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Comment by mrighele | Hacker News Reader

> I don't understand why this entire field seems so focused on gaming, and not productivity.

Is it ? If we talk abour VR, yes, but there are a number of companies actually delivering AR products whose focus is on productivity. Some examples (but there are more) are

Microsoft with Hololens [1] Epson with Moverio devices [2] Sony [3] Vuzix [4]

Their oldest model are simple smart glasses, it seems to me that they are moving towards full AR. As a plus side, they don't look something that I would wear only inside the office of SV startup.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens [2] https://epson.com/moverio-augmented-reality [3] https://developer.sonymobile.com/products/smarteyeglass/ [4] https://www.vuzix.com/

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I don't know about the other devices, but the hololens is incredibly underwhelming when used. The marketing CGI for it is the best thing about it. I suspect that is probably true also of the magic leap one.

Have you actually tried it? I know some of the developers and creatives that have worked with it, and they say it's more impressive when used in person than it looks in the 2d promo videos, which is the opposite of most devices.

It's absolute magic in person. The limited FOV is kind of a bummer, but tracking is rock solid.

I did the Mars demo at a conference a while back - the first couple of minutes I was underwhelmed, but at some point, my brain "bought-in" - I noticed this when I crouched down to look under a virtual rock outcropping without a second thought.

FYI the Mars demo is garbage. I suggest trying out Fragments for a better feel for the capabilities of the device.

I have tried it in person; and it was overall disappointing. This was some time last year so maybe they've improved in the mean time but the AR overlays weren't particularly compelling and the FOV was terrible.

I also felt the tracking was mildly worse than Vive; although that is more anecdotal.

Vuziz is a pretty funny example there, because they used to be (pre-Oculus Rift) focused on VR gaming. The only problem: their product was garbage. I'm astounded the company still exists at all.

Interesting - of these, I had only heard of the Hololens. Do you have a take on which, if any of these, are ready or nearly ready for regular use?

I had the chance to try only one of those, so I cannot make an informed comparison: one really has to try the device because I think that there is almost no relation between marketing videos and the actual experience.

My interest is mainly the healthcare sector, and while I have in mind a few applications, I think that for now they are not able to offer something a smartphone in the pocket of a doctor with a properly designed app, cannot do in the same amount of time.

If I had to make a wild bet on what will be the first successful consumer application of AR glasses I would say glasses for cyclists: the user can really benefit from not having to watch away from the road and we are already used to see them riding with funny glasses anyway :-). (in fact it seems there are already a bunch of companies focusing on that).

I've used both the Hololens and the Moverio.

Hololens is kinda neat but gesture recognition isn't there yet and the limited FOV really, really sucks. That's the biggest problem with any of these.

The Moverio is setting out to be pretty modest--think "Google Glass screen projected in field of view, but not shit"--but the execution there is solid. It also plays very nicely with glasses.

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