HoloLens 2 owners are now able to download the latest software update for their augmented reality devices.
The latest update, Windows Holographic version 22H1, includes a variety of improvements for the Moving Platform Mode feature, adds new gesture settings for the Start menu, introduces fresh color-blind settings, and adds support for a new Power and Thermal SDK feature.
Here’s the brief official summaries of the main changes:
We have made some great improvements for our last flagship feature, Moving Platform Mode. Moving out of the beta phase, there’s new improved methods for enabling Moving Platform Mode and new settings you can configure while using it such as setting the down direction to be a different direction than gravity. Here’s 3 new ways to enable Moving Platform Mode which is different depending on how or when you want it enabled.
- Moving Platform Mode Settings – Toggle Moving Platform Mode and more via Settings – End users
- Moving Platform Mode MDM policies – Configures new MPM settings via MDM – IT Admins
- Moving Platform Mode SDK – Configures MPM via Apps – Developers
Start gestures settings – These are a new solution for those who want to keep the Start menu from appearing while doing tasks that involve looking downwards and actively using their hands. There are several options you can use or combine, such as requiring the user to look at their wrist or holding the icon for two seconds.
Power and Thermal SDK for apps – Try out this hot new feature for when it gets hotter in temperature. If you are in a warm environment or are pushing your app to the limits, and you’ve built your own app, then you can include this SDK to include notification events and have custom actions. These can help keep your app running longer.
Color-blind mode – Color-blind mode is a feature that makes HoloLens more accessible using new color filters that can help make things easier to view. Try it, you might be surprised at the difference it makes.
Single app kiosk policy for launching other apps – A new Mixed Reality policy, that allows you to launch specific apps from a Single App Kiosk app. This is useful if you want to use a specific app, but might need access to Settings to change Wi-fi, or Edge to perform a sign in.
A number of bug fixes and improvements were also made with the Windows Holographic version 22H1 update:
Fixes and improvements
- Improvements to Moving Platform Mode when detecting the down direction.
- Fixed an issue around update dialogs.
- Updated inbox Microsoft Edge browser version.
- Fixed an issue where toggling optional diagnostic data didn’t persist the chosen setting in telemetry settings page after a reboot.
- Fixed an issue where MDM enrolment was stuck when applied with runtime provisioning for local accounts.
- Fixed an issue where kiosk mode wasn’t falling back to global kiosk (if configured) on encountering failures for AAD group-based kiosk configuration.
- Fixed an issue where graphics memory is leaked during some camera usage scenarios.
- Updated HoloLens inbox Microsoft Edge browser version to 98.0.1108.43.
Full details on all of the above can be read in the more comprehensive release notes here.
Microsoft’s HoloLens devices are in a bit of a weird spot right now with mixed reports on the supposed cancellation of HoloLens 3 and an increase in bad press around HoloLens in general. We talked about all of the above on a recent episode of our podcast. Have a listen here.
