A major update to Magic Leap 2 claims to improve many of the device’s core capabilities.

With all that’s happened in the XR space recently, it’s hard to believe that Magic Leap 2 has hardly been out for more than a year. The company continues to support and improve the device, including a major update released today (v1.4.0) which claims to improve a wide range of core capabilities.

Hand-tracking & Positional-tracking Improvements

The most notable, perhaps is the claimed “six times” improvement in hand-tracking accuracy, alongside a 10% reduction in latency. Although the device ships with a single controller, hand-tracking is the most accessible way to interact with the device, making this a very meaningful improvement.

Additionally, the company says the headset’s positional tracking has been improved, allowing virtual content to more convincingly stay locked to the real world. Specifically the company claims a “63% improvement on average (e.g. if the error was 2 cm when walking 2 meters, it is now 0.74 cm).”

This enhancement is thanks to “improvements in [real-time] calibration,” and the company says this could have knock-on improvements for other systems that rely on the headset’s camera tracking.

Biometric Unlocking and Authentication

The Magic Leap 2 v1.4.0 update also rolls out improvements for what the company calls “Iris ID”—an authentication method based on eye-recognition. The update allows users to unlock their headset with their uniquely recognized eye-scan, and developers can use the same system to authenticate and log-in to third-party applications.

Biometric ID is just one of many potential features that make eye-tracking a game-changer for XR devices.

Improved Casting and Capturing

Today’s update improves the headset’s ability to cast and capture what’s happening in the headset for sharing with others. Details on the exact changes are slim at the moment, with the company only noting:

  • Improves video stream sharing from the Magic Leap Hub
  • Improves the user experience for Capture
  • Removes artifacts in the third eye, improves opacity, and applies settings, across all third eye streams
  • Adds additional aspect ratio to support standard miracast resolutions

But it’s clear the company recognizes the importance of sharing the view of what’s happening in the headset. “Effective, high-quality capture capabilities are essential for educating and winning over new audiences, creating compelling content, and maximizing enterprise value,” the company says.

Developer Improvements

The update also adds a range of improvements to make it easier for developers to work with the headset. Specifically Magic Leap says it’s focused on improving debugging capabilities.

We’re introducing debugging and profiling tools that provide developers with more actionable information to test and optimize their applications and setups.

These tools support faster development of more reliable, valuable, and sophisticated AR solutions for enterprise. They will enable developers and partners to self-service their app debugging on user-build secure devices. Developers will be able to run profiling tools, decipher logs, and determine if a problem exists within the application or the OS.

Additionally, the update opens up developer access to the headset’s magnetometer—a digital compass which tells the direction the headset is facing—allowing developers and users to calibrate the heading for their specific situation. This is important for world-relative applications like AR navigation.

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You can find the full update details in the Magic Leap 2 v1.4.0 release notes here.

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Ben Lang
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."
  • Nevets

    This site has been a bit dead over the past week. Not good enough. But unlike its sister Upload VR, at least it hasn’t gagged its entire user base such that nobody interacts anymore.

    Dead this past week for sure, but not completely and self-inflictedly moribund.

    • R3ST4RT

      Interest ebs and flows in time with the hype cycles around hardware and games. This is just how the comment section on this website works.

      But yes, I agree, uploadVR putting comments behind a paywall was just stupidity in regards to engagement and community envolvement. However, in terms of moderating comments, I’m sure it’s a lot easier now lol.

      • Nevets

        Well yeah, their mods have a pretty chilled role now!

      • XRC

        Road to VR and upload VR both had active disqus community with many users posting HYS comments on both sites’ articles, you start to recognise the users

        When upload VR removed this function, it removed all this interaction, making the world seem a little smaller.

    • ViRGiN

      yeah, no steam hardware survey, no steam deck oled proving valve dont care about vr, still no contractors vr success article, still not calling out for pavlov 4 years long struggle to get onto the store.

      uploadvr is nothing more than toxic positive circlejerk and pay us! pay us! cause they arent getting enough money from sponsored ads lol

  • Nevets

    Looking forward to it! :)