$2,300 Magic Leap AR Headset Will Stop Working After 2024

The original Magic Leap headset may have set the stage for the Apple Vision Pro by being the first transparent AR headset sold to consumers, but the show will soon be over for the once-$2,300 product. 

On Thursday, Magic Leap sent an email to customers stating that its first headset will reach its end-of-life on Dec. 31, 2024. The product will continue to be supported until that date, with Magic Leap offering customer care and honoring warranty claims. However, the company will only address operating system outages that target what it determines as the device’s core functionality. 

The email specified that cloud services for the device will also cease on Dec. 31, and that core functionality “will reach end-of-life and the Magic Leap 1 device and apps will cease to function.” Javier Davalos, lead at Figmin XR, called the move “tragic” and said that the original Magic Leap was a “historic device.” 

The original Magic Leap was released in 2018 as the first device of its kind. It combined a transparent AR headset with a waist-mounted processor and a spatial tracking controller. It took 7 years and half a billion dollars to develop, and the headset included a web browser, avatar chat and a Wayfair app to see how furniture would look in a room. It also had a few games.

The device had a high barrier to entry, with a price of $2,300, and developers weren’t keen to create apps that would make it appealing to the average consumer. Some reviews pointed out that objects were too transparent and that the headset’s field of vision felt incomplete. It also didn’t do well in the outdoors and had a limited field of vision. Sales were abysmal, with just 6,000 units sold in the first six months after launch. The product was discounted by $1,750 last year, marking a stark contrast from when Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz told investors that the headset would sell at least one million units in its first year. 

The Magic Leap 2, which launched four years later, honed in on an enterprise audience with a better viewing experience and lighter form factor—and it got a warmer reception. The Leap 2 received an iF Gold Award and a Red Dot Design Best of the Best of 2022 Award, plus a shoutout from Time Magazine as one of the Best Inventions of 2022. It became commercially available in Sept. 2022 in the US, Canada, UK, and more. 

Magic Leap competitors like Meta and Apple continue to develop their own AR, VR and mixed-reality headsets, with the Apple Vision Pro set to be available for purchase in early 2024.