* I've been toying with the idea of some type of headmount display, an SBC with battery pack in my bib pockets, and a twiddler 3 or tiny bluetooth keyboard for input in my hand. With the amount of microsd storage and SBC computational power out now for small sums, it's tempting.
Shout out to Steve Mann and Thad Starner for inspiring young me with their work on this stuff. As a little country bumpkin I didn't think I'd ever live to see this type of tech.
Fun fact: Steve Mann is responsible for HDR video and smart watches
I've had a pair of these since September 2022 and tried them on quite a few things. The 45* viewing angle is not really a problem, because it's not for VR and VR support is _very_ limited (currently just specific Android devices or with CloudXR on specific GPUs with USB-C DP-alt output). The device support for AR functionality is better but there aren't any killer apps. Although there was a recent tech demo of them being used for live captioning real life.[0]
However, they work fantastically as a _dumb_ external display on any computer with USB-C DP-alt output. Tested on MacOS, Linux and Windows 7. My glasses with the firmware revision from ~November 2022 works without issue on M1 MBPs, 2018 Dell XPS and the SteamDeck. Prior firmware revisions had several issues with misrepresenting their capabilities to the host system causing unstable framerates so older reviews which mention this may no longer be applicable.
Best usecase I've found is for watching films on a plane or in bed. You can comfortably lay flat, staring at the ceiling without the cable getting in the way. But there is an amount of reflection on the screen when used in bright places which can be annoying.
I got mine cheaper imported from Japan. If you're in the UK do not bother trying to get them from EE.
Given these are AR, when you're using them on an airplane to simulate a big monitor, how does that fit into the constrained physical world you're in where there's a seat two feet in front of your face?
I thank you for your sacrifice. I thank everyone who buys half baked AR/VR gear as early adopters, proving there's a market while at the same time parting with large amounts of cash for disappointment. I'm not ready to invest anything in this space but I want it to succeed.
If these can realistically and without eye strain produce a giant virtual monitor when connected to a MacBook Pro, I’ll buy these very quickly. What are you going to use them for?
It worked. I got them about an hour ago, plugged them in and they immediately worked as a mirrored monitor. I decided to run Nebula, which attempted upgrade, upgrade failed on step 2. Running nebula again didn't prompt for upgrading again, neither after reinstall. I searched around online and found a link to this page which when used in chrome allowed me to install/patch the latest.
Since then, I've run it in triple monitor mode, and normal mode, both as an extra monitor and as a mirror. Some odd things I noticed, if you dont have it situated on your nose correctly, the corners can be fuzzy. Also, I played a game with the settings turned all the way up and the framerate in the glasses was better than the m2's laptop screen itself, which was odd, considering I can run multiple games at the same time with browser tabs etc no problem, so the glasses are doing something apple isn't. one button on the right side turns off the display so you can see in front of you, another button does nothing that I can tell. the audio is very quiet, and seems to come from in your head near your ears.
some things I dont like are that these glasses sit a bit in front of your face, so there is some light bleed, which considering how bright these are means nothing since they're transparent for no reason at all. You will have a hard time seeing whats behind the brightness when your display is turned on. I stood in front of a 70 inch TV at full brightness, and what I see in the glasses is the same as what I see at 5 feet of distance.
One note about nebula, there is some jitter, like the movement of typing. Luckily there is a setting that allowed me to anchor the zero point of where my head is because when I first ran it I was sitting upward, and once the virtual screens launched, I leaned back in my chair and the monitors didnt follow my head. A way to 'pin' the displays would be cool if you want to be in static mode or gyro mode.
By the comments other people left, I thought the experience would be lackluster, and the first 5 seconds having it on were fairly underwhelming, but these are pretty great. I can code in them just fine, play games just fine, virtual monitors just fine, everything they said they'd be has been fine. I want to try the realtime subtitles next, since I have a relative who can't hear for shit and this would be a gamechanger, though they'd have a hard time seeing through the display unless they were in bright daylight.
Oh, also it was shipped in the box itself, like a retail box you'd buy headphones in, with a label slapped on it. The box is well made to withstand a ginger toss by a delivery driver on to the concrete. Prepare yourself though, the parts are anchored to the box and everything comes flying out if you dont start off from the goal of just trying to disassemble the whole box. I assumed the initial flap you open will let you remove things, but each step and removal of each object requires you disassemble some other part of the packaging. Best just take the whole box apart.
Ah yes, I had my finger above the buy button yesterday but I need to get a new phone to use it on the go which I am holding off on. Please write down your experience; it really looks pretty great from the reviews. No batteries in the glasses are great as well.
I hope they work for you. They did not for me, unfortunately. The text was too fuzzy to not give me a headache and something about it gave me motion sickness.
Yea. It’s doable, but I found that I needed to scale the UI to read comfortably. For normal UI elements, I mostly knew what the buttons did and didn’t need to read them, but its like using a TV as a computer monitor… its just far enough away that everything felt too small.
The resolution isn’t quite high enough for fine text details and unlike VR goggles, glasses aren’t as secured to your head so it shakes more. Again, making focusing on text harder.
That said, they’re good enough for use in a pinch (eg. on a plane, I tried this). They prove the tech is around the corner. They work, they do what they’re advertised, they just need to refine a bit. 1-2 years if people keep buying them and the proper version would be made I suspect. But they work today if you’re really into it.
Surprising, but I actually like the oculus screen sharing, in terms of ability to focus and read the screen. The headset is too heavy and resolution too small, but I like the experience. The NReal is slightly worse in some regards, and slightly better in others.
Edit: they have 2 modes. One is as a USBC monitor, and the other is where your computer (via an app) projects virtual monitors that you see when spinning your head via accelerometer. Mode 1 is good, mode 2 is glitchy. I couldn’t use mode 2 for anything real.
* I've been toying with the idea of some type of headmount display, an SBC with battery pack in my bib pockets, and a twiddler 3 or tiny bluetooth keyboard for input in my hand. With the amount of microsd storage and SBC computational power out now for small sums, it's tempting.
Shout out to Steve Mann and Thad Starner for inspiring young me with their work on this stuff. As a little country bumpkin I didn't think I'd ever live to see this type of tech.
Fun fact: Steve Mann is responsible for HDR video and smart watches
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5903ff66e4fcb573ba3b2...
http://wearcam.org/hdr.htm