Magic Leap One: It's the hottest immersive reality headset the tech world is talking about right now, and Wednesday night, I got to test it out.
At You Are Here Labs in Smyrna, I joined Cathy Hackl for the studio's monthly Headsets and Happy Hour event. There, Hackl strapped the augmented reality headset on me and away I went to another world.
First, I tested out Tonandi, a musical collaboration with Sigur Rós, an Icelandic rock band. From schools of fish to vibrating orbs, I witnessed a visual play with synced audio and was able to interact with the images using my barehands. I could pull apart connected triangles and bob orbs with musical reactions, and my mind would almost trick itself into feeling the vibrations. You can learn more about the cool backstory to the collaboration here.
Next, I watched a virtual LeBron James slam dunk on a tiny NBA court following a real-life replay.
I was even able to check out collaboration apps for Wayfair and the New York Times. The newspapers app didn't seem to work for me---there was a error message---and although difficult, I was able to place a virtual chair in the office from Wayfair to see how it looked.
Let's make one thing clear: this tech isn't consumer ready. Those who've been able to get their hands on the headsets are mostly developers or prominent XR evangelists. The market price, a hefty $2,295, is out of many people's entertainment budgets.
Magic Leap has also been adamant that their devices are not meant for children. There's even a warning on the box that children shouldn't use the device.
The headset operates on eye movement, Hackl said, and the startup hasn't tested its use on children. When Hackl first brought her device home, (demoed to her by the same Magic Leap representative who demoed Beyoncé) she told her kids not to open the box.
"I told them, you see this? Do not touch it. This is not a toy," she said.
But watching adults try on the headset for the first time was like watching children at play. Smiles would burst on their faces, giggles would escape their lips and their hands would move to interact with their own world. Hackl herself was like a kid on Christmas morning with the headset.
From the creator side, the device allows Hackl to work, pause to answer a call or a distraction, and come back to her designs in the headset.
In comparison, I also tried out the Microsoft's HoloLens for the first time. The tech is nearly three years old and instantly I was able to recognize how much heavier the headset was.
The display was also significantly smaller. In the duration of time I spent learning about dinosaurs (possibly five minutes), I felt a headache creeping on from the nose pads.
Though my immersive reality experiences are limited, I'd say the Magic Leap One's cool factor was on par with my experience at VRGluv. If you have a chance to test one of these devices out, I highly recommend it.
