HoloLens Review Part I: Physical Aspects
Microsoft’s HoloLens is being billed as the future of computing. We take a quick look at how its physical features stack up.
Since unboxing our HoloLens Development Edition over a month ago, we’ve been exploring the augmented reality (AR) viewer’s use cases, UX opportunities, and the development environment it provides. The HoloLens is a promising piece of hardware and a signal that Microsoft is taking AR seriously. Now that we have our hands on one, we’re starting to form a more complete understanding of the device. While we continue to work with the HoloLens, here’s a quick overview of our initial reactions to the headset’s physical attributes:
Comfort
Overall, we have found that the HoloLens is well balanced and comfortable to wear. Microsoft has done a good job of getting the distribution of weight correct. While this might seem like a small item, it is really important to not feel like you are wearing a brick on your face. The device is comfortable to wear for decent periods of time, pretty much for as long as the battery lasts. The only caveat is that if you wear glasses, the device will have to rest further down on the bridge of your nose, which isn’t as comfortable. However, this issue is mitigated, since Microsoft provides an additional piece of hardware with the kit that allows the device to fit better further down your nose.
Walking Around While Wearing the Device
Unlike Tony Stark’s version of a wearable holographic display, one can’t exactly move around freely while using the HoloLens. This is something that you see warnings about repeatedly in text, but a lot of demos show people moving around with the device on. Since a good portion of your peripheral vision is blocked, you have to be very cautious when moving around. This cautiousness leads to a less immersive experience, and for now the key is to stay mostly in one place or have an open area to work in.
Lighting
The amount of light needed for the HoloLens to work properly is something we have been experimenting with. As stated in the user manual, we found that the hardware doesn’t work well in low light and becomes non-functional in settings with very little or no light. This is because the amount of light affects the distance the device is able to detect surfaces at — the lower the light, the smaller the distance, and the brighter the light, the greater the distance. The majority of our use cases are enterprise-based, so we’re confident that lighting is controlled well enough to not be an issue, but this is certainly something to keep in mind.
Rainbow Effect
We noticed after a while that there is a persistent rainbow effect while using the HoloLens. This is different from color separation, when a holographic object will appear to separate. The rainbow-ing appears to be a physical trait of the lenses in the device itself, most likely due to the different panes of glass that make up the lens. It seems to be more pronounced with bright lighting, such as fluorescent. While it isn’t a major issue nor an unbearable characteristic, it is something that can degrade the holographic experience.
Field of View
A well-known limitation of the HoloLens is the limited field of view it offers. While Microsoft released an immersive video demo using the HoloLens, the actual view you get is much more constrained. There is some speculation that the field of view is limited because of its processing power. Whatever the reason is, we’re sure the limitation is something that will improve over time and for now is good enough. We believe the field of view constraint has the biggest impact on movement, and is second to the loss of peripheral view in this regard. With a larger field of view, the user of a HoloLens would feel less compelled to move to get a good view of something.
Conclusion
The HoloLens is an impressive piece of hardware and an important stepping stone in getting to the augmented reality interfaces we have grown accustom to seeing in sci-fi movies. No first generation hardware is perfect, and the HoloLens is definitely in a first-generation stage right now. Even so, the device is very usable and the promise it holds for the future is great. We will soon have some HoloLens work of our own to share as we create applications that harness exciting possibilities for ourselves.
Have an idea for an augmented reality concept that you want to develop? Drop us a line at info@missiondata.com.
