HoloKit is an open-source Mixed Reality (MR) toolkit that turns your smartphone into an affordable optical see-through stereoscopic augmented reality wearable designed for spatial computing enthusiasts. It aims to be the Mixed Reality equivalent of Arduino, providing a cost-effective alternative to powerful yet expensive options like Vision Pro and HoloLens.
This toolkit is ideal for hackers, designers, and artists interested in hands-on spatial computing projects, such as integrating the Internet of Things with Mixed Reality, thanks to its open-source nature. It's also a boon for university students learning mixed reality development without a large budget, and researchers seeking to customize their setup and fully leverage ARKit for immersive, multiplayer experiences. Additionally, museums and exhibitions can leverage HoloKit to provide mixed reality experiences to large audiences, benefiting from its affordability and adaptability.
HoloKit X is an optical see-through mixed reality headset, which was launched in 2022. It is an award-winning device, having received the Red Dot Design Award and the iF Design Award, and represents a premium-quality upgrade from our original invention, HoloKit 1 - a cardboard proof of concept released in 2017.
- 🥽 Ingenious Invention: We have released an optical see-through stereoscopic MR headset HoloKit X in 2022, which is an award-winning premium-quality upgrade from our original periscope-shaped invention HoloKit 1, a cardboard proof of concept released in 2017.
- 📲 Full AR Functionalities: Without reinventing the wheel, our open-source, phone-based MR headset maximizes your smartphone's existing AR functionalities, such as ARKit, 6DOF Spatial Tracking, Hand Tracking, Depth and Mesh by LiDAR, Spatial Audio, and MultipeerConnectivity.
- 💲 Accessible Immersion: With a crystal-clear 60-degree FOV optics, experience a rich, immersive mixed reality that stands as a cost-effective alternative to 20-30x pricier options like HoloLens and Magic Leap.
- 🎨 For Creators by Creators: Tailored for quick and efficient MR creative project execution, especially in multiplayer scenarios, HoloKit is the go-to tool for MR researchers, educators, and creators. See more #MadeWithHolokit works from our community.
- 🎖 Award-winning: Design of HoloKit X won Red Dot Award 2023, Product Design and Core 77 Design Award 2023 Consumer Technology and nominated for Webby Award 2023 and SXSW Innovation Awards 2023.
- Buy HoloKit X on our website or Amazon.
- Download HoloKit App to try our demos.
- Read Documentation to understand how to build a creative MR project based on HoloKit.
- Read ARFoundation-Samples to skim through the AR capabilities of your phone, consider utilizing them in MR with HoloKit.
- Access to HoloKit Unity SDK to build your first HoloKit demo.
- We created boilerplates for quickly kickstarting your MR project.
- HoloKit Unity SDK Boilerplate for simple singleplayer MR experience.
- HoloKit Colocated Multiplayer Boilerplate for co-located multiplayer experiences in fixed scenes, pre-scanning with Spectator View is required using the Immersal SDK and anchor-based colocation technology. for spontaneous scenes where pre-scanning is not required, Spectator View utilizes an on-device QR code technology for colocation.
HoloKit was invented by Botao Amber Hu and is currently maintained as an open-source project by Reality Design Lab.
Reality Design Lab is an interdisciplinary research and design lab focused on the intersection of spatial computing and programmable cryptography. Led by Botao Amber Hu, this lab prioritizes the development of embodied interactions within mixed reality and the realm of blockchain-substrated artificial life. Amber is not only a researcher and innovator in the field but also an accomplished designer and creative technologist who initiated Holo Interactive Inc., which operates the lab. His contributions have been showcased at prestigious events such as SIGGRAPH, WWW, CHI, SXSW, and TEDx, earning him recognition through numerous accolades like the CHI Best Interactivity, Red Dot Design Award, iF Design Award, Webby Awards, and Core77 Design Award. His academic background includes a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Tsinghua University and a Master's in Artificial Intelligence from Stanford University.
At the Lab, we boast a diverse team of mixed reality researchers, educators, and creators who are also the primary users of HoloKit. Our work transcends the boundaries of just hardware; we are actively engaged in exploring and forging new creative frontiers in mixed reality through the use of HoloKit. Our commitment to open-source principles for most of our groundbreaking work is driven by a desire to draw more individuals into the vast and ever-growing field of mixed reality.
- We open-sourced our explorative MR creative projects for your inspirations.
- Zuzaland, An innovative experiment aimed at constructing mixed reality monuments for the Network State, recognized and awarded at the hackathon in Zuzalu, the world’s first pop-up city founded by Vitalik Buterin.
- Becoming Bats, an experiment enabling users to mimic bats by casting their voices as ultrasound waves, which are visually transported and reflected onto real-world surfaces through mixed reality.
- Talking Olaf, a mixed reality experiment that allows users to engage in real-time conversations with Olaf, a beloved Disney character, by utilizing ChatGPT, Voice Recognition, and Artificial Voice Generation technologies.
Co-located Multiplayer represents an unique category in mixed reality scenarios. Utilizing multiple HoloKits provides a cost-effective alternative to using multiple HoloLenses in these scenarios. Moreover, Spectator View, offering a critical tool for capturing and documenting the MR experience from a third-person perspective, is also a special form of co-located multiplayer. Our team is committed to innovatively pushing the boundaries in the realm of co-located multiplayer.
- Multiplayer Onsite Fighting Arena (MOFA) is our research project focusing on co-located multiplayer MR game framework for casting magic spells, in which we explored paradigms of competitive, cooperative, asymmetric mixed reality game design strategies crossing handheld and headmounted AR devices. Awarded as the best interactivity demo in CHI 2023, honorable mention in best demo in ISMAR 2023, and awarded at Flow Hackathon.
Based on our research, we open sourced:
- Multipeer Connectivity Transport for Netcode for GameObjects is a Unity Netcode Transport plugin for Apple Multipeer Connectivity, the tech behind Apple Airdrop, which is tailored for co-located multiplayer MR game to establish the low latency local networking. A synchronized version of this plugin was also merged into Unity's Multiplayer Community Contributions. See Sample Project for kickstarting.
