Microsoft is discontinuing Windows Mixed Reality

Xepher@lemm.ee to Technology@beehaw.org – 65 points –
Microsoft is discontinuing Windows Mixed Reality
theverge.com
26

Shame, the early WMR headsets were a great non-Meta budget VR option. Loved my HP WMR and Samsung Odyssey+

I still use the HP Reverb G2 for flight sim and I'm wondering how this will effect it. The Mixed Reality app comes up just from connecting the headset to the PC and AFAIK needs to be open in order for the VR to work. I guess it'll just be deprecated and still there.

Great, unless someone reverse engineers WMR into SteamVR, my headset is going to be a paper weight "some time in the future"...

Sadly I don't think they're popular enough to let that sort of thing happen. I've seen attempts to make them work on Linux, but never to full functionality.

What does "not full functionality" mean here, no head movement or you can't use the cameras? Cus as long as I can play the games I'e got through steamvr I'm happy

There are some attempts at the Monado project if I'm not mistaken.

Support is unfortunately very limited as of writing

Position: Experimental 6DoF tracking support with external SLAM/VIO systems is upstreamed but still being worked on. Tested with RealSense D455 and Samsung Odyssey+, Reverb G2, Oculus Rift S.

Additional Notes: HMD only, no controllers. Tested: HP Reverb, HP Reverb G2, Samsung Odyssey, Lenovo Explorer, others: maybe.

Technically one could use a Vive tracker on top of the headset and use lighthouse tracking, this way it would be easy to use it with Index controllers

Yeah, but that would be a hassle, I liked the fact that most WMR headsets used inside-out tracking

I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you. I really hope Valve comes along and provides an updated non-meta vr experience.

They do, it's called SteamVR and it's good.

I meant a successor to the index. Preferably standalone. The rumoured Deckard if you will. I'd like to update my headset and I don't want to buy another meta product. While it's true that the OP was about software, it locks out a branch of hardware from being viable.

That's too bad. Apparently their holo lens was really good. But pricing it at $4000 meant most people weren't interested.

I got to play with a Hololens a bit when my brother brought one home from work. Astonishing tech.

Well that's disappointing but pretty expected. The Acer AH101-D8EY was my first VR headset. I can't imagine why it didn't catch on.

I didn't even know that was a thing 🤷

Though all I care about VR is Beat Saber on my Quest 2....

They thought they were going to sell it to the US Army as a combat HID but they were far too frail and gave people motion sickness. Additionally, to develop for it you needed to use their Windows-only dev tooling. Any serendipitous killer app was not going to happen. The product was DOA.

We attempted to use the Reverb G2 for a training sim but their equivalent of ASW wasn't up to snuff. Lots of jumping around between frames. Shame, because the display was really sharp, a good answer to the short-lived Rift S.

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary The company says Windows Mixed Reality is “deprecated and will be removed in a future release of Windows.” Microsoft first introduced Windows Mixed Reality in 2017 as part of its bid to compete with virtual reality rivals like HTC and Oculus (now owned by Meta).

Windows Mixed Reality served as a portal to games, apps, and other experiences within the VR space.

In addition to the Microsoft HoloLens, other companies, including Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, HP, and Samsung, made mixed reality headsets compatible with Microsoft’s platform.

It doesn’t look like the enterprise-focused HoloLens 2 is going anywhere for now, though, as Microsoft added a free Windows 11 upgrade and several other improvements for the $3,500 headset earlier this year.

HoloLens boss Alex Kipman left last year over allegations of sexual misconduct, and the company later cut 10,000 jobs, many of which affected the workers behind Microsoft’s mixed reality projects, including the now-discontinued AltspaceVR app.

It also started letting Quest users access Office apps and its Xbox Cloud Gaming platform through a partnership with Meta.


Saved 30% of original text. :::