TrainAR vs Microsoft D365 Guides
Microsoft is shutting Guides down on 31 December 2026. Where do your engineers go on 1 January?
Microsoft posted the official end-of-support notice on 14 October 2025. New subscriptions already stopped on 1 November 2025. There is no HoloLens 3, no successor product, no Microsoft-native migration path. If you're evaluating Guides in 2026, you're evaluating a product with a 7-month shelf life.
The end-of-life timeline
Direct from Microsoft's lifecycle announcement and the official HoloLens hardware exit.
Source: Microsoft Lifecycle announcement, October 2025; UploadVR / RoadtoVR / Windows Central coverage of the February 2025 hardware exit.
The 30-second answer
- You ran aerospace assembly or large-asset manufacturing
- You already lived inside Microsoft 365 + D365 Field Service
- Your operators worked stationary on a fixed asset (engine bay, CNC machine)
- £3,500 per HoloLens was a rounding error in the procurement budget
All past tense. Microsoft is retiring it.
- You run a UK trade business - gas, plumbing, electrical, HVAC
- Engineers work in customer homes, not on a factory floor
- You want lightweight glasses (~80g) not a 566g HMD
- You want a product with a future, not a 7-month sunset
Credit where it's due (past tense)
Guides was a real product with real strengths. We're not pretending otherwise. The honest critique is that Microsoft has stopped investing.
- Genuinely good spatial anchoringFor a stationary, repeatable, high-precision workflow on a fixed asset (an aircraft engine, a CNC machine), the spatially-anchored holographic step cards were excellent.
- PowerPoint-style authoring"Even a beginner with no IT experience can use them with ease" - real G2 review. The PC authoring app was approachable.
- Tight Teams + Power BI integrationIf you already ran Microsoft 365, calling a remote expert into a Guides session was seamless. Power BI analytics dashboards were more mature than most AR-training competitors.
- D365 Field Service hook-inField Service tasks could carry an attached Guide that auto-opened on the technician's HoloLens. A real flow, where it applied.
Where TrainAR wins (and why it matters now)
- A product with a futureActive development, regular releases, growing customer base. Not a 7-month support window.
- Hardware that fits the tradesINMO Air 3 / Vuzix Blade 2 weigh ~80-90g and cost a fraction of a HoloLens. Comfortable for a 6-hour day in customer homes, not a 20-minute factory demo.
- A voice agent, not a content viewerGuides showed pre-authored step cards. TrainAR has a voice agent that knows your job, your FSM data, your customer history - and can call tools (ServiceM8, Commusoft, Jobber, simPRO via MCP) live from the glasses.
- Capture-from-expert authoringNo PC + HoloLens two-app shuffle. Senior engineer wears the glasses on a real job, the procedure captures itself, AI fills the structure. Minutes not weeks.
- No Microsoft 365 / Dataverse lock-inRuns whether or not you're on Microsoft. Native to ServiceM8, Commusoft, Jobber, simPRO - the FSMs UK trades actually use.
- Per-engineer pricing, free beta, public£99 per seat per month on Professional. No "request a demo" sales gate. No five-figure floor.
Side by side
Sources: Microsoft Lifecycle announcement (October 2025), Microsoft Learn product pages, G2 reviews, official HoloLens hardware exit press (February 2025).
If you're already on D365 Guides
Three honest paths to think through.
If your operation is stable and the cost of changing during peak season is high, this is fine. But you're working towards a hard cliff, not a transition window. Plan the move by Q3 2026 at the latest.
Vendors like Altoura offer free Guides-content import to a device-agnostic platform. Best fit if you have invested heavily in authored Guides content and want to keep using HoloLens 2 for its remaining 12 months of security updates.
If your real ops are in residential trades and Guides was always a stretch fit, this is the moment. Move to lightweight glasses + voice agent + FSM-native integration. Capture procedures from your senior engineers in days, not author them on a desktop over weeks.
