MichaelThatsIt

XREAL One Pros by leaps and bounds

I have one! It’s huge haha.

I’m still trying to figure out how to fit a full trackball in there…

It’s a good middle of the road keyboard honestly. The only part that truly sucks is the arrow keys layout.

My bad. It’s as good as any 1080p monitor and it supports 120hz refresh rate. The FOV will be the thing that gets to you.

Big fan of big screen. Darshan is probably the most level headed founder in all of XR.

No more than any other XR product. I can do the work I need to from it for the most part.

Most of the iteration process was just me staring at the printer waiting for it to screw up or to find out if I screwed up.

Yeah by the time I saw how over used it is it was too late.

I’ve seen a few folks on r/localllama running small models on it! It’s a powerful little machine.

Totally agree. I’m doing the due diligence to see if I can turn this into a real product. It’s gotten enough attention to give it some serious thought as a small batch product.

If I do, it would be with a custom board which would help shave down the size more considerably.

Out here trying to steal my thunder. Not today (or yesterday) sir!

But seriously appreciate the enthusiasm to share it. This was meant to be a small side project for myself and it blew up. Glad other people are getting a kick out of it.

It’s quite good! I have not the one’s and the one pros. The pros are a pretty noticeable leap in clarity and FOV in my experience, and the screen is as readable as any other 1080p monitor.

It’s definitely easier but I dunno about better. A beheaded computer is not as pretty in my totally unbiased opinion.

Yeah I'm learning that's the real hurdle. I'm doing my best to lean on others in the space to guide me through the process.

a lot of supply chain appears to be a relationship based economy. I may end up flying out to China at some point.

ayyy let's chat! open an issue on the repo to track it. I have some modules I've already designed.

Edit: lol didn't see the user name and thought you meant you're also working on the module system face palm

I’m working on another revision with a module mounting system on the sides.

I almost built the trackpad in but it would’ve been a much more personal product, as I’m left handed so I would’ve put it on the left.

So I’ve actually been in XR for nearly a decade now. So I’ve tried every version of “dev in XR” I even spent the last 2 years trying to build an XR native dev platform.

The feedback was always “this is too heavy” for all devices excluding XREAL.

Also I wanted a device that didn’t feel like a hack. Something tailored to the experience.

I’m glad you say that because I actually think the Magic Keyboard is good. Obviously if I made a product version I’d need to source an original keyboard, but I’d try to stick to something similar.

Originally I was going to use my HHKB studio, but opted for the Magic Keyboard for the slimmer design and the fact that there’s at least one in every school, office, or other institution across the US.

You and me both, buddy. Instead I’m calling up SoM companies and seeing what they can build me for cheap.

If you asked me 3 weeks ago I’d think you’re crazy, but this was genuinely not that hard. Honestly I had never even touched CAD before this.

I think my next challenge is supply chain, sourcing a custom board, and figuring out unit economics for a product version.

Break everything! It’s how you learn to fix it. Just the other day I was in a full on panic having disassembled my toilet thinking a leak was “an easy fix.” It wasn’t, but I got it done.

Ebay! But fear not! I’m working on a version based on the Radxa Rock 5B which is more readily available and has more kick than a pi 5.

Also doing the research on productizing the whole thing and sourcing a custom board.

Ay love it. There’s quite a few similar ideas on r/cyberdeck. I just wasn’t satisfied with their look. I wanted something very clean. Something that blends in and could theoretically be used on a plane without drawing too much attention, but still nice to look at.

That guy commented in the Reddit thread I posted and I’m hoping to collab with him on the framework version if he’s down.

This is a project that had been eating away at me for a bit, sitting in the back of my mind.

It's a computer that fit's perfectly underneath an Apple Magic Keyboard, and has a compartment to store peripherals like a dongle or small mouse. It has no display, instead opting for XR display glasses.

The internals are the main board, cooler, and battery from a Steam Deck OLED. I bought the parts separately rather than gutting a perfectly good one.

The link is to the CAD files. I decided to open source it as I explore building a better one.

Feel free to jump straight to that, here's the origin story for anyone interested:

I started using the XREAL glasses a few months ago. they're great, easily my favorite "XR" product. It's built around the one killer app of XR, a virtual display. shedding all non-essential hardware into a small, lightweight package.

but I hate the redundancy. Whatever device I'm using it with, the built in screen goes unused. In parallel, I've also found myself extremely disappointed in each product calling itself a "spatial computer" despite being nothing but an overweight iPad for your face.

I wanted a real computer designed to be used with these glasses, and in the smallest package I could possibly achieve.

So I grabbed an actual iPad, downloaded Shapr3D and got to work. My iteration process involved jumping back and forth between my iPad and a 3D printer. I went through roughly 15 failed iterations getting the screw mounts, airflow, and ergonomics just right.

The final result is what I believe to be a true spatial computer. I've been daily driving and I'm pretty happy with the experience. It's currently running Ubuntu 24, but I may switch back to Steam OS, given it's better optimized for the hardware.