> For air travel, I really like my Xreal Air glasses now that I have a newer iPhone 16pro. Just plug in the USB-C cable, and you have a virtual 60" screen in front of you which works perfectly for Netflix, etc. And they cost less than 10% of the cost of an AVP, and are not limited to 2-3 hours of battery life (they get power from the phone).
> I use the Xreal for coding while traveling. It's not as nice as a monitor, but it's definitely good enough for coding IMO.
> Been travelling with a SD and Xreal Airs for the past 2 years. Fantastic for gaming and video consumption.
According to [1], Linux support is not great: "Unwilling to collaborate. Unofficial, open-source SDK. Exhibits drift, noise.".
The VITURE and RayNeo ones that have "Official collaboration" seem to be roughly similar price.
I haven't researched in-depth yet though. I looked up some YouTube reviews a few weeks ago, but I found it hard to really compare from that. And of course none of the reviewers are using Linux, because they're not cool like that.
I wonder if anyone here has any experiences with it on Linux?
Their software support (xreal) is very terrible, but most users don't use that anyway; they use it as a normal-ish looking, cheap, fast, long battery big screen. I use it with my s22 ultra in dex mode: it's light, I code/develop with codespaces, termius and vnc. I have very long battery life and it all fits in a little man bag including my foldable keyboard/trackpad. It's the future I use every day.
I am looking to the Viture and others, but so far they are more expensive and not better according to the reviews I have seen. I only care about code and the incidental movie (it's great to put noise cancelling headphone, the protection cap (blocking all light) and just sit in the cinema alone.
Took some real digging to find. It's just the 'dimming' feature, nothing else is different.
> the Xreal Air 2 Pro model to test – and as I mentioned it’s functionally identical to the regular Xreal Air 2 glasses except has lenses with Electrochromic Dimming.
With a 30° FOV, and an apparent resolution of... two... and with the prototype not expected until 2026, I'm categorizing this as nothing yet. Which is just as well, as I'm not looking forward to the glassy-eyed future where everybody just doomscrolls directly into their eyes all day.
I'm confused wasn't the FOV 180, but he couldnt use it cause he couldnt put it in his eye, so he was looking from a few inches away so it was ~20deg fov cause.... it wasnt in his eye lol
>the lens has a 30° FOV, but I can tell you that the perceived one was less. One of the reasons is that these lenses are made to show full FOV when they are worn on the eye, but of course, I could not do this test, so my perceived FOV with the lens close to the eye was probably just in the range 10-20°.
Wow. I wonder how they manage to focus the display. After all it's a totally different focal distance than the real world which I imagine you want to see as well.
There is not a distance that is good or bad to focus at.
Having little variance in focus distance throughout the day (long or short) can be bad, while focusing to either end of your visual limits can be tiring.
That's not what I mean. I mean the display inside the lens would require a radically different focal distance (it's less than a millimetre from the lens) than the world outside (where you would view between 20cm and infinity). I don't really see how they could consolidate that within one lens.
It's actually impossible to focus on an image within the lens, sort of by definition. It said the display is holographic, which I guess means that it will diffract light to create the appearance of an image at infinity, while not actually making an image in the traditional optics sense.
I'm considering RLE (which apparently can at least correct spherical aberration), they apparently don't really do laser treatments on people my age (50+). However, I'm not sold on the risk vs reward proposition of surgically altering my eyes so if I could get superhuman vision with contacts that would be attractive.
The reason laser eye surgeries such as PRK and LASIK are not recommended for people aged 40 and up, at least if your ophthalmologist is ethical and honest, are Presbyopia and later on Cataracts. The former, because applying correction to a lens and muscles that are starting to lack accommodative ability is likely still going to necessitate glasses, at least for reading. In fact, this can mean that a previously myopic eye post-surgery in someone suffering from Presbyopia will now need glasses for reading when some people with light Myopia and Presbyopia can read without glasses.
Beyond Presbyopia, there are cataracts, which do affect almost everyone at some stage in their later life and whose solution is Cataracts surgery, which is essentially pretty much identical to refractive lens exchange (RLE), both in the way the procedure is carried out and how they address vision problems.
The main difference is mainly that RLE is generally an expensive elective for younger people, and cataract surgery is more commonly covered by insurance, though this of course depends on your local healthcare system. Also, there are very significant differences in the lenses one can use, as well as whether and how much these can accommodate at different vocal lengths, with the best often being very expensive options. Monofocal (read one/fixed focus) are generally the standard and most commonly covered by (public) insurance, though there are also options which can work across a wider range.
Multifocal and accomadating lenses are available both in RLE and Cataracts, again because the procedure is the same, so anyone trying to sell older people on RLE without informing them about Cataracts is likely maximizing profits. Unfortunately, there are some rather unethical doctors charging for RLE on people eligible for cataract surgery, often leading to these people paying thousands for a less advanced (in sever cases monofocal) lens. This is especially targic as had these people gone for Cataract surgery, they could have safed money or gone for a higher-end option.
Any good ophthalmologist will inform you about that. Then, you are still free to make the choice that, knowing everything, you don't want to wait to become eligible for Cataract surgery. At that point RLE can be a good, albeit expensive, option that will save you from needing Cataract surgery later in life. If you are a very wealthy 40-60 year old, getting RLE with the best lenses on the market is thus fair game.
Cataracts/RLE surgery is an incredibly safe procedure, and a good ophthalmologist knocks them out in less than 10 minutes, a great one easily gets below five and complications are beyond rare.
Because you are getting into an age range where Cataracts could start becoming a concern, any laser eye procedure doesn't make sense, as once you are eligible for Cataracts, you could almost certainly get literally the same you would receive with RLE, though at a far more subsidized price (again, depending on your health care system, private insurance, etc.).
I had Trans-PRK at age 25, and, despite a few days of rather painful healing of the upper layers of the epithelium (it has the most nerve endings in our body after all), I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I can see slightly better than 20/20 and can use even the furthest corners of my eyes reliably, something not fully possible without discomfort with hard contacts. Once Presbyopia truly sets in, I'll make a decision based on how it progresses, what lenses are on the market by then and whether I can justify it financially, but that's going to not be for a few decades.
Also, don't worry, the discomfort during post PRK healing is not the case with Cataract surgery (or LASIK for that matter), as they only necessitate a small incision (or flap in the case of LASIK) that heals differently. SMILE also uses a small incision, but honestly, purely personally I made the decision to go with Trans-PRK over SMILE and LASIK despite knowing the pain, simply because of the data.
Essentially, once you can, consider Cataract surgery with your doctor and consider using the best lens you can afford. And, if you are able and have someone in the right age range with vision problems in your family whom you truly love, consider gifting them surgery. They will benefit for at least 20 years till Presbyopia slowly sets in and they will thank you for it every day.
Thanks for the informative post. It pretty much backs up what I've already learned. However, the "complications are beyond rare" doesn't seem to be the case for myopic people doing RLE. In particular, the risks of retinal detachment seem to be around 1%, according to e.g. https://crstodayeurope.com/articles/2017-apr/long-term-compl... (see below) and other sources I've found. Maybe the state of the art has improved since 2017, but 1% is an uncomfortable gamble with something that will at the very least make you unable to read and drive.
The mean incidence of retinal detachment and cystoid macular edema (CME) after RLE are 1% and 0.1%, respectively. The risk of retinal detachment after RLE is increased with young age, male sex, degree of myopia, and axial length exceeding 27 mm
I'll wait to take any of this seriously until AR glasses are broadly in consumers'hands. Power in particular is orders of magnitude easier to solve in that form factor.
I believe the HN zeitgeist practical recommendation in any near ballpark is currently the Xreal Air AR starting at $197 on sale https://amzn.com/dp/B0C3MKPLHP or $399 "Pro" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHVQWW4P.
2024-10-16 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41859012#41884544 Traveling with Apple Vision Pro
> For air travel, I really like my Xreal Air glasses now that I have a newer iPhone 16pro. Just plug in the USB-C cable, and you have a virtual 60" screen in front of you which works perfectly for Netflix, etc. And they cost less than 10% of the cost of an AVP, and are not limited to 2-3 hours of battery life (they get power from the phone).
> I use the Xreal for coding while traveling. It's not as nice as a monitor, but it's definitely good enough for coding IMO.
> Been travelling with a SD and Xreal Airs for the past 2 years. Fantastic for gaming and video consumption.
Counterpoints:
> I can’t get them setup to program on well tho
> Honestly xreal's marketing is generous at best.
According to [1], Linux support is not great: "Unwilling to collaborate. Unofficial, open-source SDK. Exhibits drift, noise.".
The VITURE and RayNeo ones that have "Official collaboration" seem to be roughly similar price.
I haven't researched in-depth yet though. I looked up some YouTube reviews a few weeks ago, but I found it hard to really compare from that. And of course none of the reviewers are using Linux, because they're not cool like that.
I wonder if anyone here has any experiences with it on Linux?
[1]: https://github.com/wheaney/XRLinuxDriver
Their software support (xreal) is very terrible, but most users don't use that anyway; they use it as a normal-ish looking, cheap, fast, long battery big screen. I use it with my s22 ultra in dex mode: it's light, I code/develop with codespaces, termius and vnc. I have very long battery life and it all fits in a little man bag including my foldable keyboard/trackpad. It's the future I use every day.
I am looking to the Viture and others, but so far they are more expensive and not better according to the reviews I have seen. I only care about code and the incidental movie (it's great to put noise cancelling headphone, the protection cap (blocking all light) and just sit in the cinema alone.
What is the difference between the normal and pro? I can't find any meaningful difference on the product pages.
Anyone gotten them working with Linux or some kind on android VM/container?
Took some real digging to find. It's just the 'dimming' feature, nothing else is different.
> the Xreal Air 2 Pro model to test – and as I mentioned it’s functionally identical to the regular Xreal Air 2 glasses except has lenses with Electrochromic Dimming.
https://www.techradar.com/computing/virtual-reality-augmente...
With a 30° FOV, and an apparent resolution of... two... and with the prototype not expected until 2026, I'm categorizing this as nothing yet. Which is just as well, as I'm not looking forward to the glassy-eyed future where everybody just doomscrolls directly into their eyes all day.
I'm confused wasn't the FOV 180, but he couldnt use it cause he couldnt put it in his eye, so he was looking from a few inches away so it was ~20deg fov cause.... it wasnt in his eye lol
>the lens has a 30° FOV, but I can tell you that the perceived one was less. One of the reasons is that these lenses are made to show full FOV when they are worn on the eye, but of course, I could not do this test, so my perceived FOV with the lens close to the eye was probably just in the range 10-20°.
Wow. I wonder how they manage to focus the display. After all it's a totally different focal distance than the real world which I imagine you want to see as well.
If the display appears at infinite focal depth it might be better for eyes than traditional screens that require focusing on something close.
There is not a distance that is good or bad to focus at.
Having little variance in focus distance throughout the day (long or short) can be bad, while focusing to either end of your visual limits can be tiring.
That's not what I mean. I mean the display inside the lens would require a radically different focal distance (it's less than a millimetre from the lens) than the world outside (where you would view between 20cm and infinity). I don't really see how they could consolidate that within one lens.
It's actually impossible to focus on an image within the lens, sort of by definition. It said the display is holographic, which I guess means that it will diffract light to create the appearance of an image at infinity, while not actually making an image in the traditional optics sense.
That's cool and all but I'd settle for the long-promised customized contact lenses that take out the particular high-order aberrations of my eyes.
Have you considered PRK/LASIK/SMILE?
I'm considering RLE (which apparently can at least correct spherical aberration), they apparently don't really do laser treatments on people my age (50+). However, I'm not sold on the risk vs reward proposition of surgically altering my eyes so if I could get superhuman vision with contacts that would be attractive.
The reason laser eye surgeries such as PRK and LASIK are not recommended for people aged 40 and up, at least if your ophthalmologist is ethical and honest, are Presbyopia and later on Cataracts. The former, because applying correction to a lens and muscles that are starting to lack accommodative ability is likely still going to necessitate glasses, at least for reading. In fact, this can mean that a previously myopic eye post-surgery in someone suffering from Presbyopia will now need glasses for reading when some people with light Myopia and Presbyopia can read without glasses.
Beyond Presbyopia, there are cataracts, which do affect almost everyone at some stage in their later life and whose solution is Cataracts surgery, which is essentially pretty much identical to refractive lens exchange (RLE), both in the way the procedure is carried out and how they address vision problems.
The main difference is mainly that RLE is generally an expensive elective for younger people, and cataract surgery is more commonly covered by insurance, though this of course depends on your local healthcare system. Also, there are very significant differences in the lenses one can use, as well as whether and how much these can accommodate at different vocal lengths, with the best often being very expensive options. Monofocal (read one/fixed focus) are generally the standard and most commonly covered by (public) insurance, though there are also options which can work across a wider range.
Multifocal and accomadating lenses are available both in RLE and Cataracts, again because the procedure is the same, so anyone trying to sell older people on RLE without informing them about Cataracts is likely maximizing profits. Unfortunately, there are some rather unethical doctors charging for RLE on people eligible for cataract surgery, often leading to these people paying thousands for a less advanced (in sever cases monofocal) lens. This is especially targic as had these people gone for Cataract surgery, they could have safed money or gone for a higher-end option.
Any good ophthalmologist will inform you about that. Then, you are still free to make the choice that, knowing everything, you don't want to wait to become eligible for Cataract surgery. At that point RLE can be a good, albeit expensive, option that will save you from needing Cataract surgery later in life. If you are a very wealthy 40-60 year old, getting RLE with the best lenses on the market is thus fair game.
Cataracts/RLE surgery is an incredibly safe procedure, and a good ophthalmologist knocks them out in less than 10 minutes, a great one easily gets below five and complications are beyond rare.
Because you are getting into an age range where Cataracts could start becoming a concern, any laser eye procedure doesn't make sense, as once you are eligible for Cataracts, you could almost certainly get literally the same you would receive with RLE, though at a far more subsidized price (again, depending on your health care system, private insurance, etc.).
I had Trans-PRK at age 25, and, despite a few days of rather painful healing of the upper layers of the epithelium (it has the most nerve endings in our body after all), I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I can see slightly better than 20/20 and can use even the furthest corners of my eyes reliably, something not fully possible without discomfort with hard contacts. Once Presbyopia truly sets in, I'll make a decision based on how it progresses, what lenses are on the market by then and whether I can justify it financially, but that's going to not be for a few decades.
Also, don't worry, the discomfort during post PRK healing is not the case with Cataract surgery (or LASIK for that matter), as they only necessitate a small incision (or flap in the case of LASIK) that heals differently. SMILE also uses a small incision, but honestly, purely personally I made the decision to go with Trans-PRK over SMILE and LASIK despite knowing the pain, simply because of the data.
Essentially, once you can, consider Cataract surgery with your doctor and consider using the best lens you can afford. And, if you are able and have someone in the right age range with vision problems in your family whom you truly love, consider gifting them surgery. They will benefit for at least 20 years till Presbyopia slowly sets in and they will thank you for it every day.
Thanks for the informative post. It pretty much backs up what I've already learned. However, the "complications are beyond rare" doesn't seem to be the case for myopic people doing RLE. In particular, the risks of retinal detachment seem to be around 1%, according to e.g. https://crstodayeurope.com/articles/2017-apr/long-term-compl... (see below) and other sources I've found. Maybe the state of the art has improved since 2017, but 1% is an uncomfortable gamble with something that will at the very least make you unable to read and drive.
The mean incidence of retinal detachment and cystoid macular edema (CME) after RLE are 1% and 0.1%, respectively. The risk of retinal detachment after RLE is increased with young age, male sex, degree of myopia, and axial length exceeding 27 mm
see also Verily (closed) contact lens glucose project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18474038
I'll wait to take any of this seriously until AR glasses are broadly in consumers'hands. Power in particular is orders of magnitude easier to solve in that form factor.