would you mind explaining the difference between AR and mixed reality or what makes each of these devices unique from each other?

Mixed reality here means VR goggles like Oculus. You're looking at a screen inside some closed-to-the-outside-world goggles. What makes it "mixed" reality as opposed to VR is that the goggles may have an outward facing camera used such that what you see on the screen combines this camera view with some VR aspects. This isn't something that you are going to be walking down the road wearing though - it's basically a 3-D gaming headset in terms of looks.

The AR product that Apple have apparently put on hold is more like Google glass - where fundamentally is it a pair of glasses that you can see through, but with the AR component somehow projected into your field of view too. So you're basically looking at the real world with pop-up information, virtual labels on things, maybe Pokemon skooting around too.

It is a bit funny that people have come to call Video-See-Through (VST) devices MixedReality (MR) and Optical-See-Through (OST) devices AugmentedReality (AR) when Microsoft introduced the term MixedReality for Hololens only to differentiate their Hololens (which is Optical-See-Through) from other AR devices.

Augmented Reality (AR) takes an image of the real world around you (or just the real world itself through a transparent screen) and superimposes images onto it. You could be looking at a very real tree in front of you and see a virtual squirrel on it, or your actual wall and a virtual TV to help you see if it will look good there. Or just a list of your text messages in the corner of your vision. Whatever.

Mixed Reality (MR) is essentially a synonym for AR, but sometimes described as having the virtual elements interact with the real world rather than just being superimposed on top. The term appears to originate from Microsoft’s marketing for their HoloLens product and it’s just kind of stuck.

It seems like in practice it’s usually a matter of preference but you should read closer because sometimes they’re trying to distinguish some product feature from “regular” AR.

Imo the difference is how they display their images. The mixed reality headset tends to be a VR headset where its “AR” mode is just a camera passthrough to an LCD screen. AR headsets tend to beam specific images directly to the human eye

ahhh that makes sense. thank you

I think of AR (Augmented Reality) as something unobtrusive like glasses where you can see the real world just fine and digital content can be overlayed, maybe like a fancy Heads-Up Display in a car.

I think of VR as something that has no real world view, the entire thing is digital. So Meta's headsets are VR, Google Glass/Microsoft Hololens is AR.

Naturally there is some overlap, I think the ultimate set would be something that can do both, but as it stands now I don't really think it's possible to do both well.

My impression is mixed reality is a made up marketing thing. By Magic Leap in particular I think, I remember them pushing the idea.

It just means AR where the device recognises real objects. So if you pick up a a book, you can have a version of it in AR. So there’s interactions between the AR and the real world and vice versa.

That’s my impression.