Magic Leap 1 — specification and verdict
Magic Leap 1 put a 1280x960 waveguide display in front of each eye with a 50-degree diagonal window (40 horizontal by 30 vertical), driven not by the headset but by the Lightpack, a puck on a Tegra X2 with 8 GB of RAM worn on the hip. For training that window is the whole story: a work instruction or a schematic has to be authored to sit inside a 40-degree-wide box, and anything wider scrolls out of view as the trainee turns their head. The 316 g headset tracks hands and runs on Lumin OS with a 6DoF controller in the box. None of it matters now: Magic Leap ended core functionality and cloud services on 31 December 2024, so a unit bought second-hand today is not a training device.
There is no deployment path. Magic Leap stopped Lumin OS updates and Care support and shut down the cloud services the device depends on at the end of 2024, so there is no fleet management console, no enterprise licensing to buy and no vendor support line in Poland or Germany. The Magic Leap Controller and the Lightpack were part of the 2295 USD system price, and second-hand units still carry both, but neither can be provisioned. Anything still running in a lab is running unsupported, on Lumin OS builds that will never be patched.
Do not buy Magic Leap 1 for anything, at any price. It is not merely old hardware; the vendor turned off the services it needs on 31 December 2024. If you want spatial AR on a supported platform, look at Magic Leap 2 or a current standalone headset; if you want our courses, you need VR, because Lumin OS never ran Android APKs.
How it compares within its class
The axis runs from the lowest to the highest published figure among the AR — spatial devices in this catalogue. The grey tick is the median of that class.
Median for this class: 180 min, from 6 models that publish the figure.
Median for this class: $2295, from 5 models that publish the figure.
Full specification
An em dash means the manufacturer does not publish that figure.
- ManufacturerWho makes it — and who you buy support from.
- Magic Leap
- CategoryWhich kind of product this is. It decides which rows below make sense at all.
- AR — spatial
- Device typeWhere the computing happens, and therefore what you need to run it.
- AR with a compute puck
- AnnouncedThe day it was shown, which is not the day it shipped.
- 2017-12-20
- ReleasedYear the model went on sale. Older is not automatically worse in this category.
- 2018
- AvailabilityWhether you can still order it new today.
- Discontinued in 2024
- Support endsThe date the manufacturer stops supporting it. Decisive for a fleet you are about to buy.
- 2024-12-31
- DisplayHow the image is produced. "No display" is a real answer in this category, not a gap.
- Waveguide
- Eyes coveredOne eye or both. Over a full shift this is a real difference in fatigue.
- Both eyes
- Resolution per eyePixels delivered to each eye. Higher means small text and labels stay readable.
- ≈1280x960*VRcompare
- Refresh rateImages per second. Higher feels smoother and helps people prone to motion discomfort.
- ≈122 Hz*VRcompare
- Field of viewHow much of your view the image covers. Bigger is more immersive, not automatically better for work.
- ≈50° diagonal*VRcompare
- Pixel densityPixels per degree of view — the honest way to compare sharpness between a headset and a pair of glasses. Higher is sharper. Only shown where somebody published it; we never compute it ourselves.
- Pixel density: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- BrightnessIn a plant or outdoors, brightness decides legibility more than resolution does.
- Brightness: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- WeightThe device alone. Anything above roughly 150 g is felt within an hour.
- ≈316 g*VRcompare
- Visible field of viewWhat the eye actually sees through the optics, by axis.
- 40° horizontal · 30° vertical · 50° diagonal
- Rendered field of viewWhat the device draws. Never smaller than what you see.
- Rendered field of view: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Binocular overlapWhere both eyes see the same thing — this is where depth happens.
- Binocular overlap: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Average pixel densityPixels per degree across the image. More is sharper.
- Average pixel density: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Peak pixel densityThe sharpest point, usually the centre of the lens.
- Peak pixel density: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Subpixel layoutHow the coloured dots sit in a pixel. A stripe looks cleaner on text than PenTile.
- Subpixel layout: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Foveated renderingWhether detail is dropped outside where you look, to save performance.
- Foveated rendering: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Vision correctionHow somebody who wears glasses uses it, and in what dioptre range.
- Vision correction: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- DimensionsWidth, height and depth of the device itself.
- Dimensions: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Weight with strapWith the strap it ships with — the weight you actually wear.
- Weight with strap: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Head strapSoft band or a rigid one. Decides how the weight sits over an hour.
- Rigid strap with a dial
- MaterialsShell and facial interface, in the vendor’s words.
- plastic · foam
- ColoursColours the manufacturer sells it in.
- Grey
- Haptics in the headsetVibration in the headset itself, not in the controllers.
- Haptics in the headset: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- TrackingWhether content stays put in the room (6DoF), follows head rotation (3DoF) or is simply fixed.
- 6DoF (position in space)
- Tracking camerasHow many cameras it uses to know where it is.
- Tracking cameras: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Tracking rateHow often position is recalculated. Higher is steadier.
- Tracking rate: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Depth sensorA dedicated sensor for distance, on top of the cameras.
- Depth sensor: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Hand trackingWhether bare hands can operate the interface, without a controller or the phone.
- Yes
- Face trackingTracks facial expression — for avatars, not for training scenarios.
- Face tracking: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Body trackingHow much of the body the device knows about. Estimated legs are not tracked legs.
- Body tracking: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Controllers includedWhether motion controllers come in the box, or are bought separately — or the device is hands-only.
- Yes
- Controller modelThe manufacturer's own name for the controller.
- Magic Leap Controller
- Controller tracking6DoF controllers track position and rotation, so a hand reaches in space; 3DoF only point. “None” means hands only.
- 6DoF
- Finger tracking on the controllerWhether the controller senses individual fingers, and how.
- Finger tracking on the controller: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Controller inputsButtons, sticks and triggers the controller offers.
- Controller inputs: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Controller hapticsVibration feedback in the hand.
- Yes
- Controller powerDisposable cells or a built-in rechargeable — a fleet question.
- Controller power: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Controller weightOne controller, as the vendor weighs it.
- Controller weight: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Other input methodsWays in beyond controllers and bare hands.
- Other input methods: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Where it computesWhether the device computes on its own or depends on a phone, PC or belt-worn puck.
- Driven by a belt-worn puck
- ProcessorThe processor and memory inside. This is what the performance grade above is derived from.
- NVIDIA Tegra X2 (Parker SoC)
- CPUCores and clocks, where the manufacturer publishes them.
- 2x Denver 2.0 + 4x ARM Cortex-A57
- GPUThe graphics part of the chip.
- NVIDIA Pascal, 256 CUDA cores
- MemoryRAM on the device. Together with the chipset it sets how complex a scene can be.
- 8 GB
- PlatformThe platform an application is built against — and what an MDM has to speak.
- Lumin OS
- SD card slotWhether storage can be added with a card.
- SD card slot: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- BatteryRuntime as the manufacturer states it. A hot-swappable pack matters more than the figure.
- 180 min
- Battery capacity (Wh)Energy in the cell. Bigger is longer, given the same power draw.
- Battery capacity (Wh): Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Battery capacity (mAh)The same fact in the other unit vendors use. We never convert between the two.
- Battery capacity (mAh): Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Charge timeFrom empty to full. Rarely stated by the manufacturer, so it usually comes from whoever timed it.
- Charge time: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- ChargerPower of the supplied charger — it decides the charge time above.
- Charger: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- External batteryBattery on a cable or a puck instead of on the head.
- External battery: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Charging caseExtra runtime carried in the case the glasses ship with.
- Charging case: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Hot-swap batteryWhether a charged battery can replace the empty one without ending the session. This is what decides if a headset can hold an all-day training station.
- Hot-swap battery: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Third-party appsHow a third party's application reaches the device: an ordinary Android package, a vendor-only SDK, or not at all.
- Vendor SDK only
- Runs Skillsive appsOur own statement about whether Skillsive training applications run on it today.
- No
- Suitable for trainingOur judgement on whether it survives real deployment: comfort, hygiene, fleet management.
- No
- Kiosk mode / MDMVendor tooling to enrol devices, push an app and lock the headset to it. Practically required above ten devices.
- No
- Business tierAn official business tier, so devices belong to the company rather than to employees’ personal accounts.
- No
- CertificationsIndustrial certifications stated on the manufacturer's own page. Empty means unconfirmed, never "probably fine".
- Certifications: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- PortsPhysical sockets and charging contacts.
- USB Type-C
- Wi-FiThe Wi-Fi generation — it decides how well wireless streaming holds up.
- Wi-Fi 5
- BluetoothFor controllers, headphones and accessories.
- Bluetooth 4.2
- Video from a computerWhether a computer can drive it, over a cable or wirelessly.
- Video from a computer: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- AudioBuilt-in sound. Matters most where somebody has to hear a remote expert while working.
- Built-in speakers
- MicrophoneBuilt-in microphone — the other half of talking to a remote expert.
- Yes
- MicrophonesHow many. An array picks a voice out of a noisy hall; one does not.
- Microphones: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- CameraA camera is what makes a remote expert call and photo documentation possible.
- Yes
- Price bandThe band it sits in, rather than a price that goes stale.
- Enterprise
- Launch priceThe manufacturer's launch price. Fixed history, so it never goes stale.
- $2295
- Price by configurationWhat each configuration cost at launch.
- Price by configuration: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
- Price todayApproximate current net price in USD — a general figure, since these barely differ between regions once tax is stripped out. A snapshot from the date shown, not an offer.
- Price today: Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08.
Who this device is for
Nobody, in an operational sense. It is worth knowing about for museum collections, for researchers writing about waveguide optics of the 2018 generation, and for procurement teams evaluating a second-hand offer who need to be told plainly that a 2295 USD device from 2018 stopped functioning at the end of 2024.
What is missing, and what the manufacturer does not publish
Magic Leap's own product page now redirects to the end-of-life notice, so nothing on the specification is verifiable at level 1 any more: the 1280x960 per eye, the 122 Hz figure, the 316 g headset weight and the 3-hour battery all come from VRcompare and industry teardowns, not from a live manufacturer page. We could not confirm the Lightpack's separate weight, the eye-tracking implementation, the depth sensor or any certification, and no current street price exists for a device with no services behind it.
Magic Leap 1 — frequently asked questions
- Does Magic Leap 1 still work in 2026?
- No. Magic Leap ended core functionality, Lumin OS updates, Care support and the cloud services on 31 December 2024, and the company stated the device and its apps would cease to function. A second-hand Magic Leap 1 bought today is hardware without a platform behind it.
- Can Magic Leap 1 run our VR training courses?
- No. Our courses are Android VR applications and Magic Leap 1 runs Lumin OS with the Lumin SDK, not Android APKs, so there was never a deployment path even while the device was supported. It is also see-through AR with a 50-degree diagonal window, not an immersive VR headset.
- Why does Magic Leap 1 have a separate puck on a cable?
- The headset itself is only 316 g because the compute sits in the Lightpack, a disc worn on the hip that holds the Tegra X2, 8 GB of RAM and the battery good for about three hours. It keeps head weight down, but it also means every trainee is wearing a tethered pack, which is why the design did not survive into later headsets.
Compare this device
Consider these too
The nearest devices in the same class, ranked by availability and launch price — not by our opinion of them.
Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08. Manufacturer's specification
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