Magic Leap’s Creator Edition Augmented Reality Headset Announced for 2018

Magic Leap unveiled its first consumer product, the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition, slated for 2018. The technology that Magic Leap’s been working on tricks your brain into seeing things that aren’t there. 

Unlike augmented reality platforms like Microsoft’s Hololens and Google Glass, though, Magic Leap’s goggles beam an artificial light field directly into your eyes. The technology’s culminated in the launch of the Magic Leap One, the ninth generation Magic Leap’s AR hardware.

The device looks like a pair of sunglasses at the front, with on both sides of the glass cameras and sensors. The glasses are attached with a cable to a portable box that feeds the glasses. For example, this can be slid around a belt. The developer version is also supplied with a controller, which offers, among other things, a rounded touchpad. Precise specifications are lacking for now, but the separate box also houses a graphics card. In addition, the glasses have built-in microphones and speakers and users can use their voice, hand movements and head as well as control.

Magic Leap has received more than a billion dollars in investments, including Google, in recent years, but the unveiling of a concrete product has remained to date. According to earlier rumors, the company would have had trouble reducing the glasses to a portable size. The company declined to release pricing information, and it’s unclear when in 2018 the Creator Edition will ship.