Ready Player Nope

Charmonium

Lifer
May 15, 2015
10,610
3,589
136
I'm waiting for augmented reality glasses with built in bone-conduction hearing aids.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
51,954
7,410
136
What is that big wire connected to?

Battery tether to get the weight off your noggin, which is not a bad idea! The headset is about 600g & the battery is about 350g:

1707143537593.png

You only get about 2 hours of battery life, however. Extra batteries are available for $200 (note that you can buy an entire Quest 2 for $250). However, they're not hot-swappable, so you have to shut down to switch batteries. For $3,500, it seems like they could have put in a small standby battery or a second power jack on the other side of the headset to allow you have to have a longer usage experience:

1707143676652.png

Apple is sneaky about hiding it in their advertisements: (it's on the other side, huzzah!)

1707143897280.png
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,935
13,931
126
www.anyf.ca
This is what I think of when I see people like that in public. Completely in their own virtual world.

Screenshot from 2024-02-05 09-37-58.png

Got to admit the tech is cool though... Google must be annoyed because they came up with this first with Google Glass but it never took off but now that Apple did it people are flocking to it. Apple has this weird way of luring people to buy pretty much anything.
 
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purbeast0

No Lifer
Sep 13, 2001
53,685
6,568
126
This is what I think of when I see people like that in public. Completely in their own virtual world.



Got to admit the tech is cool though... Google must be annoyed because they came up with this first with Google Glass but it never took off but now that Apple did it people are flocking to it. Apple has this weird way of luring people to buy pretty much anything.
Are they though?
 
Jul 27, 2020
28,173
19,203
146
I'm waiting for augmented reality glasses with built in bone-conduction hearing aids.
Do you have hearing issues? I use the HTC Vive Flow and while it's not bone conduction, the audio is pretty convincing and good for something that doesn't cover your ears. But those around you may be able to hear it, even though I couldn't when I gave it to some of my office colleagues to try out the Vive Flow.
 
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Mar 11, 2004
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Apparently the guy that did the Cybertruck stunt said the Vision Pro was off, which is actually worse, because that means he couldn't see anything at all, whereas if it was on he'd have been able to see via passthrough. I think he was just saying that so as to try to escape being charged, but hopefully someone calls that out. Also, I think the external display was on (and not showing passthrough).

But because of stunts like that, we're probably gonna end up with mandates for cameras to watch us for distracted driving. But then these could actually help people, and the Vision Pro has eye tracking built in so it could be made to bolster people driving by providing better visibility (cameras at front and rear of the vehicle let people see around corners/objects that wouldn't be possible from their normal seating position), better warnings (cars in blind spot, speeds, visibility in sunlight/darkness, etc), and improved navigation (overlays on vision instead of small screen offset as most people get navigation via their phones).
 
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Mar 11, 2004
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Battery tether to get the weight off your noggin, which is not a bad idea! The headset is about 600g & the battery is about 350g:

View attachment 93246

You only get about 2 hours of battery life, however. Extra batteries are available for $200 (note that you can buy an entire Quest 2 for $250). However, they're not hot-swappable, so you have to shut down to switch batteries. For $3,500, it seems like they could have put in a small standby battery or a second power jack on the other side of the headset to allow you have to have a longer usage experience:

View attachment 93247

Apple is sneaky about hiding it in their advertisements: (it's on the other side, huzzah!)

View attachment 93249

Its also a smaller battery than an iPhone has despite being that bulky (I think its like 3800mAh, phones have like 4000-5000mAh batteries these days). They easily could have put 3-5x the battery capacity in a box that size (can easily find powerbanks with 10,000-20,000mAh in similar size, I have one that's 20,000mAh and I think its smaller than their battery). Plus they should have put the processing in an external box so that you could upgrade it.

The external display is terrible too, especially for passthrough of your eyes, the glare on the glass makes it near impossible to see your eyes unless you're in a very dark environment (its so disparate from how Apple presents it that I think there might be a case for false advertising). And the outer glass is laminated (glass fused with plastic), making it easy to scratch (JerryRigEverything found it scratches at 2 on Mohs scale; also it can melt and I'd be willing to bet it'll discolor from exposure to sunlight/UV). It also costs $799 to replace (even if you pony up the $499 for AppleCare it costs $299). That's just the glass, not the display underneath, which is lenticular to give illusion of depth, and I bet its not cheap either.

Supposedly Apple fast tracked development of a version that doesn't have the external display, which if it also ditches that large single piece of glass, could help a lot in bringing costs down. They could further reduce costs by switching from the motorized lens adjustment (they auto adjust for IPD for instance) to a dial or something (Oculus has it on I think the Quest 1 and 3, they removed it on Quest 2 but brought it back). Also if they move the processing (at least the M series chip), they can probably make the headset thinner by putting the R1 side by side a single fan instead of layered like they have it now where the M2 and R1 chip each have a fan on them, which will lower the weight, and move a heat source elsewhere.

Oh, and that battery connector to the headset is proprietary on both ends (it is detachable pretty easily from the box even, uses a connector similar to Lightning on that end). It kinda makes sense, as they likely needed something better than USB-C, but not sure their solution is optimal.

I was seriously considering buying one, but there's just too many significant flaws for the price. I want it to basically replace my current displays (basically it could potentially replace multiple monitors, and also a projector/large TV for viewing content, all while being portable and enabling privacy).

I'm also disappointed as their spatial videos apparently record at 6.5MP resolution (not sure what framerate, I have a hunch its not even 60fps), which isn't even 4K (which is 8.3MP), so its recording at ~1/4 the resolution of the displays. I feel like it should have dual 12MP cameras placed where the eyes would be, but then it'd need much more storage as the videos would be huge. Which would've been fine if they'd offered hotswappable memory cards (or other storage options). If you do spatial videos on the iPhone they only do 1080p30 which is pathetic.
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
21,350
16,561
136
What is that big ass wire connected to?

You were closer than you thought!
apple-airpod-subwoofer-d91b.jpg
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,444
5,852
146
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