Microsoft announced this morning that its HoloLens 2 mixed reality headset has now started shipping to customers. It’s been quite some time we last heard about the headset, which was first unveiled at Mobile World Congress back in February, but HoloLens 2 still has no real competition on the market and the new headset brings significant improvements over the first-gen HoloLens.
HoloLens 2 has been designed from the ground up for workers, and Microsoft will also allow companies to customize the headset through the new HoloLens Customization Program. Overall, the new headset is more comfortable to wear thanks to a new carbon-fiber material, and it also comes with a handy flip-up visor. Moreover, HoloLens 2 also supports iris recognition as well as hand tracking, which means that the complex hand gestures that you had to learn to manipulate the first-ten HoloLens are now a thing of the past.
In addition to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 powering the headset, HoloLens 2 also comes with a custom-designed holographic processing unit, and the on-device AI should really help to make interactions with holograms even more seamless. In the video below, you can watch Julia White, CVP of Azure Marketing demoing the headset at Inspire 2019 earlier this year.
At $3,500, the headset still isn’t cheap, but companies can also opt for the HoloLens 2 Development Edition with a $99/month bundle including Azure credits as well as 3-month free trials of Unity Pro and the Unity PiXYZ Plugin for CAD data. Lastly, the headset is also available through a bundle offer including the Dynamics 365 Remote Assist app starting at $125/month per user. You can lan more about the different pricing options on this page.
Further reading: HoloLens, HoloLens 2, Microsoft, Mixed reality
