Editors over at Popular Mechanics love to find new ways to put things together and take them just as easily apart. That’s probably why they named the HoloLens as one of their Breakthrough products for 2016. The award was given to Microsoft HoloLens as a result of the sheer ease-of-training afforded by the augmented reality device.
Roy Berendsohn praises the HoloLens in his write up. In fact, he even goes on about how he’s more excited about fixing someone’s leaky faucet than he is about being able to walk on Mars.
“I can foresee a day when you, our reader, calls a Popular Mechanics editor, and we talk you through that faucet replacement, or the woodworking project that we just ran in the magazine, or any other project, because we can both put on our HoloLenses and see what the other person is doing.”
As Berendsohn pointed out, it’s rough to work as a mechanic. Explaining the schematics to someone over the phone can cause so many complications when different models and outdated patterns are involved. With the HoloLens device, it’ll be a matter of walking the other party through the problem and fixing it by utilizing a pen to draw circles, motion towards parts, and talk them through it step-by-step.
Even Japan Airlines has adopted the HoloLens for training purposes. The airline actually uses augmented reality to teach their pilots in a virtual aircraft environment. Likewise, the engine mechanics have been using HoloLens to keep regular maintenance.
As one of the “best innovations of the year,” HoloLens continues to develop. We’ve seen the device ship out to select Best Buy stores where featured demos are available. If you’re interested in getting your hands on a HoloLens Dev Kit, you can also buy it from the Microsoft Store for $3,000 USD.
