Ask HN: Using AR/VR Smart Glasses for Productivity/Work?

[rramadass]

With Laptops like the MacBook Pro with M3 Max being as powerful as a Desktop, portability with compute and battery power seems to have been solved. The limiting factor now is the Screen size. Instead of using external monitors, has anybody gotten AR/VR glasses from companies like XReal/Viture/Rokid/RayNeo and used it for professional work (Programming/Reading/etc.)? I think this would be a killer combination for productivity.

Any experiences/advice/suggestions from folks who have such a setup? Pros and Cons?

[PaulHoule]

I have a Meta Quest 3 and have an application called

https://immersed.com/

that I can use to log into my Windows computer. It certainly works but the image quality is not as good as a good monitor. Certain keyboards can be tracked, like the Apple Magic Keyboard so they are displayed in the VR world and you can type on them like normal. Battery life is not so good. Many people (including me) find the quest 3 is not so comfortable; the "elite strap" is way better and doubles the battery life. Mine works perfectly though other people have had problems with them. I suspect better aftermarket straps are out there.

Over the Christmas break I was playing Asgard's Wrath 2, some days for about 4-5 hours, taking a lot of breaks. I'd imagine you could do the same w/ immersed but probably not much more.

I got the headset so I could make VR worlds and I have experimented a bit with WebXR. I sit in front of my desktop and edit files and use vite as a web server. By the time I put on the headset, vite has triggered a reload and I can see the updates so it's a quick development cycle.

I've thought it might be fun to do the editing with immersed but I suspect switching between that and the browser might be a hassle.

[rramadass → PaulHoule]

The Meta Quest headsets are physically quite different in design from (say for example) the XReals (https://www.xreal.com/air2/ and https://www.xreal.com/beam/). Do you feel the XReals maybe worth it?

[johito]

I have the Quest Pro. It's okaish to work, but I for sure still prefer physical screens. The resolution is not good enough yet and there is a little bit of eye strain, especially with bright backgrounds.

I would suggest for you to wait one to two weeks and then start your research again. There is a new generation of VR/AR headsets coming up that use micro oled. These have 4x the resolution of today's headsets and I think should also be easier on the eyes.

Rumors:

Apple Vision Pro releasing very soon: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bravevanda_exclusive-big-news...

Immersed Visor: https://www.visor.com/shop

There might be more devices revealed during the CES next week: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/qualcomms-newest-vrar-ch...

XReal etc are said to have a FOV that is not big enough to be comfortable. I'm pretty confident that the new gen devices will finally be it.

[rramadass → johito]

How is the experience with a keyboard? Not being a touch typist i need a good view at my keyboard too.

From what i have been able to gather it seems the XReal Air 2 Pro is able to give you 3 screens for a really good experience. See https://www.xreal.com/air2/ and https://www.xreal.com/beam/

[johito → rramadass]

The quest headsets are able to track certain supported keyboards. I have tried it and it works very precisely, no touch typing skills needed. Most apps also let you work in AR mode, where you can see the keyboard through the cameras. However, the cameras are still grainy. The next gen headsets will have this solved.

I have not tried the XReals etc because of the small FOV. I do not like turning my head a lot while working. On physical displays, one also usually only looks around with their eyes instead of turning the head. However I think the lightness and portability of the XReals has no competition as of today.