{"id":2071,"date":"2017-08-10T20:04:32","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T11:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/?p=2071"},"modified":"2017-08-10T20:27:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T11:27:49","slug":"playing-with-a-windows-mixed-reality-headset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/?p=2071","title":{"rendered":"Playing with a &#8220;Windows Mixed Reality Headset&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a VR nut. \u00a0I&#8217;ve scribbled about my experiences with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/?p=1951\">Vive and Rift<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/?p=1999\">FOVE<\/a>, and most recently the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/?p=2018\">Hololens<\/a>. So let&#8217;s jump into the void once again because today I received a joyous surprise! (not because I got it for free, but because in my senility I&#8217;d forgotten I&#8217;d ordered it)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/windows_mixed_reality_headset.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2072 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/windows_mixed_reality_headset-1024x744.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"454\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/windows_mixed_reality_headset-1024x744.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/windows_mixed_reality_headset-300x218.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/windows_mixed_reality_headset-768x558.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/windows_mixed_reality_headset-624x453.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/windows_mixed_reality_headset.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>About that name<\/h2>\n<p>Seriously, Microsoft? \u00a0 &#8220;Windows Mixed Reality Headset&#8221;? Not only does it not exactly roll off the tongue, but I wouldn&#8217;t even classify this thing as mixed reality. \u00a0I guess I sort of expected a tethered Hololens but this is just a normal VR headset. (I know it&#8217;s technically made by HP, but you can blame MS for the confusing\/incorrect name)<\/p>\n<p>As is the rule for VR, each company has to be annoying and create their own incompatible API, store and &#8220;Home&#8221; apps. \u00a0Microsoft is no different. \u00a0It&#8217;s sort of built right into Windows 10 &#8211; the headset comes with nothing, not even a URL to visit.<\/p>\n<p>Magically, after plugging it in, Windows pops up a thing saying &#8220;Nice headset, we&#8217;re going to install Mixed Reality Portal for you now&#8221; and there you go. \u00a0(Well, as long you&#8217;ve <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows\/uwp\/get-started\/enable-your-device-for-development\">enabled Windows developer mode<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>While both the Hololens and the WMRH are Microsoft projects and share a lot of OS features and apps, the hardware is quite different. \u00a0Let&#8217;s compare.<\/p>\n<h4>Hololens breakdown:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Inside out positional tracking (multiroom)<\/li>\n<li>Windows 10 store\/ecosystem<\/li>\n<li>Can detect hand gestures (too slow for games except chess)<\/li>\n<li>Can overlay graphics over your natural view, true holograms<\/li>\n<li>Tiny FOV for the actual rendering (1268&#215;720 per eye)<\/li>\n<li>All in one device with on-board computer, no cables<\/li>\n<li>Has a video camera<\/li>\n<li>Spendy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Windows Mixed Reality Headset breakdown:<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Inside out positional tracking (cables aren&#8217;t very long, and after tracing my room the resulting space seemed tiny, much smaller than my Vive play area, maybe my fault)<\/li>\n<li>Windows 10 store\/ecosystem<\/li>\n<li>Can&#8217;t detect hand gestures (this makes me think it&#8217;s using some kind of cut-down cameras as compared to the Hololens) \u00a0Can it even detect walls and chairs? You have to manually set your play area size, so I&#8217;m not sure.<\/li>\n<li>Can&#8217;t overlay graphics over natural view, it&#8217;s VR only<\/li>\n<li>Large FOV, better resolution than the other major VR headsets (1440&#215;1440 per eye)<\/li>\n<li>Tethered to computer, like most headsets, you&#8217;re using your computer to do the work and the headset display acts as an external monitor<\/li>\n<li>No video camera from what I could tell<\/li>\n<li>Cheap(ish) and dead easy to setup, no external cameras\/satellites to install<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Motion controllers are coming<\/h2>\n<p>So this (and the Hololens?) WILL be getting a sort of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2017\/5\/11\/15623152\/microsoft-build-windows-mixed-reality-vr-motion-controllers-announce\">budget motion controller<\/a> later &#8211; however, they will have some limitations as compared to Vive\/Rift controllers due to the tracking differences. \u00a0If the headset cameras can&#8217;t see them, they probably won&#8217;t register the movement. \u00a0So, like an app where you jump rope might not work right.<\/p>\n<p>It remains to be seen how accurate the tracking will be, I guess I&#8217;ll have to do an updated review that I get my hands on those. \u00a0(I&#8217;m using an Xbox controller right now) \u00a0Without motion controllers, VR is pretty lame.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, you can also use Cortana for voice controls, but saying &#8220;Select&#8221; each time you want to press a button is tedious at best.<\/p>\n<h2>So what can you actually do with this thing?<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173505_HoloLens.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2074 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173505_HoloLens-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173505_HoloLens-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173505_HoloLens-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173505_HoloLens-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173505_HoloLens-624x351.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173505_HoloLens.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Well.. like the Hololens, you can place &#8220;Holograms&#8221; around, except instead of your real house it has to be in a fully virtual one. How it is even a hologram? Whatever.<\/p>\n<p>You can browse the web or view the weather report in VR, but let&#8217;s be honest, after a few minutes we just want to take the headset off and use our real monitor for that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n<p>You can play games in your &#8220;home&#8221; as well. \u00a0However, the game has to specifically support this feature, the only game I have that does is Gears Of Wars 4, so I tried that.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173012_HoloLens.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2075 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173012_HoloLens-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173012_HoloLens-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173012_HoloLens-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173012_HoloLens-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173012_HoloLens-624x351.jpg 624w, https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170810_173012_HoloLens.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Well&#8230; it worked fine. I&#8217;d prefer to play non VR games on my real 3440&#215;1440 monitor though.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, you can also download VR apps from the Microsoft Store. I suspect the development process is very similar to how Hololens appdev works. \u00a0(last I checked, Unity supports it and UE4 doesn&#8217;t (at least not without plenty of hoop jumping))<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>While previously I found the Hololens to have some amazing features I don&#8217;t really see anything about this WMRH that would make me recommend it over a Vive.<\/p>\n<p>Well, I have to admit, the screen resolution bump is excellent &#8211; maybe if you were playing Elite Dangerous and didn&#8217;t need motion controllers this could be a thing. \u00a0Oh, but of course you can&#8217;t, because Elite doesn&#8217;t support the Microsoft specific VR API.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re sort of still waiting for everybody to get onboard with the\u00a0OSVR standard I guess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a VR nut. \u00a0I&#8217;ve scribbled about my experiences with the Vive and Rift, the FOVE, and most recently the Hololens. So let&#8217;s jump into the void once again because today I received a joyous surprise! (not because I got it for free, but because in my senility I&#8217;d forgotten I&#8217;d ordered it) About that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-development","category-tech-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2071"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2080,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions\/2080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedojo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}