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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

Anyone who got a Vision Pro: are you still using it?

I remember there was a lot of initial excitement on HN about the possibilities of using it as virtual monitors for work or as a more immersive way to watch movies. Is it good for these applications long term, after the novelty wears off?

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Bought it at launch and use it a couple dozen times a week.

For me, the killer function has been doing display mirroring with my Mac and leveraging the environments like Mt Hood or the Moon as a way to get into a focused flow. I love the idea of windowing in a virtual space, but the there is the same feeling of limitation that I get with this device as I get with my iPad. I've used it to capture some VR photos and videos of family, survey the house to identify the source of a water leak, used it for a couple workouts, to play some Xbox games in bed without waking my wife.

Weight only seems to be an issue for me at the 3h mark or so, but at that point I am taking a break. My eyes don't seem to be effected so far and the only visual quality issues have been either due to pancake lense physics or fogging up when the device is cold. App quality has been okish for the most part. I periodically check the app store for something new, but so far nothing that feels incredible. I'll probably buy a MetaQuest Pro after this just to see what that is like

I'm ultimately waiting for the ultrawide enhancement they teased earlier this year and hoping they add a few more environments.

  same feeling of limitation that I get with this device as I get with my iPad

> visionOS is a mixed reality operating system derived primarily from iPadOS core frameworks [wikipedia]

Lessons:

(a) never launch new plaforms without jailbreaks

(b) never disable jailbreaks until the best use cases found by hackers have been sherlocked into platform's core functions

It's the best display I've ever had in terms of screen "size" and quality balanced against each other, and it's the default I gravitate towards for movie watching, game streaming, etc, as well as occasional hobbyist things like writing (the environment knob is remarkably good for helping with focus, at least for my ADHD brain). Once there's a version of Virtual Desktop (a local wifi VR streaming app) available for it I'm sure it will also be the best VR headset I've ever used, at least for short sessions.

With that said, I haven't used it for non-hobbyist productive things because the weight and (more importantly) the really bad head strap design makes it awful for use in a sitting-up position for long. I feel like that comfort factor what drags it down most. The passthrough quality and UX stability is 100% there already to be fine wearing it for several hours at a time, including while doing unrelated tasks, if only it was actually comfortable enough for that.

For constrast, see the designs that companies like BOBOVR make for other headsets like the Quest 3 - https://www.bobovr.com/products/bobovr-m3-pro - which look bulky and silly but are perfectly comfortable for long high-activity VR sessions because of the fundamentally better design, even though they add extra battery weight to the headset itself.

Have one, never use it, too lazy to sell it.

Using it as a virtual monitor is tiring. It’s too damned heavy. The FOV is too small. The resolution isn’t terrible but it’s not great either (compared with a physical screen.) I get exhausted after an hour of using it, an 8 hour work day is just too much.

I used to use it to watch YouTube or movies but at some point it just becomes a chore to go get it and put it on when the TV is already there and doesn’t cause fatigue after 20 minutes.

I’ll pay the shipping in a pre-paid package if you’d be willing to part with it.

yep.

spouse works night shift 3 days a week and ill develop on it and/or watch something.

our work has a cloud based ide for web stuff and ill commonly use AVP and virtual display on my personal mac for that and its better than my 2 monitor setup.

its for big nerds for sure and i am that. really is the best value for the best possible screen. i got it to have fun developing for novel xr hardware and watch great movies on the best screen. my advice is not to get one unless youre in that intersection of interests.

personally find it exciting i might be developing on discontinued hardware. always read and heard about hardware thats come and gos but dorks keep building stuff for it. i assumed everything is too well planned and managed these days for me to take part in something like that.

I still use mine for the things I watch by myself (with TV filling its usual role for social watches). I want to try it for other purposes but keep forgetting to.

When my partner wants to watch TV and I just want to work next to them; As a portable monitor that isn't socially acceptable outside living areas.

I remember few people having very positive feedback for home entertainment.

I do too, but I also wonder if the negatives (weight, isolation, heat) become apparent over time while the initial wow-factor wears off.

Edit: Or perhaps the software has improved and it's even better now that it was at launch?

I also wonder if the same people wouldn't have the same benefits with way cheaper AR classes like from xreal[1]

[1] https://www.xreal.com/de/air/

The PPD is good, but a 46 degree FoV is pretty narrow for a virtual screen, and it's fixed in place in relation to your head. One of the big convenience differences of a true headset (even a cheaper one like the Quest line) is that you can move your head around and still have the "screen" fixed in place, so it doesn't get in the way as you look for your popcorn or whatever.

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