Microsoft HoloLens

Microsoft HoloLens
Basic Info
VR/AR	Augmented reality
Type	Optical see-through head-mounted display
Subtype	Standalone AR
Platform	Windows Mixed Reality
Creator	Alex Kipman
Developer	Microsoft
Manufacturer	Microsoft
Announcement Date	January 21, 2015
Release Date	March 30, 2016 (Development Edition, United States and Canada)
Price	US$3,000 (Development Edition); US$5,000 (Commercial Suite); £2,719 / EUR 3,299 (Development Edition, UK / Europe, October 2016)
Website	Microsoft HoloLens
Versions	Development Edition, Commercial Suite
Requires	Nothing
Predecessor	None
Successor	Microsoft HoloLens 2
System
Operating System	Windows 10 (Windows Holographic); final release Windows 10 Holographic, version 1809
Chipset	Intel Atom x5-Z8100 SoC plus Microsoft Holographic Processing Unit (HPU 1.0)
CPU	Intel Atom x5-Z8100, 1.04 GHz, 4 logical processors, running 32-bit Windows (Microsoft: "Intel 32-bit architecture with TPM 2.0 support")
GPU	Integrated Intel graphics (reported as "HoloLens Graphics")
HPU	Holographic processing unit
Storage
Storage	64 GB Flash
Memory	2 GB
Display
Display	2 HD 16:9 light engines
Resolution	Holographic resolution: 2.3M total light points; 1268 x 720 per eye default and maximum rendering resolution
Pixel Density	Holographic density: over 2.5k radiants (light points per radian)
Refresh Rate	240Hz (60Hz content rate, each frame consists of four sequential colors: R-G-B-G)
Image
Field of View	About 30°H and 17.5°V (approximate; not listed in Microsoft's specifications)
Optics
Optics	See-through holographic lenses (waveguides)
IPD Range	Automatic pupillary distance calibration
Tracking
Tracking	6DOF
Rotational Tracking	Gyroscope, Magnetometer, Accelerometer
Positional Tracking	Depth Camera with 120°×120° FOV, 4 greyscale cameras
Audio
Audio	Built-in speakers, Audio 3.5mm jack
Microphone	Array of 4 microphones
Camera	2MP photo / HD video camera, depth camera, 4 greyscale cameras
Connectivity
Connectivity	WiFi, Bluetooth, Micro USB
Ports	Micro USB 2.0, 3.5mm audio jack
WiFi	Wi-Fi 802.11ac
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.1 LE
Power	Battery (2-3 hours of active use, up to 2 weeks of standby time; fully functional when charging)
Battery Capacity	16,500 mWh
Battery Life	2-3 hours of active use
Device
Weight	579g
Sensors	1 inertial measurement unit, ambient light sensor, array of 4 microphones
Input	Gaze, Gesture (air tap, bloom), Voice, HoloLens Clicker, Keyboard, Mouse
Cable Length	Wireless

Microsoft HoloLens (later called HoloLens (1st gen)) is an augmented reality headset developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Mixed Reality AR Platform incorporated with Windows 10 OS. HoloLens is an optical see-through head-mounted display, similar in form to other OHMDs (optical head-mounted displays). Unlike the Oculus Rift and other VR Devices, the eye-piece component of HoloLens is transparent and the headset requires neither PC nor smartphone. It projects high-definition (HD) virtual content, which Microsoft calls holograms, over the real world.

Microsoft announced the headset on January 21, 2015, and began shipping the US$3,000 Development Edition to developers in the United States and Canada on March 30, 2016. A Commercial Suite for businesses followed in August 2016, and sales later spread to 39 countries. Microsoft replaced it with the Microsoft HoloLens 2, announced in February 2019. The original model entered long-term servicing on November 23, 2021, and received its last monthly servicing update in December 2024; after December 10, 2024, it no longer receives security updates or technical support. In October 2024 Microsoft also discontinued HoloLens 2 without announcing a successor.

Reviewed 13 October 2026. Checked the restored Microsoft hologram quote and the cited specs, dates, prices, quotes and sources against Microsoft Learn, Microsoft blogs and the cited press articles; removed unverifiable persistence, latency and button-shape claims. About review dates.

General information

Microsoft HoloLens runs a self-contained Windows 10 computer. It features an HD 3D optical head-mounted display, spatial sound projection and sensors that allow its users to interact with AR applications through head movements, gestures and voice. Microsoft calls the rendered 3D content "holograms". In its developer documentation Microsoft explained: "The key to a great holographic experience is holograms that are light point rich, i.e. have a high holographic density, and are pinned or anchored to the world around you. To achieve this, HoloLens has been designed for optimal holographic density of 2.5K radiants. The more radiants and light points there are, the brighter and richer the holograms become."

HoloLens has various sensors, a CPU and GPU, and a custom coprocessor. Microsoft's product page stated that the headset contained "more computing power than the average laptop" and that it was passively cooled without fans. Independent inspection of a Development Edition unit later showed that the main processor is a 1.04 GHz Intel Atom x5-Z8100.

Microsoft's use of the word "hologram"

"Hologram" is Microsoft's product term. Microsoft's documentation defines holograms as "objects made of light and sound that appear in the world around you like real objects". It explains that HoloLens uses an additive display, so the light from the display is added to the light from the surroundings and black is rendered transparent. The images are not holograms in the optical sense of holography: the headset shows computer-rendered images on two see-through waveguide displays. Engadget wrote in 2017 that "a lot of the technology billed as holographic, well, isn't. Not even HoloLens", in an article about a separate Microsoft Research prototype of a true holographic near-eye display.

Announcement and release

Development

The headset was developed under the codename Project Baraboo. Wired, which was given a demonstration of a prototype in October 2014, described Alex Kipman, a Microsoft technical fellow, as its chief inventor and reported that he had been working on the device for five years, or seven counting his original pitch to the company.

Announcement

Microsoft HoloLens was announced during a Windows 10 event on January 21, 2015. TechCrunch reported that the headset was wireless, did not need to pair with a computer or a phone, and had its own CPU and GPU plus a "Holographic Processing Unit"; Microsoft promised only that it would arrive within the Windows 10 "timeframe". The same day, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced OnSight, software developed with Microsoft that lets Curiosity rover scientists work in a 3D simulation of the Martian terrain while wearing HoloLens.

On April 29, 2015, at the Build 2015 developer conference, Kipman presented HoloLens on stage with live demonstrations, including an anatomy teaching demo by Professor Mark Griswold of Case Western Reserve University. He said that "all universal Windows apps can be made to work on Windows Holographic". At the E3 2015 press conference on June 15, 2015, Microsoft showed a HoloLens version of Minecraft in which a voice command turned a game world into a 3D model on a table that the wearer could manipulate by hand.

At its Windows 10 devices event on October 6, 2015, Microsoft priced the Development Edition at US$3,000 for a first-quarter 2016 launch. Only Windows Insiders in the United States or Canada could apply, with a limit of two headsets each.

Development Edition

On February 29, 2016, Kipman announced that developer applicants would start receiving invitations to buy the Development Edition, which would ship on March 30 in the United States and Canada at a price of US$3,000. The headset shipped with the HoloLens Clicker, and Microsoft said that additional development tools, including Visual Studio projects and a HoloLens Emulator, would be released when shipments began. Microsoft announced the first launch experiences the same day.

On August 2, 2016, Microsoft made the Development Edition available to all developers and business customers in the United States and Canada with "No application required!", allowing purchases of up to five devices. It also introduced the Microsoft HoloLens Commercial Suite, which pairs the Development Edition hardware with enterprise features: kiosk mode, mobile device management, Azure Active Directory sign-in, Windows Update for Business, BitLocker encryption and secure boot, VPN access, and a private app store through the Windows Store for Business. The Commercial Suite cost US$5,000 and added a warranty.

International availability

On October 12, 2016, Microsoft opened pre-orders in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, with shipments in late November. The Development Edition cost £2,719 in the UK and EUR 3,299 in Europe; the Commercial Suite cost £4,529 and EUR 5,489. By November 2017 HoloLens was sold in ten markets (Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States), and on November 1, 2017, at Future Decoded in London, Microsoft announced 29 more European markets, bringing the total to 39 countries.

Features

Holograms (Microsoft's term) are rendered 3D objects that can be anchored onto real life locations, so that they appear to stay in place as the wearer moves; with a spatial anchor, the system can remember where a hologram was left. Microsoft's design guidance names 2 meters as the optimal viewing distance and recommends placing holograms between 1.25 m and 5 m, warning that the experience starts to degrade closer than one meter. According to the developer documentation reported by PCWorld, holograms begin to fade at about 1 meter and disappear as they approach 0.85 meters.

Spatial Mapping - scans the environment in real time to create a mesh of an X/Y/Z coordinate plane. Objects can be accurately projected into the mesh.

Spatial Audio - in-app audio comes from different directions depending on where the user is in relation to the hologram making the sound. Microsoft described this as synthesizing sound "so that you can hear holograms from anywhere in the room".

Voice Recognition - recognizes various voice commands.

Gesture Recognition - recognizes various gesture commands such as the air tap.

Gaze Recognition - HoloLens tracks the user's head gaze.

Mixed reality capture - records photos and videos that combine the camera view with rendered holograms. Mixed reality capture video was limited to three minutes per recording, and the refresh rate dropped to 30 Hz during capture.

Hardware

Review

Headset and Display

HoloLens requires neither cords nor phones. It features an optical HMD on top of a plastic ring that wraps around the head. The plastic ring has a soft foam cushion on the inside. Like other HMDs, HoloLens carries most of its weight at the front. Microsoft lists a single size with an adjustable band that fits over glasses; an adjustment wheel tightens the headband, and the visor can be rotated up while the device is worn.

The transparent displays are see-through waveguide lenses fed by two HD 16:9 light engines. In Wired's description of the prototype, light particles bounce around in the light engine, then enter the two lenses, where they ricochet between layers of blue, green and red glass before reaching the eye. Microsoft rates the display at 2.3 million total light points and a holographic density of more than 2.5k radiants (light points per radian), with automatic pupillary distance calibration. The default and maximum rendering resolution given in the developer documentation is 1268 x 720 per eye, with a minimum frame rate of 60 fps. Microsoft partner András Velvárt told PCWorld that the display runs at 240 frames per second, made of 60 frames each for red, green, blue and a second green layer.

The field of view where the holograms appear is small. Microsoft's hardware specifications do not give it in degrees; a commonly cited figure is about 30° horizontal and 17.5° vertical. In January 2016, Microsoft technical evangelist Bruce Harris compared it to a 15-inch monitor viewed from about two feet away and said that both cost and battery life contributed to that size.

Sensors

Sensors include a head tracking IMU (inertial measurement unit); a sound capture system consisting of an array of 4 microphones; an energy efficient depth camera with 120°×120° FOV, an RGB 2-megapixel photo / HD video camera and an ambient light sensor. Additionally, it has 4 greyscale environment understanding cameras that work with the depth camera to track the head, hands and the surrounding environment. AIDA64 reported photo capture at 2.4 MP (2048x1152) and video at 1.1 MP (1408x792) and 30 fps.

Processors

For processors, in addition to CPU and GPU, HoloLens possesses an HPU (holographic processing unit). The HPU is a coprocessor dedicated to integrating real world and virtually generated content. It consolidates and processes all the data from various sensors and produces a thin stream of useful information to the other processors. HPU removes the burden of handling heavy external data from the CPU and GPU, allowing them to focus on creating content. Microsoft's product page described the HPU as custom silicon that processes a large amount of data per second from the sensors, so that the headset understands gestures and where the wearer looks and maps the surroundings in real time.

Microsoft engineer Nick Baker described the HPU at the Hot Chips conference in August 2016. According to The Register, it is a custom 28 nm coprocessor made by TSMC with 24 Tensilica DSP cores arranged in 12 clusters, roughly 65 million logic gates, 8 MB of SRAM and a layer of 1 GB of low-power DDR3 RAM, in a 12 mm by 12 mm package that draws less than 10 W. Microsoft added custom instructions to Cadence's Xtensa instruction set and said the unit accelerates its algorithms "200 times faster than when in pure software".

Microsoft's own specification lists only "Intel 32-bit architecture with TPM 2.0 support". Windows Central identified the processor with AIDA64 as an Intel Atom x5-Z8100 (Airmont, 14 nm) running at 1.04 GHz with 4 logical processors; the chip is 64-bit capable, but the HoloLens operating system is 32-bit. The same readout listed 2 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage (54.09 GB available to the user), a 900 MB app memory limit and a 16,500 mWh battery.

Audio

The Spatial sound system consists of 2 small speakers located on the sides of the OHMD, sitting above the ears. Unlike headphones, these speakers do not prevent the user from hearing external sounds. Sounds can appear to come from a specific place in the room, and like the displays the speakers are additive, adding sound without blocking the surroundings.

Input and Interface

The brightness buttons sit on top of the left device arm and the volume buttons on top of the right arm. There is also a power button. These are the only physical inputs. HoloLens is largely controlled by voice, gesture and gaze along with a Bluetooth clicker.

Five battery indicator lights show the battery level in 20 percent increments and also signal start-up, charging, standby and shutdown. A Micro USB port is used for charging and for connecting to a computer, and Microsoft lists the device as "fully functional when charging".

Power and Connectivity

Microsoft specifies 2-3 hours of active use and up to 2 weeks of standby time. Before release, Bruce Harris said the battery lasted about 5.5 hours in average use and about 2.5 hours in heavy use. The included power supply is an 18 W charger that supplies 9 V at 2 A; Microsoft says a charger of at least 15 W is needed to maintain or raise the charge while the device is on.

HoloLens has Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1 LE and a Micro USB 2.0 port.

HoloLens runs universal Windows apps; Microsoft said at Build 2015 that all universal Windows apps could be made to work on Windows Holographic.

In the Box

• HoloLens Development Edition
• HoloLens Clicker (in a separate box)
• Carrying case
• Charger (18 W power supply) and Micro USB cable
• Microfiber cloth
• Nose pads
• Overhead strap

Source:

Specifications

Part	Spec
CPU	Intel 32 bit architecture with TPM 2.0 support (identified as Intel Atom x5-Z8100, 1.04 GHz)
GPU	Integrated Intel graphics ("HoloLens Graphics" in AIDA64)
HPU	Custom-built Microsoft Holographic Processing Unit (HPU 1.0)
RAM	2 GB
Storage	64 GB Flash
Display	2 HD 16:9 light engines
Optics	See-through holographic lenses (waveguides)
IPD	Automatic pupillary distance calibration
Holographic Resolution	2.3M total light points
Holographic Density	>2.5k radiants (light points per radian)
Rendering resolution	1268 x 720 per eye (default and maximum)
Field of View	About 30°H and 17.5°V (not listed in Microsoft's specifications)
Cameras	2 Mega-pixel photo / HD video camera, depth camera, 4 greyscale environment understanding cameras
Sensors	1 inertial measurement unit, ambient light sensor, 4 microphones
Tracking	6 degrees of freedom
Rotational tracking	Gyroscope, Magnetometer, Accelerometer
Positional tracking	depth camera, 4 greyscale environment understanding cameras
Audio	Built-in speakers, Audio 3.5mm jack
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Micro USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.1 LE
Power	Battery: 2-3 hours of active use, Up to 2 weeks of standby time; 16,500 mWh
Cooling	Passive (no fans)
Weight	579g
User Input	Gaze, voice, gesture
Buttons	Brightness, volume, power
OS	Windows 10 (Windows Holographic)
Safety	Conforms to the basic impact protection requirements of ANSI Z87.1, CSA Z94.3 and EN 166

Sources:

Commands

Gaze

HoloLens (1st gen) uses head gaze: the system uses the position and orientation of the head as a pointer, and a cursor shows what the user is targeting. It has no eye tracking. When performing a gesture such as an air tap, the user looks at the part of the hologram to be targeted.

Gesture

Hands must be inside a "gesture frame" that the cameras can see, roughly from nose to waist and between the shoulders.

Action	Description	Effect
Air tap	The index finger is raised to the ready position, pinched against the thumb, and raised again to release	Simulates a mouse click in a desktop environment. Activates the interactive component. On HoloLens (1st gen), it is the most common secondary input.
Tap and hold	The finger is held in the pressed position of the air tap	Used for "click and drag" interactions, such as picking up, moving or resizing a hologram
Bloom (Home/Start)	The hand is held out palm up with the fingertips together, then opened by spreading the fingers	Simulates the Windows key on a keyboard. Opens the holographic Start menu. In the 1809 update, bloom inside an app opens a Quick actions menu.

Bloom is used only on the first-generation HoloLens; HoloLens 2 replaced it with a virtual wrist icon.

Voice

Microsoft's virtual assistant Cortana is incorporated into the HoloLens. Users can interact with it with natural language commands, starting with "Hey Cortana".

Action	Effect
"Follow me"	The window follows the user, along the wall.
"Select"	Activates the hologram the user is looking at, the same as an air tap; it works even with the hands at the user's side
"Go to Start"	Opens the Start menu instead of the bloom gesture
"Adjust"	Adjusts the position of the app window being looked at
"Face me", "Bigger", "Smaller"	Turns or resizes the hologram being looked at

Input devices

HoloLens Clicker - a small clicker with a finger loop, designed specifically for HoloLens (1st gen). It is worn with the loop over the ring or middle finger, the Micro USB port facing the wrist and the thumb resting in the indentation. The clicker has a single button and an indicator light and pairs over Bluetooth. Clicker gestures are small wrist rotations: a click selects, click and hold moves or resizes holograms, and rotating the clicker while holding scrolls or zooms. It works even when the hand is outside the gesture frame, as a replacement for the air-tap gesture.

Bluetooth Mouse, Keyboard and Xbox controllers

HoloLens accepts Bluetooth keyboards and mice, and Microsoft lists the 'A' button of an Xbox controller among the commit inputs for its gaze-and-commit model.

Apps

HoloLens can project various Windows 10 Apps, programs, and browsers onto walls and other objects. One of the examples Microsoft used was Windows-like interfaces projected onto walls and furniture. Users can interact with these projections with gaze, gestures and voice commands. Pre-installed software included Microsoft Edge, Photos, Settings, the Windows Store, a Holograms app, Calibration and Learn Gestures.

Microsoft's first experiences for the Development Edition, announced on February 29, 2016:

App	Microsoft's description
HoloStudio	Lets people "create 3D in 3D" at real-world scale
Skype	"enhanced to allow people to communicate using holograms"
HoloTour	"allows people to transport to a different location and experience it like they are really there"
Fragments	"a mixed reality crime drama that unfolds in your own environment"
Young Conker	A platform game that "takes traditional platform gaming mechanics and sets them loose in your real world environment"
RoboRaid	"RoboRaid has you defending your own home against an alien invasion"
Actiongram	"a completely new holographic storytelling medium"

Other apps and projects:

SketchUp

Holo Studio - Allows the user to create 3D models used for 3D printing. In addition to gesture commands, it also accepts voice commands.

Minecraft - An Augmented reality version of Minecraft, shown at E3 2015.

Project Xray - A mixed reality shooter game, first shown in October 2015 and later released as RoboRaid.

Actiongram - Place 3D models into real world environments and record videos with them, mixing reality with digital overlays.

Microsoft highlighted community-built apps on the headset's first anniversary in March 2017, when it said more than 150 mixed reality apps were available in the Windows Store:

HoloGuide - Helps users navigate a low-visibility environment using the headset's environmental awareness and spatial sound.

HoloHear - A real-time speech-to-sign-language interpreter for deaf users.

Teomirn - Teaches piano by overlaying holographic prompts and instructions over the keys of a real piano.

Uses

Microsoft and its partners showed HoloLens in research, industry and retail applications:

• Space exploration: JPL's OnSight software uses real rover data to build a 3D simulation of the Martian environment, letting Curiosity mission scientists "walk around and explore Mars right from their offices", in the words of Mars Science Laboratory program executive Dave Lavery. For NASA's Project Sidekick, two HoloLens headsets reached the International Space Station aboard a Cygnus cargo craft that launched on December 6, 2015, after an earlier shipment was lost in a SpaceX launch failure in June 2015. Sidekick offers a Skype-based "Remote Expert Mode" and a "Procedure Mode" with animated instructions. Expedition 46 commander Scott Kelly checked out the Sidekick device in February 2016.
• Medical education: Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic showed holographic anatomy teaching at Build 2015.
• Car retail: Microsoft and Volvo Cars explored using HoloLens in car showrooms, where customers could view a car's interior and drivetrain, configure a vehicle and see it at full scale.
• Field service: In September 2016 Microsoft and thyssenkrupp announced HoloLens for thyssenkrupp's more than 24,000 elevator service technicians, for triaging service requests and hands-free remote guidance. Microsoft said that in initial trials HoloLens "reduced the average length of thyssenkrupp's service calls by 4X".
• Telepresence: At the end of March 2016, Microsoft Research showed holoportation. The video demonstration showed how multiple cameras could capture a person so that a HoloLens wearer could see a 3D version of that person. See Microsoft Holoportation.

Developer

Windows Mixed Reality is Microsoft's platform for HoloLens and other mixed reality devices in Windows 10; at the time of the HoloLens launch it was called Windows Holographic.

To develop for HoloLens, developers used a Windows 10 PC with Visual Studio (Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 or later, with Universal Windows Platform tools) and, optionally, Unity. Apps had a hard memory limit of 900 MB. Microsoft lists Unity 2019 LTS and MRTK 2 as the last known good development versions for HoloLens (1st gen), and HoloLens (1st gen) apps do not support the OpenXR API.

Tools

Unity

Visual Studio 2015

Windows SDK

Windows Device Portal

HoloLens Emulator

HoloLens Emulator allows the user to test Holographic apps on their PCs without the need of a physical HoloLens. The human and environmental inputs that would usually be read by the sensors on the HoloLens are instead simulated using the PC's keyboard, mouse or Xbox controller. Apps do not need to be modified to run on the emulator and do not detect that they are not running on a real HoloLens. The emulator runs in a Hyper-V virtual machine and needs 64-bit Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise or Education; apps for the first-generation emulator are built for the x86 platform.

Software updates and support

HoloLens shipped with Windows 10 and the Windows Holographic shell. Windows Holographic for Business, the enterprise edition unlocked by the Commercial Suite license, was first released in Windows 10, version 1607. Windows 10, version 1803 was its first feature update and added kiosk modes, multi-user sharing with Microsoft Entra ID accounts and file transfer over USB. Windows 10 Holographic, version 1809 added a Quick actions menu, Miracast projection, notifications, nearby sharing and localized Chinese and Japanese builds.

In July 2019 Microsoft said it would offer no further major OS updates for the first-generation HoloLens, leaving the October 2018 release as the final feature baseline. The device entered long-term servicing on November 23, 2021, with updates limited to issue and security fixes while keeping feature parity with version 1809. Dynamics 365 Guides dropped first-generation support after app version 600.2103.19001, released on April 1, 2021. The December 2024 update was the last monthly servicing update. After December 10, 2024, HoloLens (1st gen) devices continue to work but receive no security updates or technical support, and Microsoft offers no out-of-warranty support or exchange inventory.

Reception

Wired's Jessi Hempel, who tried a prototype in October 2014, called it "amazing" and wrote that it "amplifies the special powers that Kinect introduced, using a small fraction of the energy".

The narrow field of view was the most common criticism. In June 2015 Microsoft corporate vice president Kudo Tsunoda said that "The field of view isn't exactly final" but that he would not expect it to be "hugely, noticeably different". In a hands-on with the shipping Development Edition, PCWorld's Mark Hachman wrote that the limited view "becomes annoying when there's a large virtual object in front of you". He found the headset "surprisingly comfortable to wear", felt no nausea, and reported that it recorded almost all of his taps correctly, but criticized voice control, writing that "you literally have to watch what you say to avoid launching an app inadvertently". Windows Central, after reading out the hardware of a US$3,000 unit, wrote that "none of the HoloLens hardware is completely out of this world regarding raw specs".

Successor and discontinuation

Microsoft announced HoloLens 2 at MWC Barcelona on February 24, 2019, priced at US$3,500, saying it had "more than doubled the field of view". In November 2018 Microsoft had won a US$480 million U.S. Army contract for prototypes of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), a program later based on HoloLens 2.

On October 1, 2024, Road to VR reported that Microsoft had told enterprise partners it was ending HoloLens 2 with a "Last Time Buy", with critical security updates through December 31, 2027, and no announced successor. The same notice set December 10, 2024, as the final servicing update for the original HoloLens.

History

Date	Event
October 2014	Wired is shown a prototype under the codename Project Baraboo
January 21, 2015	Microsoft HoloLens was officially announced; JPL announces OnSight
April 29, 2015	Live stage demonstrations at the Build 2015 keynote
June 15, 2015	Minecraft for HoloLens shown at E3 2015
October 6, 2015	Development Edition priced at US$3,000; applications open to Windows Insiders in the US and Canada
February 29, 2016	Pre-order invitations and launch apps announced
March 30, 2016	Developer Edition of the HoloLens is officially released
August 2, 2016	Open sale in the US and Canada; Commercial Suite introduced
October 12, 2016	Pre-orders in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK
November 1, 2017	Expansion to 29 more European markets (39 in total)
February 24, 2019	HoloLens 2 announced
July 2019	Microsoft ends major OS updates for the first generation
November 23, 2021	HoloLens (1st gen) enters long-term servicing
December 10, 2024	End of security updates and technical support for HoloLens (1st gen)

Images

See also

• Microsoft HoloLens 2
• Windows Mixed Reality
• Holographic Processing Unit
• HoloLens Clicker
• HoloLens Emulator
• Microsoft Holoportation