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by kldavis4 1028 days ago
> We need a high quality head mounted AR display attached to a laptop without the screen part

What would that look like? Is there an existing product that is similar? If it is something I have to wear, it seems like anything much bulkier / heavier than a pair of glasses is going to be a hard sell as a replacement for monitors.

1 comments

Easier sell than a relatively useless mobile-first HMD with so many tradeoffs between power, computing, and form factor it's not even funny. Much easier sell to wear glasses at a desk than a bulky headset into the world. With a tethered solution, power and computing does not have to be strapped to your head, mostly just optics.

Companies are so busy trying to turn AR into the next smartphone that they forget the display came first.

ok, I think I am following you and I think I mostly agree. Probably the biggest issue is that as "just" a monitor replacement, the possible use cases are significantly narrowed. Probably a lot more overlap with the ELF-SR2 with probably the biggest advantage being portability if you can incorporate the compute/power/etc into a decent form factor (ie something that you might be able to use in a starbucks)
I cannot change the size of the screen with the ELF-SR2. I can many screens of varying sizes with a tethered AR display. With this, we are still looking into a box, maybe a cool and expanded box, but still a box. AR allows screens to be anywhere in the world, and the majority of consumption for traditional spatial mixed reality AR technology (so many words, so much confusion) is developers sitting at their desks working on prototypes. If I can spend $1,500 on a fancy monitor, I would rather spend $1,500 on a comfortable device that gives me many monitors. Take the computing, batteries, and the idea of stuffing it into a device under a pound and likely the price point becomes much more acceptable for adoption.

Edit: Can no longer reply to say, I think it is mostly executive bias from the mobile age that prevents the best optics from being used in a tethered format like this. Executives needs to stop seeing smartphone replacement and start seeing monitor replacement if they want early traction. Some startups building devices like this but few have the budget and amazing optics.

Yeah, I totally agree - but it seems like there are technological or economic barriers to such a device, or else it would already exist