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Comment by dsernst | Hacker News Reader

I use it every day, approx ~95% of the days since it launched over 2 years ago. Many hours a day. Far and away my biggest use-case is connecting it to my laptop for gigantic (private) movie theater-sized screen.

Getting it comfortable was the most important step. The 6-months-old DualKnit band is really great for making it a lot more comfortable. An open face mod (eg $10 Macally on amazon) helps a lot with eye breathability, and restoring peripheral vision.

Also really great for being able to work well from anywhere.

Sad that so many people are sleeping on it, but what can you do? Check out r/VisionPro for tons of people that love theirs and use them constantly.

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I wanted to use mine for movies, but cant. The internal reflections or lens flare or whatever ruin it.

Anytime part of the screen is dark and part is bright I get annoying reflections that I can't tolerate. Takes me right out of the film. That said the few 3d movies they have in 4k are amazing during the scenes that arent all dorked up due to the reflections.

Maybe its because I use the prescription inserts, but they're the official ones and it's blurry without them.

Also the battery stopped holding enough charge to get through a full film within a month or two and the replacement was two hundred dollars. I wouldn't resent it if I ever needed a battery, but I had to spring for it even though it stays plugged in the entire time I use. The stupid useless brick is required for it to turn on and it won't even allow pass-through when the cells go.

I see some deeply enthusiastic comments like this whenever it’s mentioned. I wonder how much lack of adoption is simply lack of awareness. Apple needs to find ways to make experimenting with it, and experiencing specific use cases, more approachable. I’m not going to go to the Apple Store to try it — I don’t care enough. Maybe one day I’ll happen to do that, but I’ve got enough social anxiety (which is a low amount!) to not want to ask someone in a busy Apple Store to let me strap the VR goggles to my face for 30 minutes of experimenting with a code editor.

Idk if there’s an easy solution to this — maybe shared setups distributed to WeWork type spaces or something… but I suspect it’s the main barrier to adoption, assuming even just 10% of developers would share the same experience as you when they try it for the first time. (Or maybe there’s also a learning curve where it sucks on first experience, and your body gets used to it only after some prolonged usage?)

The biggest barrier to adoption is of course the price. To pay $3,500+ I'd better be damn sure I will use it every day, and even though I did the 30 min demo I still have no idea if it would be tolerable for longer periods.

I've said before and I'll say it again, Apple/Meta need to have rental stands in major airports so I can rent a Vision Pro or Meta Quest for my cross-country flights. That would be a huge way to "try before you buy" !

Huge way to get pink eye as well :P

I agree that the price is the barrier. If it was around $1k I would MAYBE think about buying one. I'm curious to see what the newer Valve headset retails at, even though that's more for play than for work.

Do you wear glasses and do you have the prescription inserts for the AVP? I have a very mild prescription, no inserts, and I find text in the AVP to be distractingly blurry. Enough so that I’ve never been able to use the virtual monitor for more than a few minutes at a time.

For context, I have no problem using external monitors without my glasses. The only downside is very tired eyes at the end of a workday, but I can read text just fine.

No glasses or prescription, sorry.

Have you tried w/ contact lenses? I've seen that work well for friends when they try them out.

Using contacts has been better (for me) than the Zeiss inserts in terms of hand tracking and eye tracking accuracy. Often, I need to run a calibration step if changing between them, otherwise gaze typically targets the item below what I’m looking at, which is great for identifying one might have anger issues to resolve.

I have the inserts, they work great. I find using the Vision Pro as a monitor less fatiguing than using a regular monitor with glasses. I think it’s because the Vision Pro Display is optically several feet away due to lens trickery, and focusing on further away things is better for eye fatigue.

When I bought one they had "reader" lenses that were not prescription, they did well enough. I use 2.0 diopter reading glasses otherwise from Costco.

I have a moderate prescription so putting on Vision Pro improves my vision compared to unaided eyesight ;) It would definitely not prefer it to my Studio Display but it does the job when I don't have it.

While great for travel coding, the faff of battery + cable would have been more elegant as one cable plugged into the laptop; it can be an embarrassing rats nest.

Xcode 27’s Device Hub now allows interacting with nearby dev devices (a bit better than Android Studio’s implementation). Super convenient change that makes it practical to do more things while in the recliner / VP.

Yep. The lack of a video input killed the thing for me, and, I suspect, thousands of other people. All it needed was a USB-C jack for power and video over DisplayPort.

This could have been a great device for gamers, 3-D modelers, drone pilots, cinematographers... but Apple's fear of I/O ruined it.

The problem is if the power cable comes out the machine cuts off and you are in complete darkness. Having a locking cable makes a lot of sense.

The input port could have been on the puck though. And it can switch to showing the surrounding environment when input is lost.

Not sure if that was intended to reply to my comment, but I never objected to having a locking cable.

For others curious about the open face mod, apparently it's this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/comments/1t37xvi/psa_you_...

Have you used XR glasses (e.g., from Rokid or Viture)? If so, how do they compare for that use case?

I tried on the Xreal for 3 minutes when I met someone with them at a party. They were cool but noticeably a lot less bright.

Similarly I tried the original HoloLens, many many years ago (2016?), with the similar waveguide technology. It was outside, at night, so relatively easy to see, albeit with jarringly tight field of view.

Without a doubt I'm excited about lightweight AR glasses that I can wear in public. My non-expert opinion is we're still a few years away.

In the meantime, I love my Apple goggles. For home usage only, and not when guests come over. Going open face (no lightshield) makes them feel a lot more like magic AR glasses, with the ~95% accurate passthrough.

I have AVP and Xreals amongst other things, and the Xreals definitely get brighter in my moderately shaded living room.

But also not really a surprise given the difference in optics.

> Without a doubt I'm excited about lightweight AR glasses that I can wear in public. My non-expert opinion is we're still a few years away.

Not the same type of AR, but the Even G2 look very promising. Can't use them as an external screen, they're more of an assistant with notes, live translate, app ecosystem, etc. I imagine they might be useful as a moving teleprompter.

I own a pair of the Even G2s (with a prescription) plus the R1 ring - they started out a bit limited, but they recently added an app store for developers to create HUD applications for which has been fun.

They get a B+ as daily glasses, but if more than one of the "killer features" (e.g. teleprompter, conversate, live translate) really gets your attention they are worth it.

For $3500 you could buy yourself an 85" - 98" 4k screen instead.

Where do I get the living room to match,

and can I put both into your plane seat if I’m next to you? =]

I'm not sleeping on it, I know how good it is. It costs $3500.

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