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Comment by janoc | Hacker News Reader

That would make zero sense for Hololens - Hololens is an enterprise device that will in practice run one or two applications (e.g. the company training or maintenance tool). Also most industrial networks are behind heavy firewalls, so anything that actually depends on internet access is a problem.

Hololens also doesn't really work outdoors (display contrast and tracking are the largest limitations), so there is no point of designing a system for supporting that when the hardware is not usable in such scenario.

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It would make zero sense for HoloLens today. The HoloLens doesn't even have a GPS chip. But Microsoft is building the future of MR in general. It's a space they want to own or at least lead, and their investment in Azure services for HoloLens today are proof of that. Obviously what I've described does not really favour industrial use (though I dispute the idea that this would not be achievable in industrial/enterprise environments.)

Indeed, HoloLens isn't great outdoors, however the current technology is capable of it (despite the HL design.) The visor can be darkened to function more like sunglasses, which solves the contrast problem.

I'm just looking 5-10 years out, in terms of what's going to be needed.

This was surprisingly insightful.

It doesn't make sense to develop for 5-10 years out; you need to build for today and sell for today. If that means running apps, then you run apps. When the need arises, it will be built.

Evolving technology from an existing place is generally more successful than trying to invent the end goal at the start.

The core idea could also work on intranet scale, inside the corporate firewall.

Information tends to end up in different systems. You have for example something responsible for the IoT tracking data of machinery, something else for the HVAC and maybe another system for the maintenance manuals. The proposed system could pull this information together, collecting from different systems based on location (and access rights) within the facility.

Outside the facilities, it might be good to combine information from electricity, water, telco companies when you are at the construction site. Think for example excavator operator having augmented reality view of all the pipes and cables in the ground. This kind of information might be already available via the web if you have suitable access rights. Something similar could be applied here.

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