Microsoft started shipping HoloLens 2 back in November 2019, but it’s been a slow rollout to select customers. While the company says it has shipped “tens of thousands” of HoloLens 2 headset to “hundreds” of enterprise customers, it hasn’t been easy to get hands on one as a smaller company or individual. Now, Microsoft says, that’s changing.

HoloLens 2 is Microsoft’s enterprise-focused AR headset. So it makes sense that the company prioritized filling the orders of big enterprise customers before the rest (and perhaps while making some fixes to the headset’s display).

Today, some five months after the headset’s soft-ish launch, Microsoft says it’s ready to expand availability of HoloLens 2.

But you can’t go to the HoloLens site and actually order one just yet. In an email, the company said that it’s starting to reach out to those who previously signed up to be notified of the headset’s availability.

“Microsoft Store agents are connecting with everyone who submitted a form, starting with those who signed up first and working to the present. Given the unprecedented demand, this may take some time,” the email reads.

This sounds like the company still doesn’t have enough supply to offer a straightforward ordering system without risking a huge backorder, but it wants to being the process of expanding the rollout of HoloLens 2 to a broader range and type of customer. If you want to get in line, head over to the HoloLens 2 buy page and submit your inquiry.

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Microsoft has been advertising three pricing options for HoloLens 2. There’s the ‘device only’ package for $3,500, an enterprise-focused package with bundled software for $125 per user per month, and a development edition for $100 per month.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • sfmike

    Still a hunk of junk.

    • ElJefe

      have you actually used one extensively?

  • flamaest

    Oh goody, just in time for the fact that nobody cares cuz it’s too expensive for anybody to afford and the postage stamp field of view sucks.

    • It’s an enterprise device, the pricing is as expected. The field of view is serviceable, it’s about as much as you can get with current technology limitations, AR is a much harder technical challenge than VR?

      Based on my experiences with Hololens, I’m very interested to try the second generation Hololens. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cea1b9380fb182226c9ddfec73ef062d11c7ddc370f8c8f05cea72713448fb0a.jpg

      • kontis

        This industry had 2 decades of “serviceable” FOV and no one was using HMDs for anything but some research.

        I think 80 deg FOV is the threshold for HMDs having actual value for a normal user (either for entertainment or work). It’s pretty much the absolute minimum for people to just accept these devices on their faces, but still commonly regarded as “terrible” quality.

        80 deg is like an equivalent of 800 x 600 resolution for a Desktop type of interface. If you start getting lower than that the value quickly drops to zero for a lot of users.

        • Thanks for your reply. whilst I completely agree about FOV, I also appreciate the technical difficulty of augmented reality display, especially using waveguides.

          Both HL and Magic Leap (I’ve been fortunate to use both) are limited and may disappoint, with limited usability; it was enough to show me the technology is viable.

          I’ve been using VR since 1991 and it’s been painfully slow to get to where we are now – I still find my index’s FOV limited by display.

          I don’t expect to see AR as it’s been shown in movies until early to mid 2030’s, I’m under no illusions about a realistic timeframe… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b09dbd135c14a3700da3850f74975ecfb615d9d6698e476a0c73780a2448a5f.jpg

  • gothicvillas

    I hear this device is good for “spirit cooking”….

  • nice

    > “Expanding HoloLens 2 Availability”
    > But you can’t go to the HoloLens site and actually order one just yet.

    That’s literally how it has been for the last 6 months. Now they announce that they started manually looking through requests from 6 months back. This cannot be serious. It’s a joke, not what one of the biggest companies in the world should do.

  • Ardra Diva

    magic leap was doomed the day MS decided to tackle this.

  • Paul Crowley

    Is there any update on the length of the backlog?