It's easy and convenient to snake a power cable down my shirt and into my pocket -- I do this all the time with my corded headphones to keep the wire out of the way.
I agree that it doesn't seem very "Apple" in that it's not a sexy solution, but there may be real physical constraints to battery size here that are not surmountable without a giant breakthrough in battery technology (that would probably be bigger news than anything VR related).
It's just really bizarre to read about. Its very possible that Apple is working on a headset, but these rumors just don't sound like something they'd do.
Moving some of the heft to a separate module is one way to cheat and get both of those things. It's a 3rd tradeoff.
When you used wired VR in the past, was it tethered to a stationary computer? If so, then this is different at least because you're not tied to any specific spot in the room.
All that said, I agree that it's very "un-Apple-like" to have a clunky two-piece solution. But it might be a stepping stone solution to show what's possible with a lithe-but-powerful headset.
Like the dozens of headsets without batteries that preceded them? I think Apple has a shot at delivering a decent tethered VR experience or a decent standalone experience but not both. If they try chasing this $3,000 'worst of both worlds' solution, they'll never move more units than Oculus/Meta has (over 10 million to-date).
I'm being generous and assuming that this is misinformation, but releasing a product like this might be their biggest head-scratcher since the upside-down Magic Mouse.
I'm imagining that the rumored product here has a small thing you clip on your waist, not a full-blown computer with an Nvidia card and fans and stuff.
Like, if the headset's "killer app" is videoconferencing, why wouldn't you use anything else? You could use the LIDAR on your iPhone, the 6DOF tracking in a $400 Oculus Quest, the much-nicer full-body tracking of a Valve Index setup... the possibilities are limitless, and this rumor purports that Apple is choosing the worst one. I just refuse to believe something like this will ship.
That's what I was thinking, and that's not what's being rumored here. It's a small battery pack, not a 2-lb mini PC or a backpack or anything like that. I'm assuming that they got the headset really light. The Quest is still over 500g, which is heavy for being strapped to your head. So imagine they targeted the headset to < 200g, and the only way they could hit that target was to take the battery and move it somewhere else. (And also charge an obscene amount of money for carbon fiber or whatnot)
I'm not going to disagree on the price points, the lack of gaming focus at first, or any of the other complaints about this strategy. It all does seem a bit weird. But I can totally see the value in taking as much weight as possible off of the head, even if that means moving it to your belt.
In contrast, a wire between two parts of the body that don't move that much in normal operation is basically effortless, and besides the knee-jerk perception "eww wires" isn't a real issue. (By "don't move that much" I mean that the movement range of the spine, the longest section of body that the wire would span, is much more limited than, say, the arms. Controllers wired to a headset would be supreme chaos, but headset wired to a belt piece is not nearly as bad)
I tried the Magic Leap at work, and the computing and battery is off-headset, attached to your pants or something with a simple wire. It did not impair usage nearly as much as, say, my HTC Vive, which has a long wire to my computer I must take care not to step on or tangle myself.
On the other hand, when going out with VR friends, the Quest users are always the first to head off, due to their batteries running low, even though the humans would be comfortable continuing to use it. So I guess a place to put more battery, or even more computing power, (though that is rather more complicated) would not be a bad idea at all.
What I don't understand is this best-of-both-worlds approach that people seem to be illustrating. If you're going to be tethered either way, why would anyone use it with the battery pack plugged in? Will the battery pack be an optional accessory altogether? Will the battery pack also have the CPU in it? Where will it plug in?
There's so many questions that just don't make sense here. Even previous shockers like the Macbook notch can be easily waived with aspect ratios and the menubar - this just makes no sense to me. Especially if they're chasing benign use-cases like office aides.
> Quest users are always the first to head off, due to their batteries running low
I'm not sure if they know this, but you can charge the Quest while using it. I use the same 20-foot USB-C cable I used for tethering and it works fine, albeit adding a bit of clunk.
Running the wire down the inside of my shirt and to my hip is completely negligible. Having a wire plugged in to a stationary device / the wall is absolutely non-negligible.
1. There will be a small battery in the headset
2. Processor can't be on your waist/pocket
Yeah, but you need a really long cable or be restricted to sitting games. Most of my friends don't have that, only a short charging cable. (They use the WiFi linking for playing PC VR games)
And the one that does have a long cable fears using it for anything where you have to turn around, because there isn't much strain relief, and a broken USB port of a Quest in Brazil is an expensive repair.
The Quest Pro is a major improvement in this regard; despite being heavier on paper, it feels much lighter because of the weight distribution.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the waist-mounted battery pack is purely for auxiliary power for extended use, which makes sense.
1. Why can't I just plug it into a Mac/Macbook instead?
2. Does this mean the battery/compute pack will be an optional add-on?
However, Mac might not have low enough latency / high enough bandwidth for best experience. My thinking is that it will be an ultra-optimized highly integrated device designed to do just AR/VR, and that's also why it can beat all competitors which interface with standard PCs. I have a very high-end VR headset and GPU, and it just isn't good enough. Apple has to make some miracles here.
Sure but not battery-less standalone headsets as far as I know. I mean obviously they have to have a battery somewhere to be standalone, but I am not aware of other standalones that have a hip battery. I am however not an expert, but anyway we know that their big competitor Meta doesn't have a hip battery so the headset could be lighter than theirs.
> why not just put the processor in your hip too
You have all these cameras that have to be in the headset, plus the screens and other basic electronic components. To put compute on the hip you have to have a high bandwidth low latency connection to the hip pack, then back up to the headset. You already have to have an interface pcb in the headset to collect and compress the data to send over this high bandwidth interface, and the cable has to be expensive, etc. Whereas sending power up a cable is trivial. It may be that when looking at all these tradeoffs, remote compute is a net loss, but remote power is easy.
I cringed at the idea of the hip-battery idea but here are two things that came to my mind when I entertained it:
- If this is a productivity device, not for dancing around, then the USB-C battery pack could be optional. The device could be plugged in via cable when you’re at your desk.
- That braided mag-safe cable feels more like a nice piece of rope. It wouldn’t have to be that shitty tangly experience.
None of our brains work the Apple way - they have a thorough process. They implement the results.
b) Given the complaints about the weight and poor battery life of the Meta Quest Pro there needs to be a better solution than trying to balance batteries on your head.
Waist level pack makes a lot of sense especially since if you're sitting at a desk there is simply no need for batteries.
Do you know that for sure? How are we certain that the serial port isn't being used by the waist-mounted battery pack?
> there needs to be a better solution than trying to balance them on your head.
There is one - you plug it in. You can use all the Quest headsets while they're tethered to power if you want, it just defeats the purpose of owning a wireless headset. The battery life of those units will definitely last longer than your meeting, presuming the VR sickness doesn't hit you first.
All-for-all, I have to believe this rumor is fake because Apple doesn't make products like this. If Apple does release a VR headset, I doubt it will look like what's described here.
Lightweight headset connected via Thunderbolt 5 to a combined battery/CPU pack or desktop Mac.
Hopefully they just drop the standalone element altogether and go all-in on a nice tethered experience.
That's if you're primarily into gaming which Apple isn't.
I suspect the future of VR is going to be at a desk, sofa, bed etc. with virtual screens, meetings, educational lessons, movies etc.
The problem is, none of that stuff is appealing. It's not only not a killer app, it's not even a profit driver. Games move some units, but even that is arguably clunky when you're not fully leveraging 6DOF.
So, what's the point of making a mobile headset that's not intended to be moved around? Why tether a headset that could be plugged into another machine altogether?