfield chip” (AKA a display with two focal planes)—is no longer. Though ML2 does have eye-tracking (likely improved thanks to doubling the number of cameras), it only supports a single focal plane (as is the case for pretty much all AR headsets available today).

Continue on Page 2: Different Strokes for Different Folks Enterprise Use-cases »

Magic Leap is Selling Its First AR Headset for Just $550

May 24, 2022 From roadtovr

It looks like Magic Leap is holding a barn burner of a sale on its first AR headset, Magic Leap 1, as the one-time $2,300 device can now be had for $550.

As first reported by GMW3, Magic Leap appears to be flushing excess stock of the 2018-era AR headset via the Amazon-owned online retailer Woot.

The listing (find it here) is for a brand new Magic Leap 1, including the headset’s hip-worn compute unit and single controller. The sale is happening from now until June 1st, and features a three-unit limit per customer. Amazon US Prime members qualify for free shipping, which ought to arrive to those of you in the lower 48 in early June.

If you’re tempted, there’s a few things you should know before hitting the ‘buy now’ button. Users should be warned that since Magic Leap pivoted to service only enterprise users, that its Magic Leap World online app store isn’t likely to see any new apps outside of the handful that were released between 2018-2020.

Still, there are a mix of apps such as Spotify or room-scale shooter Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders which might be better suited as tech demos, giving prospective augmented reality devs a sense of what you might create for a bona fide AR headset, ostensibly in preparation for what devices may come—we’re looking at Apple, Google, and Meta in the near future for mixed reality headsets capable of both VR and passthrough AR.

Launched in 2018, Magic Leap straddled an uneasy rift between enterprise and prosumers with ML 1 (known then as ‘ML One’). Reception by consumers for its $2,300 AR headset was lukewarm, and messaging didn’t seem focused enough to give either developers or consumers hope that a more accessible bit of ML hardware was yet to come. Then in mid 2020, company founder and CEO Rony Abovitz stepped down, giving way to former Microsoft exec Peggy Johnson to take the reigns, who has thus far positioned the company to solely target enterprise with its latest Magic Leap 2 headset.

Here’s the full spec sheet below:

CPU & GPU

NVIDIA® Parker SOC
CPU: 2 Denver 2.0 64-bit cores + 4 ARM Cortex A57 64-bit cores (2 A57’s and 1 Denver accessible to applications)
GPU: NVIDIA Pascal™, 256 CUDA cores
Graphic APIs: OpenGL 4.5, Vulkan, OpenGL ES 3.1+AEP

RAM: 8 GB

Storage Capacity: 128 GB (actual available storage capacity 95 GB)

Power
Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Up to 3.5 hours continuous use. Battery life can vary based on use cases. Power level will be sustained when connected to an AC outlet. 45-watt USB-C Power Delivery (PD) charger

Audio Input
Voice (speech to text) + real world audio (ambient)

Audio Output
Onboard speakers and 3.5mm jack with audio spatialization processing

Connectivity
Bluetooth 4.2, WiFi 802.11ac/b/g/n, USB-C

Haptics: LRA Haptic Device

Tracking: 6DoF (position and orientation)

Touchpad: Touch sensitive

LEDs: 12-LED (RGB) ring with diffuser

Power: Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Up to 7.5 hours continuous use. 15-watt USB-C charger

Other Inputs
8-bit resolution Trigger Button
Digital Bumper Button
Digital Home Button

Tons of New Magic Leap 2 Details Shed Light on Dynamic Dimming & More

January 27, 2022 From roadtovr

Although it’s expected to launch this year, there’s still no firm release date on Magic Leap 2. However, the company has begun sharing details on the headset which suggests the launch is approaching.

This week at the SPIE Photonics West 2022 conference, Magic Leap’s VP of Optical Engineering, Kevin Curtis, took to the stage to share a bevy of new details on the headset. Attendee Nataliya Kosmyna shared portions of the presentation alongside some portions which cropped up over at the AR XR MR subreddit.

During the presentation Curtis detailed Magic Leap 2’s bevy of sensors, optical stack, Android foundation, and more.

The most interesting details to come from the presentation are perhaps about the headset’s dynamic dimming capability, which is a first among commercial AR headsets.

Dynamic Dimming Lenses

Curtis shared that Magic Leap 2 can adjust the light transmission of its lenses from 22% to 0.3%. The former being something like sunglasses and the latter being closer to welding goggles. This wide range ought to make the headset usable even in very bright outdoor environments (though it will of course come at the cost of dimming the world around the user as well). Dynamic dimming is paired with a brightness range from 20–2,000 nits; combined, these capabilities should make the headset significantly more flexible than its predecessor, and similar headsets, when it comes to varied lighting conditions.

Also noted in the presentation, the dimming capability can refresh at 120Hz, and is “segmented” as well. The slides state this means that Magic Leap 2 lenses can “enable black,” presumably by selectively dimming only the part of the lens where black is needed in the image. On traditional transparent AR headsets it’s impossible to have ‘black’ as a color because black is the absence of light but the lenses have no way to stop light from passing through. Without access to the entire contents of Curtis’ talk, we don’t know how precisely the dimming capability can be segmented so it’s difficult to know if this will be a comparatively groundbreaking capability, or something more limited.

Curiously, dropping to the minimum 0.3% light transmission might even make Magic Leap 2 useful for fully immersive VR experiences where the real world is largely dimmed to make way for entirely virtual content. It remains to be seen if this is a use case the company is actively aiming for.

The Headset

About the headset itself, Curtis shared that Magic Leap 2 will come in just one size—a change from Magic Leap 1 which had a ‘large’ and ‘small’ variant. The reasoning behind having two sizes for ML1 appears to have been driven largely by a small eyebox and the lack of IPD adjustment, requiring two different sizes of the headset to try to cover a suitable range of the IPD spectrum. For Magic Leap 2, Curtis says the eyebox was doubled in size, apparently making it large enough for the company to move to a single headset size.

According to Curtis, Magic Leap 2 weighs just 248 grams (0.5 pounds). That’s a nearly 22% reduction over the original headset’s 316 grams (0.7 pounds), while furthering its lead in weight over HoloLens 2 which comes in at a much heftier 566 grams (1.2 pounds). Granted, Magic Leap 2 still relies on a tethered connection to a ‘Compute Pack’ which gives it a big advantage in the weight department over fully self-contained headsets.

ML2 will also include eye-tracking, with two cameras per-eye. As far as we know, that’s up from one camera per-eye on ML1, which could mean greater accuracy. Eye illumination is provided by six tiny LEDs which can be seen embedded in each lens.

It isn’t clear yet if Magic Leap 2 will have the same varifocal capabilities as ML1. Given the diagram shared by Curtis (further above)—which appears to show one waveguide per red, green, and blue color (instead of two per color as with ML1)—the feature may have been scrapped.

The headset will include a 12MP RGB camera for user-facing photo capabilities, like taking pictures & videos, scanning barcodes, and streaming video for ‘see-what-I-see’ use-cases. On-board audio is also confirmed.

Two key things we don’t know yet are the resolution and field-of-view of Magic Leap 2. According to Curtis, Magic Leap 2 has “double” the field-of-view of ML1 (which is 50° diagonal), though we expect this means double the area, not double any of the linear dimensions. The company has previously shared this comparison of the ML2 field-of-view vs. ML1 in which we can see most of the gain comes in the vertical direction.

Compute Pack

As for performance, Curtis indicates the Magic Leap 2 ‘Compute Pack’ will have 2–3 times the GPU & CPU performance of Magic Leap 1, including the addition of a dedicated co-processor for handling computer-vision operations, which he referred to as the CVPU (computer-vision processing unit).

Curtis didn’t specify Magic Leap 2’s processor, but the company has strongly hinted that it comes from AMD. Interestingly, Magic Leap 1 was based on Nvidia’s Tegra chipset, which was fairly novel for this kind of device.

AMD is also a somewhat novel choice for Magic Leap 2 as most devices in this category use chips from Qualcomm, including Magic Leap’s main competition, HoloLens 2. You may know AMD as a creator of desktop & laptop processors as well as GPUs, but the company also has a significant foothold in the console market as the longstanding provider of chips in Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Magic Leap 2 could represent AMD’s first significant entry into the XR space.

Magic Leap 2 also touts “more memory, storage, and battery life vs. competitors,” but we don’t have many specifics at this time. From the materials we have we know that ML2 will have USB-C charging, Bluetooth 5.1, and WiFi 802.11AX (AKA WiFi 6).

Continue on Page 2: Controller, Embracing Android »

Magic Leap Won’t Make a Consumer Headset but May License Tech to Someone That Will

October 14, 2021 From roadtovr

Magic Leap just gave us the first glimpse of its Magic Leap 2 AR headset earlier this week. Despite a consumer-focused start, the company has firmly pivoted into the enterprise segment. Comments from the CEO suggest there will be no consumer headset from Magic Leap in the near-term, but the company says its open to licensing its tech for the consumer space.

Despite nearly going bust last year, Magic Leap secured its near-term future with the announcement this week that it has raised an additional $500 million, alongside giving the first glimpse at the new and improved Magic Leap 2 AR headset which is due to ship next year. The company is making it clear that the device is designed (and will be priced) for the enterprise segment.

In a Magic Leap blog post this week CEO Peggy Johnson outlined the company’s activities during her first year as CEO, and affirmed a long-term emphasis on the enterprise space. But she also said the company is open to licensing its tech to anyone building in the consumer sphere.

“While our core business objectives remain focused on enterprise solutions, there continues to be intense interest in the application of Magic Leap’s technology in the consumer space,” Johnson wrote. “In fact, we have received several requests to license our technology and will actively pursue these opportunities if they enhance our position and ability to innovate in the enterprise market.”

The last part is particularly telling… that the company will only consider lending its tech to the consumer space if it benefits its position in enterprise. It’s an interesting admission that both affirms the company’s enterprise focus while suggesting that it has no near-term plans to build products for consumers; that also sounds a lot like saying ‘we don’t want to compete with Facebook or Apple’.

Johnson, a former Microsoft executive vice president who took over as CEO of Magic Leap in 2020, writes that Magic Leap has “one of the most robust IP portfolios I’ve seen for a company of this scale,” and is clearly interested in leveraging its patented tech into an ongoing revenue stream.

Official Magic Leap 2 Details Released, $500m New Funding Raised

October 12, 2021 From vrfocus

It certainly seems to be hardware season where virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is concerned. HTC Vive has a special event planned this week, Lynx-R1 launched a Kickstarter, Canon EOS VR was unveiled and now the first proper look at Magic Leap’s next device. Not only that, the company has managed to raise a further $500 million USD in funding.

Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson initially teased the first image on Monday before an interview with CNBC. This has been followed up with further imagery of a much sleeker looking device. In a similar arrangement to the original model, the Magic Leap 2 has a pair of central cameras but this time there are two additional sensors just below them. There’s an additional lens on the corner that looks tilted outwards by around 45-degrees, presumably for a wider capture field.

Actual specifications regarding the Magic Leap 2 haven’t been released just yet, Johnson has mentioned that the: “headset boasts critical updates that make it more immersive and even more comfortable,” increasing its field of view (FoV) – as seen in the image above – vertically rather than horizontally. It’ll also come with a dimming feature that the CEO says is: “a first-to-market innovation that enables the headset to be used in brightly lit settings.”

Johnson is also keen to point out that the Magic Leap 2 aims to achieve the company’s goal of a device suitable for “all day, everyday use”. “All day” would be quite the achievement considering the Magic Leap 1 was good for 3.5 hours of continuous use. That could indicate a much larger battery, improved power consumption or hot-swappable battery for users.

To help bring the Magic Leap 2 to market, Magic Leap has managed to raise an additional $500 million on top of the billions previously raised.

“This investment is an important step in advancing Magic Leap’s mission to transform the way we work,” said Peggy Johnson in a blog post. “With ongoing support from our existing investors, Magic Leap will have greater financial flexibility and the resources needed to continue our growth trajectory as we expand on our industry-leading AR technology.”

Magic Leap 2 is already in select enterprise customer hands via an early access program. Sales of the headset will begin at some point in 2022. For continued updates, keep reading VRFocus.

First Image of Next Magic Leap Headset Revealed

October 11, 2021 From vrfocus

After much hype augmented reality (AR) reality company Magic Leap launched its first device – the Magic Leap 1 – back in 2018. It didn’t quite set the tech world on fire, with the following years seeing plenty of upheaval including new CEO Peggy Johnson appointed last year. Today, Johnson has teased the first image of what’s likely to be Magic Leap 2.

Johnson shared a post on Linkedin with a very cropped image of the new device saying that she’d be sharing further details on CNBC’s PowerLunch programme today. While the singular image doesn’t reveal a great deal, the new device certainly looks smaller and more stylish than Magic Leap’s previous generation AR headset. The form factor seems to be more in line with other AR hardware manufacturers, going for a more fashionable smart glasses approach to help widen its appeal.

Whilst it might not be the Magic Leap 2, information up to this point would suggest it is the follow-up device. The Microsoft and Qualcomm veteran joined Magic Leap back in 2020, announcing earlier this year that the initial rollout of Magic Leap 2 would take place by the end of 2021. At the time she said: “we’ve made the product half the size, about 20% lighter,” which would fit with this image.

Those in Magic Leap’s early adopter program will be given first access, slated to be in Q4, with general availability taking place in Q1 2022. Hopefully, today will see the company finalise some of those details and maybe even release a price for its next device.

Don’t expect it to be coming in at a consumer price point though. Magic Leap is still firmly focused on the enterprise market, encouraging businesses to utilise AR, whether that’s for training, collaboration, design or any other use case.

Most of the news out of Magic Leap in 2021 has concerned partnerships, from integrating NVIDIA’s CloudXR tech to teaming up with AMD. Most recently, last week saw Magic Leap and VMware announce Workspace ONE XR Hub integration on Magic Leap 2. As further details arise, VRFocus will keep you updated.

Magic Leap Teases Its Next-gen AR Headset for Enterprise

October 11, 2021 From roadtovr

Magic Leap hasn’t come out with new hardware since it launched its seminal AR headset in 2018, Magic Leap 1. Now it seems we’re getting our first glimpse of what may very well be Magic Leap 2.

Update: Magic Leap shared more news and details on Magic Leap 2 today on CNBC, see our coverage here.

Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson released a photo of the device via LinkedIn. She says in the post that more will be revealed during CNBC’s Power Lunch at 2PM ET today. We’ll be following along, so make sure to check back then for more details as they arrive.

In the LinkedIn post, Johnson says she’ll speak a bit about her experiences as CEO at Magic Leap and “share a glimpse of what lies ahead for AR and our organization.”

From what little we can see, it seems the new Magic Leap hardware is looking to replicate a more glasses-like form-factor. It’s not for certain whether this is indeed Magic Leap 2, however in February Johnson said its second-gen headset would be “50% smaller, 20% lighter, with 100% larger field of view.”

The company has stayed tightlipped on Magic Leap 2 thus far, however Johnson previously mentioned that early access availability of its next-gen device is slated for Q4 of 2021, so this may be our first look at what’s to come. General availability is said to arrive in Q1 of 2022.

A previous veteran of Qualcomm and Microsoft, Johnson took over the reigns from company founder Rony Abovitz in 2020 to help pivot Magic Leap away from its roots as a company appealing to prosumers and businesses, and focusing entirely on the enterprise segment.