Magic Leap 1 AR headsets will “cease to function” from 31 December 2024, the company announced.
Magic Leap sent an email to all customers containing the following:
As such, we are announcing that Magic Leap 1 end of life date will be December 31, 2024. Magic Leap 1 is no longer available for purchase, but will continue to be supported through December 31, 2024 as follows:
• OS Updates: Magic Leap will only address outages that impact core functionality (as determined by Magic Leap) until December 31, 2024.
• Customer Care will continue to offer Magic Leap 1 product troubleshooting assistance through December 31, 2024.
• Warranties: Magic Leap will continue to honor valid warranty claims under the Magic Leap 1 Warranty Policy available here.
• Cloud Services: On December 31, 2024, cloud services for Magic Leap 1 will no longer be available, core functionality will reach end-of-life and the Magic Leap 1 device and apps will cease to function.
Former Magic Leap Senior Manager Steve Lukas said on X that his understanding is that the device will cease to function due to a hardcoded cloud security check it runs every six months.
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Content for the device included avatar chat, a floating web browser, a Wayfair app for seeing how furniture might look in your room, two games made by Insomniac Games, and a Spotify background app.
But Magic Leap 1’s eye-watering $2300 price and the limitations of transparent optics (even today) meant it reportedly fell significantly short of sales expectations. Transparent AR currently provides a much smaller field of view than the opaque display systems of VR-style headsets, despite costing significantly more. And Magic Leap 1’s form factor wasn’t suitable for outdoor use, so it didn’t provide the out-of-home functionality AR glasses promise to one day like on-foot navigation, translation, and contextual information.
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The Information reported that Magic Leap’s founder, the CEO at the time, originally expected it to sell over one million units in the first year. In reality it reportedly sold just 6000 units in the first six months.
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The company today is still fully focused on enterprise. Magic Leap 2 launched last year at $3300, leapfrogging HoloLens 2 with a taller field of view, brighter displays, and unique dynamic dimming.
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Source: Magic Leap 1 Headsets Will “Cease To Function” After 2024
So after promising stuff which took years in coming and when it did was an intense and hugely expensive dissapointment, the company will now insure that the fortune you spent on junk is now really really turned into a brick.
Robin Edgar
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