Lenovo launches HoloLens competitor

https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/13/lenovo-thinkreality-ar-vr-headset-hololens-2/

by yodon • 7 years ago

124 65 7 years ago

writimov• 7 years ago

I've used a Google Glass, Oculus Rift, Cardboard VR systems and seen a demo of Oculus Rift. Is the Lenovo ThinkReality a real competitor? The market hasn't picked up VR for gaming and AR has flopped so far. How about high end systems for engineering and design. There could be a case where engineering speed and collaboration could increase from using a few of these systems at any company doing hardware design.

k__2• 7 years ago

I think VR could take off this year. The Quest and Shadow VR have reasonable price ranges.

AR headsets are still a magnitude too expensive.

keyle• 7 years ago

Still miles away from mass adoption. VR/AR is at the stage of the Apple Newton and I don't think we're at the iPhone stage yet (in relative terms).

samplatt2• 7 years ago

Could take off?

It already has. Four of my buddies that play Rocket League almost exclusively have dropped AU$300 on a headset because we showed them Beat Saber at a LAN party, and they haven't stopped playing it since.

mdorazio• 7 years ago

You're mixing AR and VR into the same bucket when the use cases are fairly different. ThinkReality is a competitor to HoloLens and Magic Leap, both of which (and this, too) are still in the dev kit / proof of concept phase. VR systems work just fine and are technically mass market ready, they just cost too much and the market for people who want to strap a heavy thing onto their face for long periods of time is smaller than a lot people expected.

Headset VR like this is indeed being evaluated mostly for non-consumer applications right now, including manual labor guidance (think mechanics and surgeons), team collaboration, and 3D design, but the price and capabilities are at least a generation away from being appealing to most companies.

AlphaWeaver2• 7 years ago

I've used the original Hololens and one of the things that stuck with me was how well-polished it was from an OS standpoint. Microsoft has worked hard on Windows Holographic and it shows.

If this device can run Windows Holographic I think this could be really great. Lenovo already works with Microsoft to run it on some of their budget AR headsets but it is unclear to me whether Microsoft will grant them permission to use it on something that's a more direct Hololens competitor. I get the impression that running their own android-based holographic OS will not be the best though.

TravHatesMe• 7 years ago

I was also impressed by the original Hololens. The hardware, however, needs some improvements. The headset was a bit heavy for long term use and the resolution of the AR image was not as good as I had expected. The software and SDK were solid; what stood out to me was the realtime spatial construction of the environment.

Paraesthetic2• 7 years ago

They probably would, I mean the whole point of Microsoft being in the hardware game is to lift the quality of their hardware partners right?

ako2• 7 years ago

I don't think AR has flopped so far, but when it's used well it's not perceived as AR.

For example, my car has a rear camera, which overlays where you are going depending on the position of the steering wheel. This is reality augmented, but since it feels so natural, nobody thinks about this as AR.

callalex• 7 years ago

I disagree that the steering guide lines on a reverse camera are AR. A key aspect of AR is that it is environment-aware. An image overlaid on a video is not actually aware of “reality” at all.

sheep-a• 7 years ago

I'm not convinced... to me AR is an environment you can interact with or it interacts with the environment. Some lines drawn on a screen. meh

closeparen• 7 years ago

The head-up display is 1940s tech [0], I don't think we can call it "AR."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-up_display#History

cameronbrown• 7 years ago

VR is growing slowly, but exponentially[0], which is a good sign that the platform is healthy.

[0]https://www.roadtovr.com/monthly-connected-vr-headsets-on-st...

in3d• 7 years ago

AR is essentially in beta. There are no consumer-oriented products and the improvements between generations are huge. Much, much too early to say it has failed.

WorldMaker4• 7 years ago

There are plenty of consumer-oriented products if you count the average phone. iOS and Android have both made big plays around AR. While it's not "goggles AR", it's also seeing a slow but steady adoption by consumers in the boring, but still important to AR handheld way.

You'll see people randomly using the measurement tools and other "boring" AR utilities all the time now, and then there are games like Ingress, Pokémon Go, and the soon to be released Harry Potter AR game, which all have rather large consumer adoption.

AR is getting so prevalent it's already "boring" or just a part of the user experience for consumers. What that means for eventual adoption of "goggles AR" for consumers is an interesting question. It's probably going to come down to form factor preferences and how many people want their main computing device to be in their pocket versus worn on their head, or how easy it is for the device to "flex" between roles as interest/necessary.

Legogris• 7 years ago

I can't speak for ThinkReality, but HoloLens (2) is definitely not intended to be an Oculus competitor but for industry applications. I'm confident that consumer-grade AR/VR for anything but enthusiasts is at least a couple of device generations away.

whamlastxmas2• 7 years ago

Can't even visit because it's trying to redirect me through some ad tracking url. Wonder if it's just me

O_H_E• 7 years ago

works fine with ublock for me

lewisj489• 7 years ago

Same

yodon• 7 years ago

you might try https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-unve...

neonate• 7 years ago

http://archive.is/grv32

whamlastxmas2• 7 years ago

Thanks

dna_polymerase• 7 years ago

The only place I see such devices are highly polished demos to show the 'capabilities of AR/VR'. I've never seen such headsets used for anything even remotely useful (not considering gaming as extremely useful). I think the AR/VR craze is just here because we have nothing really new at the moment and investors want to pour money into something.

jackbrookes2• 7 years ago

I run psychology experiments (motor control/spatial decision making) in VR and and its been a gamechanger in the last few years. Create your experiments completely in software to allow them to copied, modified, and distributed much more easily.

matthewwiese• 7 years ago

That is an absolutely fascinating application that I've never considered before. One could design all sorts of experiments, not just exclusively spatial reasoning.

Imagine allowing a class of undergraduate students to participate in a version of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment and draw their own conclusions as to potential flaws in its methodology.

Or, as a philosophy student: allow students to engage in a real life rendition of Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, where a student "competes" against his or her classmates and various versions of text generation algorithms from simple Markov chain generators, to OpenAI's GPT-2 and beyond.

netcan• 7 years ago

Interesting. Anywhere I can see more on this?

andybak3• 7 years ago

You've missed out something in between "games" and "useful".

The arts.

There's still a lot of interest (at least from where I'm standing) in VR etc as a creative medium. There's some really remarkable work being created.

germinalphrase• 7 years ago

Is there a good resource for finding such work?

I recently experienced some VR art at the Walker Art Center (museum of modern art) in Minneapolis and was decidedly underwhelmed.

thrower123• 7 years ago

Is there a market in there somewhere, or is it a whizz-bang gimmick like 3D TVs?

I've seen a lot of VR gaming, or at least, I did, approximately 18-12 months ago, but it really seems to have petered out.

garmaine2• 7 years ago

Also engineering—meaning physical engineering, not software. Think: CAD, simulations, architecture, manufacturing. You could do a virtual walk though of a factory before breaking ground, or just look at the output of a numerical simulation to get a gist of it instead of spending time writing summary tools.

When VR controllers get there you could program an industrial robot arm just by doing the activity yourself in a simulated environment.

andrey_utkin• 7 years ago

These devices are powerful enough to perform regular desktop workstation tasks. But selling general purpose wearable computers is not cool, as is not cool selling hackable mobile phones. So apparently makers will keep making sexy locked-down devices in hope it surely sells out this time. Open it up - no-no, they won't be fools to do such mistake.

Disclaimer: I have a wearable computer with head mounted display (Vufine+, ~$200) and one-handed wireless keyboard (Twiddler 3, ~$200). The rest is Raspberry Pi Zero W and a powerbank. All devices are off-the-shelf, no soldering whatsoever.

0_gravitas• 7 years ago

I'm curious, what kind of work do you do with this setup and how much mileage do you get in a day out of it (work wise, not charge wise)? If you had any issue with it that you could rectify immediately what would it be?

garmaine2• 7 years ago

No 6DOF controllers. That’s a pretty big weakness when it comes to interacting with AR objects.

taneq2• 7 years ago

I wonder how this will play out with IP, given that Lenovo has been manufacturing a Windows Mixed Reality headset using Microsoft's VR/AR tech? They'd have to tread very carefully to avoid stepping on any MS patents etc. with inside-out tracking.

Also, once again (as with Valve vs. HTC) we see the pattern playing out:

1) Platform owner develops new tech to be used on their platform, tries to foster an ecosystem

2) Third parties develop products based on the tech

3) Third parties launch competing platform because in the end, platforms are more profitable than hardware

4) Market is fragmented and we can't have nice things

yumraj2• 7 years ago

This is how it will play out:

1) MS will sue Lenovo.

2) China will threaten MS with consequences including no access to China market.

3) MS will withdraw the lawsuit and lick its wounds.

jjeaff• 7 years ago

Maybe, but China makes up a very tiny fraction of msft revenue. The only reason they would give in to threats from China would be if they believe that in the future the piracy problem in China will go away for them.

seanmcdirmid• 7 years ago

From my 9 years working in Microsoft China, I think Lenovo, Microsoft, and China all have a very good relationship. I’d be very surprised if Microsoft took action against Lenovo, I would be astounded if they went anywhere near where the Chinese government would admonish them.

nbevans• 7 years ago

I don't think Microsoft is that dumb. They have business in China that they want to protect. They will certainly have China advisors available to their board to prevent such miscalculations. And that is assuming Microsoft considers Lenovo's product as an infringement (they might not); Lenovo may have paid for whatever IP they have used - or they may have found creative ways to avoid it.

strmpnk• 7 years ago

What makes you think Microsoft intended to keep hololens-class devices manufacturing to themselves?

This could be a relationship just like PC OEMs like Lenovo already have, licensing things with a royalty. The prominence of the AR apps in windows (preinstalled in many cases) well before the hardware that Microsoft made themselves was ready for mass adoption makes it clear that they want Windows and that ecosystem to have a play in AR and VR.

We've seen hardware plays like this in the past with the Surface design which seems to have too odd of a cadence and release cycle to be purely motivated as a product offering. The design was meant to be an influence on the market, which helped windows machines remain relevant in a space where Apple sees devices like the iPad fitting.

taneq2• 7 years ago

What makes you think Microsoft intended to keep hololens-class devices manufacturing to themselves?

Nothing, but they'll be wanting HoloLens-class devices to be running Windows. This thing runs Android.

We've seen hardware plays like this in the past with the Surface design which seems to have too odd of a cadence and release cycle to be purely motivated as a product offering.

As you say, the Surface was aimed squarely at heading high end iOS devices off at the pass.

Microsoft doesn't care too much about hardware. They care a whole heckin' lot about Windows. (Just like Valve with Steam, for instance.) The hardware is ephemeral, owning the platform is where it's at.

jayd16• 7 years ago

Lenovo already makes the Mirage Solo and the Rift S 6Dof headsets. This isn't their first rodeo.

Lenovo launches HoloLens competitor

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