Mixed Reality and users’ mixed feelings surrounding it

For many years now, Virtual Reality (VR) has been a buzzword among tech communities. Over the years, it has led the way for Augmented Reality (AR), a new technology that enhances users' reality by introducing digital objects to it. Based on the possibilities both AR and VR can unleash, tech moguls see these as indispensable parts of the future. A combination of these gives us Mixed Reality (MR), where one can play a video game virtually, grab his/her coffee in real life, and throw that coffee on someone in that virtual game. The world saw this technology at play in February when Microsoft hosted their Ignite digital conference through holoportation, a technology that uses 3D technology to create lifelike images of everything into a virtual world.

What is Mixed Reality (MR)?

MR is a step ahead of Augmented Reality. It creates a world where one can see the physical and virtual worlds interact. According to Microsoft, MR can leverage two mechanisms. Holographic instruments can create digital projections and place them in a real environment. Holographic headsets can have features like see-through displays containing digital content. Immersive devices, on the contrary, can take objects from the real world and replace them with their digital counterparts. Immersive headsets or VR glasses can modify a person's view of the physical world and put only the digital one in his/her view.

Apple's upcoming MR headset gets the industry buzzing

Although holographic and immersive devices use two different technologies, companies like Apple are working on devices that can leverage a mixture of both these technologies. Based on a research note by Ming-Chi Kuo, an Apple analyst, the company's awaited MR headset could weigh less than 150 grams. This weight makes the device lighter than its competitors like Oculus Quest 2 (503 grams), Microsoft HoloLens (645 grams), and Valve Index (809 grams). However, users have to wait for the headsets to hit the market until 2022 at least, as reported by Bloomberg.

The reality

As promising as everything sounds so far, the reality in 2021 is that consumers are still not quite interested in MR. Some of it has to do with the need for a massive transition from mobile or reinventing being mobile altogether. Giants like Facebook and Apple have been working on getting MR products into the real world. However, problems persist in introducing MR as hardware, existing platforms, and developer skills are not ready, and users are still not sure yet if they want it.