Apple unveiled their latest gadget yesterday, the Vision Pro Headset. At $3,500 these specked out goggles shoot waaaaaay past the casual consumer market. Current VR glasses such as PlayStation VR or the Meta Quest, sit at an already hefty range of $300 to just over $1000. These other headsets are primarily for gaming in VR.
So who is the Vision Pro mixed reality for? We gathered a handful of hands-on impressions from around the web:
In fact, despite all the rumors calling it VR (and despite some articles still erroneously doing so) the Vision Pro is not a VR headset at all—even though it uses VR-like techniques to present the real world to you. It can do some things a VR headset can do, but none of the use cases Apple showed me—not even any that were shown in Monday’s keynote—would be called virtual reality.
Exactly what the Vision Pro is and what it’s designed to do has been extremely well documented over the past 48 hours, but in case you missed it, here’s the synopsis: Vision Pro is a state-of-the-art pair of goggles that puts a screen on your face. It’s mostly a VR headset, even though Apple is allergic to saying VR, with some augmented reality elements woven in. It captures the world outside the headset with outward-facing cameras, and it will show you more or less of it as needed. If it recognizes that you’re talking to someone, they’ll come into view. If you want to tune out and watch a movie on your flight, the real world will fade away.
Mixed reality in Apple’s headset looks so casually impressive that I almost didn’t appreciate how great it was. Again, I’ve seen mixed reality in VR headsets before (Varjo XR-3, Quest Pro), and I’ve understood its capabilities. Apple’s execution of mixed reality felt much more immersive, rich and effortless on most fronts, with a field of view that felt expansive and rich. I can’t to see more experiences in it.
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Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!