At a recent talk with developers, Microsoft Technical Evangelist Bruce Harris claimed that HoloLens, the company’s augmented reality headset, will have a battery life of around 5.5 hours during normal use. When the headset is pushed to its limits, the usage time dwindles to about 2.5 hours (via The Verge).
Harris spoke about the headset at an event in Tel Aviv. In the video, he explains how the HoloLens is essentially a wearable PC.
The hololens device itself is a fully functional, wearable Windows 10 PC. So anything you can do on a Windows 10 laptop, you can do with this device. That means I can go totally disconnected, just like I can on a laptop, or I can connect to the internet and do all the things you would do on the internet. Why that’s important? It means any applications written to run on a Windows 10 platform will run natively on HoloLens.
He goes on to explain how the device can run “flat apps,” or regular desktop programs, in addition to 3D versions of those apps (if developers create them) that can be manipulated in real time.
The device is also totally wireless, using both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections. If users wanted to plug it in via an Ethernet cable, they wouldn’t be able to, as “there is no option for a wired connection on the device,” and Microsoft has “no intention to build a wired device for anybody.” Using the wireless connections, it’ll be possible to link several HoloLens devices together, so that two users could examine and manipulate the same object together in real time.
He also discusses the device’s field of view, comparing the current field of view to looking at a 15-inch monitor two feet from your face. He then explained that both the field of view, cost and battery life will improve as the manufacturing process matures. Those who had used the headset before, most noticeably at E3 last year, expressed concerns about a limited field of view.
While Harris’ talk was geared towards more general software developers, the company has also shown the device’s gaming capabilities as well, and plans to release a controller for it.
