we've torn down our share of VR headsets
but now the magic leap is the first
mixed reality headset to land on our
teardown table what makes the magic leap
so magical and leap Eve we're gonna tear
it down to find out
unlike the VR headsets we've seen in the
past the magic leap is a self-contained
unit the light pack acts as the brains
of the unit and is tethered to the light
where headset which contains the cameras
sensors and speakers first things first
we crack open the light pack which packs
all the processing power for the magic
leave some tough adhesive holds it
together but some heat and strong crying
gets it apart and we're greeted with
well not much yet a glued down status
LED panel is resting above the tether
cable which is screwed in place while we
were able to get the permanent cord
connecting the light pack to the light
wire off it's pretty difficult and
probably means a damaged cord would
require a full device replacement
another layer comes out and we finally
see the motherboard connected by a few
cables the motherboard sits on a
heatsink and even has a small fan on the
underside with all the processing power
that's packed into the light pack it
makes some sense to see this level of
thermal management speaking of
processing power let's see what's on
that board right in the center we spot
the NVIDIA Tegra x2 Parker system on
chip that includes the NVIDIA Pascal GPU
we also spy the eight gigabytes of
Samsung made lpddr4 DRAM and on the
other side of the board 128 gigabytes of
Toshiba made NAND Universal flash
storage the lower portion of the light
Pak is home to the battery which keeps
the magic leap running this is a thirty
six point seven seven watt our three
point eight three volt battery which
puts it squarely in the range of some
popular tablets like the surface CO and
the iPad 6 with the light Pak hollowed
out we get working on the litewear
headset the headset has four pads that
are clipped in place and below those our
panels secured by some standard Torx
screws there are four panels in total
two of which are home to the speakers
after removing the fit customization
pieces which are held in place by
magnets we turn our attention to the
many sensors on the magically starting
with the mysterious box that hangs off
the right side of the headset this box
contains an e/m sensor used for position
tracking for the todo controller
magnetic tracking relies on those three
copper coils forming three perpendicular
magnetic fields then the fields
intensity in relation to the totem is
measured to determine the position and
orientation of the totem relative to the
pencil separating the faceplate from the
lens assembly requires removing some
screws but then we get our first
close-up look at the lenses each lens
has four infrared LEDs used for eye
tracking and a stacked waveguide panel
also known as the photonic light field
chip which is glued to the lens on the
front side of the lenses we find a
grouping of cameras and IR sensors that
are visible from the front of the
headset and underneath those we find a
rainbow mystery this colourful window is
actually the optical system for
injecting two sets of red green and blue
image light into the defective waveguide
with each of the two sets handling a
different focus plan the bright colors
on top are not indicative of specific
color channels but rather result from
ambient light reflecting off the
diffraction gratings at an angle so what
does this all mean and how does the
magic leave actually work so there are
two sets of RGB LEDs that generate light
that light is directed onto a liquid
crystal on silicon display that reflects
the light based on wavelength to form
and project an image next a series of
lenses focuses that image into a
waveguide which is really just a fancy
name for a structure that guides light
in a different direction and then the
waveguide directs the image into the
users eye allowing the user to perceive
that image as an object in space we've
come to the end of our magical teardown
which means it's time to talk
repairability the magic we've scored a 3
out of 10 and here's why on the upside
the speakers are easy to remove and
replace with just a single screw driver
the threaded fasteners are all of the
standard torques and Phillips variety
this assembly is non-destructive on
paper anyway but with this much glue in
this mini fragile components you'd
better have buckets of patience and a
very steady hand but on the downside the
battery is only replaceable if you're
willing to remove the motherboard and
tiptoe your way past several intense
glue barriers and finally there's no
upgrade path for any of the optics or
processor which is slightly
disappointing considering it's a twenty
three hundred dollar piece of gear there
was so much cool tech inside the magic
leap you have to go check out our step
by step teardown we've linked it in the
description below see you next time