The Magic Leap 2 isn’t a revolution, but it’s a visible improvement

I am looking at a mountain range projected on a table. The mountain range is not part of a game or art project. I can't touch it like a real object. It glitched a little when I moved, thanks to some still-in-progress software. The Magic Leap 2 is a high-end augmented reality headset that will be launched later this year. The scene is remarkable because I can see all of it at once.

Magic Leap has spent years trying to get back to Earth, even though it was once known for its big promises. It laid off a large portion of its workforce in 2020 and scrapped its mass-market plan to focus on healthcare, manufacturing, and defense. The Magic Leap 2 is supposed to cement its presence in those industries. The company's future is still uncertain. Based on a limited demo of a version with complete hardware and in-development software, it is launching a genuinely improved second-generation device including a markedly better field of view.

The Magic Leap 2 includes a pair of goggles wired to a puck-like computer that you can hang from a shoulder strap or clip on a belt. Light from small LCOS displays is reflected through goggles into your surroundings. They are doing it in a package. The original Magic Leap weighed in at 316 grams, which was already svelte compared to the 566 grams of the Microsoft HoloLens 2. It fit me more easily and firmly than almost any other smart glasses I have tried, even though it is far from the full workday.

The Magic Leap 2's simple motion-control remote won't have a dramatic design change, but the company has made a significant change. The Magic Leap 1 tracked its controllers. Magic Leap has switched to optical tracking because of problems using magnetic sensors around industrial equipment. I didn't get to try any complex object manipulation, but the remote feels functional enough for a simple point-and-click interface. It's hard to judge hardware performance from a rough prototype app, but I checked out an extremely unofficial Magic Leap Beat Saber clone.

35 of Magic Leap's enterprise customers are testing the Magic Leap 2 ahead of its release in the third quarter of 2022. The device's long-running tradeoffs are not mitigated by it. It means you're walking around with a long wire attached to an odd-looking computer, but it makes the headset lighter and more comfortable than the self-contained HoloLens, for instance. This isn't a major issue for current customers, who use the device for things like training simulations and medical diagnoses, but it shows the limitations of high-end augmented reality headsets.

The Magic Leap 2's holograms look great in the demo room. The images are a bit transparent, but they are crisp and vivid, and the text is easy to read. A new feature can make them stand out against the real world by dimming parts of your vision to near-darkness, but I had to strain to identify other objects while using it. I didn't check out any blends of real and virtual space, but objects stayed pinned to one place in a way that consumer headsets like the Nreal Light can't manage. The Magic Leap 2 is more expensive than the Magic Leap 1, which starts at $2,295.

On the flip side, both generations of Magic Leap headset use dark glasses that dim your vision and make you look like you are wearing giant sunglasses indoors. Magic Leap is experimenting with solutions, but this may not change any time soon. I don't know when that would be.

Magic Leap used to promise a secret sauce that would make its headset completely different from the competition. The Magic Leap 2 scraps a system meant to mimic multiple focal distances, one of its few really unique selling points. Johnson doesn't rule out the possibility of bringing it back, but she says it was a worthwhile tradeoff to reduce the glasses size. The most exciting feature of the headset is its field of view.

The field of view on the Magic Leap 2 is 70 degrees, compared to 50 degrees on its predecessor. That is a fraction of humans, and it is smaller than the standard for a virtual reality headset. The field of view of the Magic Leap 2 is not as bad as the first Magic Leap or the comparable HoloLens 2, where holograms can be truncated with small head movements and leave the impression of looking through a window.

There is a window on the Magic Leap 2. It is less likely that a virtual object will exceed its size because it is taller. The headset's goggle-like rim obscures some of your peripheral vision, making it seem like there is a physical object and not a digital limitation blocking your view.

Magic Leap envisions making a pair of self-contained, normal-looking glasses for a mass market, and Johnson speculated about the possibility of augmented reality contact lenses. She doesn't think there's a chance of releasing one any time soon. Magic Leap's long-term goal is getting acquired by another company. Magic Leap has been focused on the launch of the Magic Leap 2, addressing the possibility of an acquisition. She says that a successful launch opens up a lot of opportunities.

Magic Leap will have to build a sustainable business if it isn't acquired. I think there is enough interest in all three areas where any one of them could actually be, and that's why I think it's a viable short-term goal for Magic Leap. It is taking a leap of faith beyond that.