Magic Leap’s prototype hardware is essentially a backpack as a leaked image appears to reveal what the company has been working on for quite some time. The interesting bit of hardware is laid bare, with a simple clear casing allowing viewers to see the guts powering the Magic Leap visor that’s attached by a thick cable. The board sports a massive set of heat sinks in the center, sitting on top of what is likely to be be the CPU or GPU for the device, or perhaps both, packed tightly together or in a single, integrated unit. Interestingly, there appears to be a USB port on the side of the board, though the photograph provided is a tad on the blurry side once zoomed in. For all intents and purposes, what we’re looking at here is a specially-made desktop PC, not unlike recent VR backpack PC’s from the likes of HP, but tightly integrated with Magic Leap’s special hardware and software. A large battery pack can be seen in the wearer’s left hand.
A report that came with the prototype alleges that the design of the device has changed significantly since this prototype. If the hardware is mostly ready and Magic Leap is working on finalizing a consumer design, this would nicely corroborate previous reports that the hardware will be ready to hit the streets soon. The leaker who delivered the prototype hardware referred to it as “PEQ0”, with the “PEQ” designation reportedly meaning prototype. Given the 0 numeration, this could mean that this prototype is the very first one produced, or at least the initial design for prototyping; this would make sense, given the clear board and expandable port layout.
According to Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz in an internal email that was also leaked out, the most recent prototype is the PEQ0b, a third generation model. Abovitz said that production still has to run through PEQ1 through PEQ5, though he may have only used that numbering to demonstrate how much design work needs to be done. The email goes on to say that Abovitz will soon be publicly demoing a new design prototype of the Magic Leap hardware, which will sport a much smaller design, as well as belt straps instead of the backpack seen in this prototype.
