Eric Ravenscraft
Magic Leap’s upcoming mixed reality headset has been hyped up for years, but now it’s finally on sale. As long as you live in six specific cities. And don’t mind someone coming to your house to set it up.
The mixed reality headset, dubbed the Magic Leap One, overlays 3D graphics on top of the real world, letting your games play off of your coffee table, or showing informative displays hovering in your office. To dramatically over-embellish, the headset could turn your home into Tony Stark’s workshop.
Except, we shouldn’t embellish because the company’s done a fine job of that on its own. While the product has been getting demos and hype in the tech press for years, it’s always felt like it was “just a few months” away. If it feels like marketing run amok, most of the company quietly agreed. Still, it’s here now. For $2,300 you can be an early, early adopter for the headset (and an extra $500 gets you the developer package, if you plan to make games for it).
But there’s one small catch. And it’s a big one. Every Magic Leap One comes with free delivery, that will be carried out by Enjoy, a company that not only brings the product to your door and helps you set it up. In this case, Enjoy will also help make sure the headset fits your head, and they will walk you through your first experience with the headset.
While free delivery sounds nice, the idea of having someone set up your tech for you and explain it to you before you get to use it is a little uncomfortable. Moreover, this service seems mandatory. When going through the checkout process, we couldn’t find a way to opt out of it. If you only want a package shipped to your door, you’re out of luck. Worse yet, you have to schedule an appointment for the delivery. It’s all the fun of VR mixed with the reality of waiting for the cable guy to show up!
Possibly due to this unique, required delivery service, the Magic Leap One is only available to order if you live in Chicago, LA, Miami, New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. If you’re not in one of those six cities, you’re out of luck.
On its own, the Magic Leap headset looks pretty interesting and we’re eager to see what developers can do with it. But if you want to be one of the early adopters, you have a few tough hurdles to get over. You have to live in the right city, have $2,300 to spare, and if you manage to meet both of those requirements, you still have to bring yourself to let another living human into your own home.
Source: Magic Leap via Engadget
