I’m really interested in using HoloLens with our team, since I think it is a really neat tech. Do any of you guys have any general experiences with working with it and/or using it at events? How did you like it and how did you get started?
We have tried to use it for two years. The big snag we encountered and the reason we stopped our Hololens project is because there is no way to communicate with the device over a wired channel. It is against FRC rules to have wireless communication from your driver station to anything other than you robot, so a way to communicate over a wire is a must. The USB port inside the headset does not contain the wires for USB data, and it only acts as a way to charge the headset, meaning it doesn’t not transfer data. We also experimented with using the audio port as a way to transfer data but it did not work out due to the limited development environment. Overall, it would be a great resource if it had a wired communication method, but because of that, it would not be legal for use.
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Yea that makes sense. Have you ever considered using it for outreach/demo purposes?
We haven’t considered that, although we have worked with using PTC’s Vuforia for an AR demo.
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We have a Vuforia experience we put together from our Robot CAD - you can use a HoloLens or cell phone to view a life-sized AR version of our robot, and have the arm actuate at will!
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I used it some for my previous job. It’s really an amazing device, the technology embedded in there is incredible. It’d be great for demonstrations or using it outside an event as you wouldn’t be able to connect it to a Wi-Fi network at the event. You can pre-load environments on there and run them though, so you could place your team’s robot CAD model somewhere and let people look at it & walk around it, or something fun like that.
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Yea I think the idea of having the robot CAD in the Hololens is really cool, and it would be really enjoyable experience for visitors at outreach events. What would you say are the biggest drawbacks from using Hololens compared to other similar tech?
Unfortunately the Hololens does not meet the minimum specs of Personal Protection Equipment in section 4 of the safety manual, so it is unlikely to ever see FRC use in a live match.
I like the idea of using it for outreach though. It could really help introduce the robot to someone who has no clue what a robot is.
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Cost and availability. Get it on a HoloLens, and you’ll be able to have one person looking at it at a time (assuming you bring just one HoloLens). Get it on a phone app, and you could have dozen’s of people viewing it at a time, each from their own phone. That’s one of the nice things about Vuforia - it’s a single solution that applies to all of those platforms!
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We were one of a few teams that were loaned a HoloLens in 2017 and explicitly permitted to use it during the qualification rounds of our 2nd regional, but not eliminations. This quickly removed our incentive to move forward with the device, but it was planned to be used as a heads up display with our driver camera feed and possibly a few alignment indicators from our vision system.
We demoed our CAD on the headset and a projector on the ground at the Los Angles regional, which seemed to be a hit during practice day and as visitors flowed through the pits.
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Unfortunately the Hololens does not meet the minimum specs of Personal Protection Equipment in section 4 of the safety manual, so it is unlikely to ever see FRC use in a live match.
This is incorrect. The Hololens conforms to the restrictions of ANSI Z87.1, CSA Z94.3 and EN 166. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens/legal/health-and-safety-information Scroll down to the bottom.
Interesting. Both my team and 1418 looked, and we didn’t see it back in 2015. Perhaps it has been updated since then.
I edited my post to include the source, it says that on the very bottom question of that page
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My concern is the abysmal field of view. However, the HL2 seems to improve that, so we’ll see.
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