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The AR alternative, At A 3rd Of The Price

March 15, 2017 by Nick Orford Leave a Comment

The Meta Augmented reality dev kit is now available for $949 US, that is a 3rd of the price of a Microsoft Hololens. So is it better?

Pro’s

  • The meta 2 has a wider field of view
  • Cost
  • The meta 2 is lighter, 420 grams vs the hollowness at 579

Con’s

  • The meta 2 can only be used when tethered to a PC where the hololens is a complete self contained windows 10 pc.
  • The meta 2 is heavier

I think the main issue is the software and developing system as mentioned here by vbandi

As mentioned before, Meta 2 requires a hefty PC – and it needs to run Windows 8.1 or newer. Meta behaves like a second screen connected to that PC through an HDMI 1.4 cable, so anything Windows displays on that screen will be shown to the user. It is up to the developer to fill that screen with a stereoscopic image that actually makes visual sense. The best way to do this is by using Unity – a game developer tool, which is quickly becoming the de-facto standard for creating virtual reality and augmented reality experiences. It’s been shown that you can also place Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite or Spotify around you on virtual screens, and interact with them, removing the need to have extra monitors. How well it works in practice remains to be seen though, but one Meta engineer has discarded three of his four monitors in favor of holographic ones. Read more…

The benefit to this is it should really be a eye opener to for those microsoft partners who have promised similar AR products as mentioned by Mashable.

Even as Microsoft continues to take its dear, sweet time on announcing a HoloLens consumer version, Meta 2 should be a wake-up call for Microsoft partners who’ve promised to build consumer-grade, Windows-based AR headsets for the masses. Meta 2 feels like HoloLens at a third of the price. Ultra-cheap headsets from HoloLens partners like Acer have been described, somewhat charitably, as “no HoloLens.”

It’ll be interesting to see who finally delivers a HoloLens experience at a truly consumer price. Read more…

Hopefully with all the rumours circulating that Apple are ready to enter the AR market we will see a ramp up in the development and launch of more and more AR competitors.

 

 

Filed Under: AR-VR Tagged With: meta augmented reality dev kit, microsoft hololens

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