HoloLens 2 Is Ending: The Best HoloLens Alternatives

In short: HoloLens 2 is no longer made. Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist stop working on 31 December 2026, and HoloLens 2 security updates end on 31 December 2027. The best HoloLens alternatives are Meta Quest 3 and 3S, Apple Vision Pro, Samsung Galaxy XR, XREAL Aura, and phones and tablets. Build once and run across devices.

If your organisation runs anything on HoloLens, the clock is now very visible. Microsoft confirmed in October 2024 that it had stopped producing HoloLens 2, with no successor. Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist reach end of support on 31 December 2026. Security updates for the device itself stop on 31 December 2027.

That's a lot of training programmes, field-service workflows, and inspection tools that need a new home. This post looks at what HoloLens got right, why moving on might be the best thing that happens to your XR roadmap, and what the hardware landscape actually looks like today.

When will HoloLens stop working?

Dynamics 365 Guides and Remote Assist stop working on 31 December 2026. HoloLens 2 itself keeps running, but Microsoft ends security updates and support on 31 December 2027.

Dates are from Microsoft's HoloLens release notes and the final feature release.

For the full timeline and a migration checklist, see our HoloLens migration page.

What did HoloLens get right?

It's worth remembering how far ahead HoloLens was. An untethered, optical see-through headset with hand tracking and spatial anchors, shipping to enterprises years before most of the industry caught up. You could see the real world directly, with your hands free, and digital content stayed where you put it.

More importantly, it proved the use cases. Guided work instructions, remote expert assistance, and hands-on training aren't speculative any more. Teams in manufacturing, healthcare, energy, and defence built real workflows on HoloLens and measured real results. That demand hasn't gone anywhere.

Why is moving on from HoloLens a good thing?

HoloLens 2 was announced in 2019, and its last feature update landed in November 2024. Since then it's had security patches and nothing else. The field of view was always narrow, the device was expensive, and every app built for it was tied to a single vendor's hardware, OS, and services. Mesh retired on 1 December 2025. Guides and Remote Assist follow on 31 December 2026.

The lesson for anyone planning their next deployment isn't "pick a better headset". It's "don't bind your application to any single headset again". The hardware cycle in XR is fast and unforgiving. The teams that come through this well will be the ones whose apps can move between devices without a rewrite.

What are the best HoloLens alternatives?

The best HoloLens alternatives today are Meta Quest 3 and 3S, Apple Vision Pro, Samsung Galaxy XR, XREAL Aura, and phones and tablets, and the right one depends on whether your team needs to see the real world directly or can work with a camera feed.

There's still no like-for-like replacement for HoloLens: an untethered, optical see-through headset built for the enterprise. Magic Leap 2 is no longer on sale either: Magic Leap ended direct sales on 31 March 2026. But the gap is closing from two directions. Video passthrough headsets have got very good, and on 28 October 2026 the first Android XR glasses arrived. Between them, the options below cover most HoloLens use cases well.

Meta Quest 3 and 3S

The most affordable way into mixed reality. Colour passthrough, hand tracking, and a huge developer ecosystem. One thing to know: Meta announced in January 2026 that it would stop selling commercial Quest SKUs, and sales ended on 20 February 2026. Horizon managed services is now free, in maintenance mode, and supported until 4 January 2030. Consumer Quest headsets can still be enrolled into enterprise MDM platforms, so fleets are still very workable, but plan your warranty and support through a reseller.

Meta's own hardware is also moving towards glasses. At Connect on 23 September 2026, Meta announced Meta VR Glasses, a device of about 100 grams with a separate compute puck, expected in spring 2027 at $1,299.99. Its Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are already on sale in the US, UK and Canada. For enterprise teams, that is another reason to build on cross-platform tools such as ViroReact and the ReactVision Editor, so your apps can follow the hardware as it moves from headsets towards glasses.

Apple Vision Pro

The highest-fidelity passthrough and displays on the market, with excellent hand and eye tracking. It's the premium option, and it fits best where visual quality matters most: design review, high-end training, and visualisation.

Samsung Galaxy XR

Samsung's Galaxy XR runs Android XR and lands between Quest and Vision Pro on price. Since 7 April 2026 it supports Android Enterprise, so IT teams can manage it with Managed Google Play, zero-touch enrolment, and the same MDM tools they use for Android phones. For organisations already standardised on Android, that's a big deal.

XREAL Aura

The closest thing yet to the HoloLens form factor. XREAL Aura launched on 28 October 2026 as the first glasses running Android XR. Like HoloLens, you look through the lenses at the real world rather than at a camera feed, with a 70 degree field of view (much wider than HoloLens 2), 6DoF tracking, and hand tracking, all in under 95 grams. The trade-off is a cable: the glasses tether to a pocket-sized compute puck running Qualcomm's new Snapdragon Reality Elite chip. Introductory pricing starts at $1,099 until the end of 2026, with orders open in the US, Canada, Korea, and Japan, and shipping from mid-November.

Aura is aimed at consumers first, so treat it as one to pilot rather than roll out across a fleet today. But it's the clearest signal yet of where hands-free AR is heading: lightweight optical see-through glasses on an open platform, managed with the same Android tooling as your phones. That's the HoloLens idea, without the HoloLens lock-in.

Phones and tablets

The most underrated HoloLens replacement is the device already in your team's pocket. ARKit and ARCore are mature, the devices are cheap, ruggedised options exist, and they're already enrolled in your MDM. For inspection, guided instructions, and remote assistance, a tablet is often the pragmatic choice, and it's where advanced features like Cloud Anchors, Geospatial Anchors, and visual positioning are strongest today.

In practice, most organisations will end up with a mix: headsets where hands-free matters, glasses where weight and comfort matter, tablets and phones everywhere else. Which brings us to the real decision.

Which HoloLens alternative for which job?

How do you avoid vendor lock-in next time?

The HoloLens era ran on Unity, MRTK, and a single target device. Moving to that same model on new hardware just resets the clock on the next shutdown. This is where we think ReactVision is a reliable alternative.

• One codebase, many devices. ViroReact renders natively on iOS (ARKit), Android (ARCore), Meta Quest (VR and passthrough mixed reality on Quest 3 and 3S), and Apple Vision Pro, from a single React Native codebase. Android XR headsets and glasses, including devices like Galaxy XR and Aura, are next on our list: when they land, they're a retarget, not a rewrite.
• No per-seat licences. ViroReact is open source under the MIT licence, with no runtime fees. Your developers don't need a seat to ship, and you're never locked into one vendor's roadmap.
• The infrastructure HoloLens apps relied on. ReactVision Spatial provides Cloud Anchors, Geospatial Anchors, co-location for shared multi-user sessions, replicated state, and asset hosting, which covers what most teams used Azure Spatial Anchors and friends for.
• Self-host when you need to. ReactVision Spatial and the ReactVision Editor run in our managed cloud or fully on-premises, and can run completely offline once deployed. For defence, healthcare, and regulated industries, that's often the deciding factor.
• Faster authoring. The ReactVision Editor is a browser-based scene editor with a built-in AI agent, so subject-matter experts can build and update content without waiting on a developer for every change.

We've pulled everything you need into one place on our HoloLens migration page: the key dates, a device-by-device comparison, what changes (and what carries over) when you move to passthrough, and a two-page migration checklist covering HoloLens 2, Dynamics 365 Guides, and Remote Assist.

How do you migrate from HoloLens? A five-step plan

If you're responsible for a HoloLens deployment, here's how we'd approach the next few months:

1. Inventory what you run and its deadlines. Anything on Guides or Remote Assist is on a 31 December 2026 clock. Custom apps have until devices stop getting security updates at the end of 2027.
2. Match devices to use cases, not the other way round. Hands-free assembly or training points to a headset or glasses. Inspection and field service often work better on a tablet.
3. Start with one app and build a proof of concept. Pick the HoloLens app your team uses most and rebuild it on ViroReact. Your 3D models, textures, training content, and domain knowledge carry over, and a proof of concept typically takes weeks, not months.
4. Test it on two form factors. Run the same build on a Quest and a tablet. It's the quickest way to prove you won't be stuck next time.
5. Decide where your data lives. Cloud is fastest to start. If you need on-premises or air-gapped, plan for it from day one.

HoloLens showed what spatial computing could do at work. The next chapter shouldn't depend on any one company's hardware. If you're planning a migration, start with our HoloLens migration guide, grab the checklist, and book a migration conversation with the team.