Magic Leap 2 enters the operating theatre

AR company Magic Leap has granted a select group of healthcare companies early access to its second-generation platform and headset, ahead of its release later this year.

Announced in a statement on its website, partners include healthtech software company SentiAR, which is developing solutions via the Magic Leap 2 platform to enable surgeons to see a real time model of a 3D heart during operations.

Another firm, SyncThink, is working with Magic Leap on clinical trials to explore uses of the new platform to help manage care for patients with balance disorders stemming from the central nervous system.

Healthcare diagnostic outfit Heru is also working with the Florida-based AR firm on a single wearable diagnostic tool with planned applications including personalised vision correction.

A fourth company, Brainlab, wants to make its mixed reality viewer software – aimed at interdisciplinary medical teams – available on Magic Leap 2.

Magic Leap claims that its new incarnation will be ‘one of the AR industry’s smallest and lightest devices built for enterprise use’ and contains critical updates that are ‘more immersive and less fatiguing for the user.’

Healthcare is one of the key sectors that Magic Leap is now focussed on after making the pivot from consumer to enterprise two years ago.

The company has struggled with mass adoption in the consumer market which CEO Peggy Johnson put down to its size and price (currently around $2,300).

However, she added that in verticals such as healthcare, manufacturing, defence, and the public sector – where workers are already used to wearing things on their eyes – it made “much more sense.”

As Johnson explained to TechInformed : “It’s a lot easier to convince a doctor training for a complex surgery to wear a headset in the operating room than to get people to put them on when they go out with friends or just to use at home.”