At Microsoft’s ‘Windows 10 devices event’ today, it was revealed that a HoloLens development kit, the company’s augmented reality headset, will be available for purchase in Q1 of 2016 for the hefty price of $3,000.

The HoloLens development kit is coming soon, albeit it with quite a price tag. A stand-alone device that can function untethered from a PC, HoloLens is arguably the most advanced augmented reality devices coming to the developer space.

microsoft hololens ar headset

Specs are still thin on the ground for HoloLens, a device that is offering a 40-degree field of view with cross-platform compatability with Windows 10 ‘universal apps’.

Microsoft still hasn’t released any info on consumer release of HoloLens, or how much they plan on reducing the price to make it more attractive to the general public—but needless to say—we’re hoping it comes down considerably.

This is story is breaking. Check back for more HoloLens related news. We’ll be updating this article as more info appears.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Curtrock

    The price of the Hololens dev kit indicates to me that Microsoft is only interested in having larger, established developer companies play with it. No hobbyist/ehthusist/indies need apply.

    • kalqlate

      Yep. That’s going to price lots of people out. Given that the stealthy Magic Leap and others will be introducing consumer AR products sometime next year as well, I think Microsoft would’ve done much better by subsidizing a good portion of the price for developers, and the loss could’ve been attributed as part of R&D. Though the hardware bits and support could very well exceed $3000, I think $850 would’ve assured a healthy developer base. I’m sure that over the next year, they’ll be working hard to engineer the price down for the consumer version. Perhaps by setting the developer kit at $3000, they’re wanting to reduce the noise of having too many hobbyists to support. We’ll see in time.

      As I’ve often observed and commented about and as you and most people already know, in terms of hours of use per day and the number of possible applications, AR will whip the pants off of VR. VR definitely has a myriad of applications that can only be done effectively in VR, but AR can change normal daily life in so many ways. For this reason, and Microsoft might have factored this in to their initial developer price, $3000 is actually a pittance to pay for entrance into a market that will dwarf that of VR significantly. Just now, my mind quickly raced through imagining several uses for AR in and around the home, so I may go ahead and accept the cost of entry and spring for a developer kit when they’re available.

      • kalqlate

        In other words, over time, VR and AR will settle into their niches: VR will become a convenience, mainly for occasional and temporary full immersion; AR will become a necessity of near all day augmentation. Years down the road–not too many, I’m sure–AR and VR will be combined into a lightweight headset and eventually into contacts, then further down the road, eventually cochlea and retina emulation interfaced wirelessly to auditory and optical nerves, respectively, via synapse-interfacing WiFi nanobots. :)

  • Don Gateley

    Priced to keep out the riff-raff. They want all the content for this to have a professional sheen.

    • kalqlate

      That service is easily performed by a curated app store. Perhaps it’s a bit of that, but my guess would be more so to limit the overbearing and unsupportable noise that would come from a large number of hobbyist developers.

  • guyal

    All the above fits the facts, but:
    – the “riff raff” have been huge drivers in the last 3 years of consumer VR
    – you can buy DK2 and Gear Innovator Edition and STEM and Leap and your choice of another half dozen dev hardware kits, for the price of 1 HL
    – riff raff can be kept out by simply reserving the right to choose who gets the first available units from what must be a very limited supply
    …so, alternate suggestion, MSFT thinks HL is years away from any real viability, so they’re keeping it very exclusive for now, to keep the marketing value for “Microsoft is an innovator” intact

    • veronkilla

      None of those (DK2, Gear Innovator Edition etc) have anywhere near the hardware complexity of the Hololens, and none of them certainly include a powerful PC (with a dGPU) built in.

      $3000 is costly, though not way out of line. Anyone expecting the consumer version of this to be as cheap as the likes of the Rift or Vive is seriously delusional.

      • guyal

        Makes sense, more costly components makes for a more costly dev kit, and ultimate consumer product, thanks. Does it follow then, with Rift already being at the high range of “consumer peripheral price” at $350, that – even if a consumer version of HL released in 2016 – there is unlikely to be a significant consumer market of HL consumer owners looking for entertainment and social VR software any time in 2016? That is, any hypothetical 2016 consumer market shouldn’t be a factor in buying the HL dev kit? Seems like a more reasonable buy for general R and D tinkering, especially in archviz.