Hacker News Reader

Comment by Oreb | Hacker News Reader

Yes. I spend maybe half of the year (on average) away from home, traveling with my MacBook. I bought the Vision Pro to use as a portable display, and I’ve been extremely happy with it. I work in it about 8 hours per day whenever I’m away from my home office setup, and quite often even when I’m at home.

Having an enormous virtual screen is not the only benefit, I also feel that the immersion helps my focus. It’s easier to get into the zone than ever before. I remember someone describing the Vision Pro as the equivalent of noise-canceling headphones for the eyes, which is spot on. I suppose I am lucky that I don’t have any problems with the weight of the comfort, except on hot days.

I’ve been an Apple enthusiast since the 1980s, but I can’t even remember the last time I was as excited about an Apple product as I am about the Vision Pro. I hope it will survive, come down in price, and launch in more countries.

View on HN

How is yor eyesight? Did it change?

Same question. I have tried it a few times and weight hasn't been a concern. I am more worried about long-term effects on the eyes.

I’ve worked in VR for a long time (including visionPro) and my eyesight definitely got worse. The most ironic thing to me is how iPhone has this screen distance warning telling you to move the screen further from your face while Vision Pro is literally an iPhone strapped to your face.

I was told the issue isn’t the physical distance of the screen to your eyes, but the distance of where your eyes are focusing? So in VR if you focus on an object a meter away it shouldn’t strain your eyes as much as a phone screen 10cm away? No idea if this is scientifically proven.

Your eyes are still looking at an object (roughly?) 10cm away from your face: the screens. Your eyes are not adjusting focus. Any focus (or blur) you see in VR is simulated depth.

So yes, the issue is indeed the distance where your eyes are focussing, caused by the fact that they're constantly focussing on something very close to your face.

My optician told me its like stretching your arm while holding something heavy. At first that's no problem. But eventually your muscles will start burning and you can't hold it and even when you relax your arm it still hurts if you held it for too long.

As far as I'm aware there are no VR headsets yet that adjust the live generated depth vision based on the diaphragm of your eyes. That would be wild.

> Your eyes are still looking at an object (roughly?) 10cm away from your face: the screens. Your eyes are not adjusting focus

Technically you can absolutely have something close to your face but focus your eyes far away. If you wear glasses you do that all the time. Just imagine that your glasses are like screens that reproject what's behind them.

You're not totally wrong because there are two components to focusing, one is rotating eyes according to how far is the object and another adjusting each eye's lens. AR/VR can cause them to mismatch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergence%E2%80%93accommodation...

However the screen imitates focal plane a bit in the distance and THAT's where your eyes are focusing. There's still can be a mismatch because it's a fixed distance, but your eyes are NOT focusing like you strapped a phone to your head which is what you are implying.

(Actually I heard AVP dev guidelines recommend to avoid putting objects too far and too close to keep everything near focal plane probably to miminize the mismatch.)

This is exactly my experience. I love my AVP, travel a lot, it’s awesome on the road and I enjoy using it at home as well. The last time I was this excited by a computer was the NeXT. No other device has fostered feelings of awe as the AVP.

Have you tried a Quest 3 for similar purposes? Curious how they compare.

I've tried and it's okay with Virtual desktop but the resolution is like on the uncanny line of fine and not good enough.

The quest being much lighter makes it nice though (but you should buy a third party headstrap that doesn't suck)

Virtual Desktop is the only app which makes Quest 3 usable for work. And it is bad thing because it is available only on Win and Mac. Unfortunately, Linux alternatives' video encoding/postprocessing is inferior. Judging by my WiVRn experience. Hopefully that changes

Quest3 simply don’t have resolution required for the qualitative jump to have displays in VR. when you can have same experience on a regular MacBook display, then better to use MacBook.

My room gets pretty bright in the afternoon and my screen sucks in that environment. I’ve been using the quest 3 and while I don’t think it’s perfect from a software point of view (like why do the windows snap at x distances? Why can’t I pick?) it’s pretty good. It lets me have a smallish display on my desk and when I need it, I have 3 displays in VR. Compared to the cost of the apple device, you can upgrade 3 times before you get to the cost of the apple vision.

Can't imagine how strong your neck must be. For me, the weight alone is a deal breaker.

Why not have a battery externally, attached with a long cable?

Balance presumably.

If __they__ can do it:

https://www.istockphoto.com/nl/foto/indian-little-girls-carr...

It's not a matter of "can" you do it, it's a matter of needing to do it. Do you make a habit of carrying a gallon of water on your head? You probably don't need to. I don't need to either. I certainly don't need to spend $3500 for the privilege of carrying a gallon of water on my head. Doing so is not necessary or beneficial to my life in any way. I could do it if my life depended on it, but it doesn't.

If the Vision Pro was balanced on top of the head, it would definitely be easier to sustain for a longer period of time, but the weight is attached to the front. That means you're holding it up with your neck muscles instead of straight down your spine.

The Vision Pro battery is already external, isn't it? But the device is heavy anyway, I think because of the used materials like glass.

Maybe they should add a helium balloon. Like this guy did with his bag:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fvfvUzy64sw

Not sure how convenient it is when working in an airplane, though. Maybe airplanes could be fitted with elastic straps that pull your VR device up?

I've not tried one. What are the drawbacks? eye strain? discomfort?

What will you do when your Vision Pro breaks?

Looks like nobody is working on something that can replace it.

Interesting!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com