Monitor replacement – using a projector for a home office setup | Hacker News Reader

Monitor replacement – using a projector for a home office setup

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I've been using a pair of RayNeo Air 2 "XR" glasses for the past week. "Xtended Reality" is not really true VR, but instead, simply provides a huge 1080p screen in the middle of your field of vision. They're flawed in a handful of ways, especially with blur/visibility around the edges. I need to increase the font size to read with them. Despite those flaws, it's extremely liberating to be able to position myself in any way I want and still be able to see the main focus of my work. I think I'll just keep investing in glasses like these and never buy another monitor ever again.

I've been eye balling a pair of those for a while now.

Any other quirks you're willing to share? Such as: how's the input latency (from key press to seeing it)? early signs of tear? do I need to invest in spare parts?

No latency. No tearing that I've noticed. They can be configured to run at 60 Hz or 120 Hz.

I couldn't find any spare parts and honestly, I think that's because the brand is trying to liquidate the RayNeo Air 2 models in favor of RayNeo Air 2s and newer. It's admittedly the lower in quality than other offerings, but passable, and not bad for just $200.

It's only possible for me to work with these when font size is increased and the scaling is turned up. Trading information density for back/neck relief is worth it in my opinion.

Seems like an alright experience then. Thank you for sharing

I have a pair of Xreal Airs. Performance is similar to a gaming monitor. At least for the raw video signal.

Under the hood they use Sony micro-led screens, which are very, very good

It'd be cool if someone reviewed all the 2024 AR glasses.

Each one is quite pricey, so trying them all for the best one isn't a solid option.

uploadvr.com do a decent job of reviewing most kit, IME. Here's the RayNeo X2 review:

https://www.uploadvr.com/rayneo-x2-standalone-ar-glasses-rev...

Sadly those aren’t ideal for people with prescription lenses…

why not? I thought you could get them with prescription lenses?

It depends on what kind of prescription you need.

They fit over your regular glasses, so if you can get over being self conscious from wearing two pairs of glasses at the same time, they work fine.

I’m eyeing the x-real air 2 pro for a while, very curious how they would work

By default they just work like a 1080p display. It’s okay, but bounces with head movement, etc.

They work fairly well on Mac with their Nebula software, where you can have an extended display and control the distance if the screen and it accounts for head movements. The same software is not so great on PC, unfortunately.

On Linux, Wayne Heaney created Breezy Desktop, which is almost as good as Nebula, except for some stuff around the edges during movement[0]. He’s also created a very nice driver for the Steam Deck.

With a little bit of work you can also do 3D games and movies with them. Not quite easy enough for an elementary school kid, but not much worse.

What I’ve found is that I don’t use them around the house, but do while traveling. Not sure if that justifies the price. I’ve also got both versions of the Beam. Overall, I’d say it’s a push. When I’m traveling, I’m glad I have them. When I’m not traveling, I wonder why I have them.

[0]: https://github.com/wheaney/breezy-desktop

I have one. I find it pretty bad for work. Low resolution, text is generally blurry and the corners of the screen are almost unusable with blurriness, colour aberration and other distortions.

While I endorse working on these, I have to concede that it's only possible with text enlarged and increased scaling.

IMO, very underwhelming for work. Very enjoyable for play.

How deep is the focus, or can it be tweaked? Do you find it more tiring than traditional monitors or less?

Do you get dizzy?

The RayNeo Air 2 is the most barebones XR glasses I've seen. Barely adjustable and not enough IMO, but enough to work with if you use in large text and increase scaling.

Other brands like VITURE have more adjustments available, but the price will be double what I paid for the RayNeo Air 2 ($200). It looks like these are being heavily discounted in favor of the RayNeo Air 2s and future models.

I don't get dizzy at all while using them. :)

What glasses are you looking forward to next?

The RayNeo Air 2s have come down in price for Black Friday. If I had known how much I'd like the Air 2, then I'd probably have gone with the Air 2s.

By the time I'm ready to buy a new pair, I'll look closer at what competing offerings are available from XREAL and VITRUE.

I am looking for glasses like these ones but with passthrough and much closer to your price point. https://www.bigscreenvr.com/

My experience with projectors is that they are noisy, power hungry beasts with display quality far inferior to monitors. Has that changed?

My laser projector is crystal clear, colorful, bright and the fan never kicks on. It can do 4K/60Hz or 1080p/240Hz. Highly recommend. I have a 120" gray screen a couple meters away and I code on it all the time.

Nowadays it's even easier with the wealth of ultra short throw projectors on the market, if you have the budget. Personally I got an open-box long-throw projector for half-off at $1500, plus a $500 mid-budget screen. Definitely worth the investment.

What brand/model do you have?

Optoma UHZ50. It's not a high-end model and a lot of people have reported issues, but I've had none and I think it was a no-brainer at 50% off on an open box.

It's not true 4K in that it's natively 1080p, but has a mirror that rapidly shifts the laser, allowing it to show "4K" albeit at 60Hz instead of 240Hz. Not quite as clear as true 4K, and if you get really close to your screen you'll see pixel lines corresponding to 1080p, but it's not noticeable from even two feet away.

It's also a single laser, not triple laser, so it's not quite as vibrant or bright as a triple laser, but it's also way less expensive.

Personally, I leave it on 1080p/240Hz when gaming and it's very lush. Paired with the right screen, it can be vibrant and have great black levels. I've been using it for a year and a half almost daily with no problems. I recommend it if you can find it at a good price, but if I got a projector today I'd probably look for an ultra short throw out of convenience. If you have a higher budget though, I'd recommend looking at some higher-end models.

A little bit. You could get an ultra-short throw projector which sits close to the screen, and sit on the other side of the room. Projectors still draw more power than monitors; but, with new tech like LED and laser lighting, it doesn't matter that much.

That was 20 years ago.

The noise varies quite a lot, the main issue imho is that they're close to useless when daylight is in the room so you're going to be mostly working with the blinds drawn if you're hoping to work on it.

Why not buy an 85” tv? They are dirt cheap and you can place them far. For webcam, I have used my dslr in the past but any webcam works as now Google meet autozooms in on the face

The article makes the claim

> reflected image from a projector screen is gentler on the eyes than a projected one from a computer monitor

If true, that is a very strong reason. However, it strikes me as a [citation needed] or questionable extrapolation from indirect/diffuse room lighting or bias lighting.

Citation most definitely needed. Perhaps the rationale is that the image is blurrier, or the contrast is worse, but both of those could easily be simulated by a monitor if you valued them.

I'd have taken it more as, reflected light would be better than straight to the eye light

How does the eye even "know" which kind of light it is? What's the difference, is one spectrum smoother and the other spiky or what? That's the part where a citation is needed.

Paper is more pleasant on the eyes for many reasons that don't apply to a reflective very bright projector screen.

This is me being a 100% armchair physicist, but I'd theorize it'd be something like trying to iluminate a room with a flashlight vs pointing it to a white (diffusive?) surface, counter intutively you achieve better* ilumination with the aditional diffusive surface

* Better for say, photography

Arguably what I think is actually happening is the focus distance has increased considerably.

The muscles that contract or relax to change your lens shape (to focus your vision at different lengths) don't work linearly. Most of the work/tension of the lens is happening in the last meters range. Such that looking out at a 10m distance or 200m distance is a lot closer in muscle tone then the tension applied to focus between 10m and 0.05m.

Most likely what is happening is that the visual field workspace is equivalent but the eye strain is considerably reduced from being able to not look at something so close by such as the displays we use every day.

The theory in the article is that this is due to reflected vs direct light but I think this is a post rationalization derived from the author's experience. The perceived experience is that it is easier on the eyes. The reason is less clear.

Indirect, reflected light is easier on the eyes than a direct one like from TV's and monitor backlight.

Says who? A photon is a photon.

Also, having to be in a dim room focusing on a brighter light is itself uncomfortable.

Indirect reflected light like you get from a piece of paper, or an e-reader, or almost any everyday object, yes, I can see how that is easier on the eyes.

But in the case of a projector, the screen is lit by extra light; I'm not sure the situation is all that different from a regular monitor.

That works too. It depends on what you value. If you want more screen real estate while keeping a long distance between your eyes and the screen, then go for the projector.

The room setup being weird is the thing that strikes me about this. My desk (probably like many?) is against a wall, not a distance from it. That dead space between back of desk and wall with the projection on it isn’t going to work in many rooms, is it?

Yeah, desk against the wall is a common setup (except in open-plan offices, where it's desk against a desk). However, when setting up my current home office, I opted for a different layout. It's similar to this:

https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/other/defiant-rea...

but with an L-shaped standing desk from IKEA, with windows on the right side (behind the auxiliary desk), doors on the left, and remaining wall surface filled with random assortment of cabinets and wardrobes.

Having the desk in the middle doubled the usable wall surface area I could put closets and cabinets against. Also, I have something behind the screen for eyes to refocus on, reducing the strain.

(Also, I was totally going for the "Starfleet ready room" style; that's as close as I got. It's really hard to capture the feel without a proper carpet; unfortunately, I have dust mite allergy, so that's off the table.)

I was expecting a picture to be of an Ikea showroom or similar. Got a real chuckle when I saw it was a Ready Room.

Got to post what you can easily link to :).

Desk against a wall could be handled very easily with a short throw projector but you would need to ceiling mount it upside down. The bottom edge of the projected image would trace back to the projector at a steep angle, your head would therefore not cast a shadow over the image.

You will have to rearrange your room. It shouldn't be totally infeasible, though.

I've considered using my cheap projector as a second monitor, however its fan is so noise I don't think I would endure much time, and even though the resolution is not bad I still feel it adds unnecessary strain focusing to read/write

That is absolutely true, I've tried that too and you need to use headphone to cancel that noise and get focused.

(2021)

I'm generally interested in alternatives (televisions, HMDs, etc.) to traditional monitors, but I don't see many benefits to the setup described in his post. It would be more interesting if the image were projected onto the ceiling since that can result in a more relaxed posture and is an orientation very difficult to achieve with a monitor.

> Main plus points: Larger viewing surface;

This seems entirely dependent on angular distance. An average desktop monitor would be similar to the setup here.

> Indirect, reflected light is easier on the eyes than a direct, projected one.

Is this true? I'd guess that it is more a matter of overall brightness. I don't think the eye can distinguish between an emitted and reflected photon.

I feel like a projector in a dark room is harder on the eyes than a monitor in a well-lit room, in fact.

Plus less tripping when I stand up

I'm less worried about the effect on the eyes and more about the effect on my mood of constantly being in a darkened room, even in the middle of the day.

I'm currently happy with my 38" 4K monitor (Asus/ROG PG38UQ) - better for the eyes than 32" at 4K, not as huge as 43", nice colors, contrast and brightness.

We have one of these as our 'TV', just projected onto a white wall. The main advantage it has over a large TV is that it's easy to move. Disadvantages are that it is lower resolution, although it's fine for home entertainment. 1080p is on the low end for a productive work monitor.

This particular projector has a very short throw, so you can get a massive screen from just a few feet away. But the larger the screen the less bright it will be and the darker you'll need to make the room, which can limit its use during the day.

It's also a reliable source of heat, which can be an issue depending on the season.

We also have been using short throw projector instead of a TV for at least 10 years. An obvious advantage is that the screen size can be huge, but as you mentioned on the down side this means that you need a relatively dark room. Also, there is a fan noise, which is not much of an issue if you are watching Terminator 3 on full volume with subwoofer turned on, but may be annoying if you are working in a silent environment.

At this point you can get quite decent 4k projectors for around $1000. Also usable during the day (though less ideal). For us it was the difference between 3000 and 4000 lumens. Pretty silent too.

The problem with cheap 4k projectors is that they are pixel-shifted 1080p projectors. Combine that with DLPs colorwheel tech, and you are relying persistence-of-vision to combine at least 12 frames into one image. It's kinda neat that it works at all, but if you are sensitive for temporal hijinks then its not great solution to all-day use.

Do you know of any good write-ups on how this works? I've often thought I was crazy for noticing weird "glitches" when around some of the newest projectors.

I'll see "sparkles" or flashes of a solid color out of the corner of my eye, but never if I try to look directly at the screen to catch it. I chocked it up to some sort of PWM based lighting or something that's more detectable in my periphery because of how cones and rods work. Sounds like I might be close, but not quite?

Consider getting your eyes checked - visual field test, etc. I believe sparkles in the periphery can be a sign of glaucoma and probably other nasty stuff. I know you're talking about when looking at a projector but maybe your peripheral vision could be affected and this is how it presents.

Never bad advice to get your eyes checked, but I may not have described it well enough.

I used to see a similar thing with a flatbed scanner that used RGB LEDs instead of a CFL tube. You could often see the flicker of the PWM signal they were likely using to control the brightness of the LEDs as solid flashes of red, blue, or green.

GP post said: "if you are sensitive for temporal hijinks" - I think I'm just really sensitive to temporal hijinks, especially in my periphery. I suspect most people are, as our eyes have higher concentration of rods to detect movement in our peripheral vision.

I've noticed that the quality of light I get out of a constant current light meant for videography is fantastic and has none of these "temporal hijinks", and I think it's because it simply doesn't flicker.

Still - none of this is said to undermine your good advice.

I’ve tried this with a cheap projector from Amazon, it almost worked but unfortunately the edges of the screen were too blurry, only central area of the screen was perfect, the projector’s fan was noisy as it generates a lot of heat, and the placement was a bit hard and messy, I didn’t want to drill it and hang it as it was just a test.

Then I’ve tried oculus quest 2 and honestly it might be paranoia but I’ve noticed my near sight dropping too obviously after just couple of sessions.

> I’ve noticed my near sight dropping

You mean your vision got worse after using quest2?

I’d consider energy use. I use a projector for home cinema and it draws more power (over 200W) than I would want to pay for to run for a whole working day.

0.2 kW * 8 hours/day * 5 days/week * 50 weeks/year * $0.25/kWh = $100/year

It's less than you'd think.

the projector they purchased was $800 and the 90” screen was $200. That’s $1k. I can buy an 85” 4K QLED tv for $650 (BestBuy). New TV’s of that size use about 0.1kwh, which is $50 per year instead of $100.

So she’s paying $350 more up front just for set up, and then $50 more per year just to use it. How is that “not that bad”? Seems wasteful, especially if the person in the blog claimed that $1k was “crazy expensive” for them.

$1k is pocket change for a lot of people on this forum, including myself, but if $1k is a lot to you then this seems like a strange purchase.

criticism aside, this is a cool project and i enjoyed the blog post.

When it's something about your health you don't look at the energy bill or power consumption TBH.

What about the fan noise?

isn't 1080p resolution too low for that size?

Honestly this would be good for infra diagrams, miro boards, wireframes etc. — sometimes a laptop screen can feel claustrophobic

Then don't use a laptop screen.

I wouldn't consider a loud projector, but I love using my 48" OLED.

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