This machine runs Linux, it comes with KDE. This is the open Apple Vision Pro alternative that you can use as a real computer.
It comes with a black and white passthrough camera but you can add on a 5K color one.
There's ongoing work for a full Plasma XR mode, so you aren't restricted to a "virtual desktop" experience: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/8671
This is one of the main selling points for me. I threw my CV1 in the trash when facebook required a login. I want to see what OpenXR apps are like. Is freecad and blender usable? I want to tinker with gaussian splatting. When finger tracking starts to develop can I reasonably use it for input without controllers? Could this ever be a practical replacement for a six monitor desk?
Also, my simracing seat has been very lonely. I'm so happy that there is an HMD running arch that gives the user root.
> Is freecad and blender usable?
Blender works in VR (using any OpenXR compatible headset). To view scenes in VR, you can use the free built-in VR Scene Inspector addon. To edit and create scenes in VR, you can use the Freebird XR addon for Blender (https://freebirdxr.com/).
Fingers crossed for OpenXR working properly in Steam Frame! In which case Blender and other OpenXR-compatible apps will work too.
Disclaimer: I'm the author of Freebird XR, a VR editing addon for Blender.
valve whole business model is invasive drm tho.
far from claiming they are as low as meta, but that is their business model which never gets mentioned in this comparison, leaving readers to confuse gabe newel with RMS as some freedom authority
DRM isn't really the story with Valve. Their business model is offer good service. Part of that is not being hostile to users. Users don't want to be spied on and have their data sold, so Valve doesn't do that. People want autonomy over their hardware, so they give them that. It's even in their marketing material for the steam machine. The frame is a computer running arch. If you want to 100% opt out of Steam and write your own driver stack, they're not standing in your way. That is uniquely pro-user and freedom in the tech industry. Also, their open source initiatives with proton and fex should not be discounted.
If there's a morally grey stone to turn over then imo it's the not-gambling-wink-microtransactions and even then it's no more predatory than what is common in the gaming industry.
There is a real danger if Valve ever gets sold in bad hands - the only hope is Gabe Newell living long enough or find a good successor who can continue having a majority stake in the company.
Their business model is cloud rent and lootboxes - I love their approach to service, hardware and Linux but let's not pretend they're noble.
loot boxes, sure but how is cloud rent amoral/ignoble?
> valve whole business model is invasive drm
As much as I like gog and their game distribution model and buy most games there, this is a huge exaggeration and actually false. A game studio/publisher does not have to use DRM in steam and many of them don't. Examples are Larian (baldur's gate 3), cd project red (witcher, cyberpunk), and quite a few small and big studios that don't. Basically afaik most games that are in both gog and steam don't have DRM in steam. DRM is far from steam's fault, it is game studios/publishers that have pushed that, long before steam too.
Valves bread and butter has been their distribution channel. Before Valve, there was no major player that provided a seamless gaming download experience. Anyone who’ve gamed in early 2000s understand the pain point of downloading and correctly installing patches from a daemon site.
Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market. The only way to be less invasive is to not have DRM at all. Obviously that’s preferable, but Valve’s setup is one that keeps publishers on the platform: provide a basic DRM system and allow publishers to add more if they want. If you don’t like what someone like Ubisoft does on the platform you’ve got plenty of other options (and third party DRM is clearly labeled within Steam).
I don’t think people see Gabe Newell the way you describe. They just appreciate that Valve makes business decisions that have basic respect for their customer base. They are fully aware that he’s a billionaire yacht aficionado.
Capitalism and likability are not mutually exclusive, it’s just that so many capitalists have taken the route of maximizing serfdom.
> Valve’s DRM is just about the least invasive and easiest to crack DRM systems on the market.
In fact, their own documentation spells this out specifically[0]:
> The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy (i.e. copying all game files to another computer) and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker.
0: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm
Their model is DRM, but they have no vendor lock-in (in theory, at least). You can use a Valve product (or non-valve product) and never use Steam, or use Steam on any of the 3 major OS's. You can't say the same for an apple product.
I say in theory because yes: Steam in reality has a monopoly in the PC gaming market. And while many games are on multiple stores, odds are many games will only be on Steam. That's a more invisible hand form of a walled garden, but there's definitely an argument to be made there.
Being able to comfortably sit back / lie down and work is an interesting proposition. The Apple Vision Pro is too bulky and expensive to carry that whole category on its own, they need an 'Android equivalent'. But I think Apple messed this up by creating an absolute patent minefield (some 5k patents for AVP features iirc).
Wow imagine we can have masses of people lie back and work. Think of how small we could make the cubicles
You know those drawers they have at morgues?
Reinventing server racks from first principles
Commuting would be much nicer on quality ball-bearing drawer runners.
This almost sounds like a movie I saw once. "The Matrices" maybe ?
Office capsules!
We meet in VR meeting rooms and at the end of the day, we’re safely delivered back to the parking lot via capsule shuttle.
I'm looking forward to the day when we can implant a chip in our neck that will override the senses. Imagine having your body doing a hard workout session while your mind was at work or on vacation
But everyone has to be in the office. For, you know, collaboration. And face-to-face interactions.
Ssssh, WeWork investors could be reading this thread!
If you think this is a joke and humanity can’t be that evil then look up the the „Brookes Ship“
> Brookes was reportedly allowed to stow 454 African captives, by allowing a space of 6 feet (1.8 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each man, 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) by 1 foot 4 inches (0.41 m) to each woman, and 5 feet (1.5 m) by 1 foot 2 inches (0.36 m) to each child. However, the poster's text alleges that a slave trader confessed that before the Act, Brookes had carried as many as 609 captives at one time.
WeWork 2.x any time now ;)
> Android equivalent
That's the samsung galaxy xr which is cheaper and lighter but it's not good enough run high resolution content for long periods without thermal throttling
The thing is, the AVP has a ton of quality-of-life features, eg relating to gestures, and most of them locked behind patents. Looks like we'll have to wait 20 years before other devices will be able to match it (or whatever the expiry date is on those patents).
That makes sense. I always wondered why nobody copied their gaze + tap interactions. That seems way too basic to grant a patent for...
That’s how it works with the Quest 3 on an updated OS. If you’re using hand tracking then you gaze + tap thumb and finger together to select, or pinch and hold to grab a corner for resizing or a border for dragging.
That’s not how it works, there is no gaze support. I just double checked and couldn’t find it in any Accessibility or Experimental settings. Apologies for the misinfo. (Also no inward-facing cameras ofc)
What I was thinking of was on iPhone. It was Eye Tracking + Dwell for selecting.
Hands act as a pointer on the Quest, with a pinch action to select and drag.
afaik the AVP has a dedicated Lidar sensor for gesture detection. I'd say Apple has managed to patent more basic stuff than that (pinch-to-zoom, rounded corners,...)
Oh, that'd make sense. I think the quest 3 has a depth sensor, but they mostly use that for room setup. I don't even think it has IR emitters for low light. But that's the age old question about patents, if they're being granted too much they stifle innovation and competition instead of the opposite... (which is the point you were making as well).
On the quest 3, I've felt like the screen is just a bit too low res to use comfortably as a monitor anyways, so I imagine the Frame won't be much different. The better weight distribution should help a lot though.
Unless you live in a walk in freezer !
Looking at the vendor page for that 5K colour camera, the page directly says they only support Windows and macOS. :( :( :(
> The Arcturus Vision apps include Arcturus Vision Camera for recording and playing 5K HDR spatial video, Arcturus Vision Gaussian XR for exploring 3D Gaussian splats, and Sync for transferring recordings to Windows or Mac (with conversion for other players on Mac).
https://arcturus.vision
I've emailed their support to ask, just in case. :)
It's an open Linux box, using standard interfaces. You can use ffmpeg and scp to transcode and transfer, or whatever else you're comfortable with. Even if Arcturus provided an app, most Linux users probably wouldn't use it.
Is that a guess, or do you know for sure? :)
There's an Arcturus interview on YouTube that shows them doing it.
Awesome, thanks. :)
I believe gamer’s nexus showed it working
Thanks. I skimmed the video as it was late at night, and didn't notice it. I'd better take a proper look at the video. :)
So it may be a good wirk machine to use during long flights, with a compact wireless keyboard.
Unless you fly first class, using a laptop on a plane is painful.
The question here is whatever Steam Frame displays resolution is sufficient to work with text. So far only mass produced device that was really suitable is a Vision Pro.
So far all reviews I've seen been centered around gaming and not work.
It is said that human eyes can resolve down to 1 minute of arc(1 MOA or 1/60 degrees). Each eye has about 160 degrees of HFOV and 125 degrees of VFOV.
From there, you can work out requisite resolution for desktop replacing VR googles: 11K per eye.
The catch is that human eyes actually only have ~1 degree of full resolution area and ~30 degree of active area, and the full 200 degree HFOV is only realized by moving them around and subconsciously compositing images, so most of panels can bee left unlit, in theory.
But the panel resolution requirements is the same, and our technologies are just not there to make a true desktop replacement VR goggle, yet.
Maybe I'm hard to please but I would say even the AVP isn't actually suitable for multi-hour text sessions.
I guess from the comments we can draw conclusion that its different to everyone.
I had Quest 3 for a few months to play games and I feel okay playing, but every time I tried to open IDE and terminal after 10 minutes my brain just say full stop. I tried different fonts, themes and zoom levels, but it just feel wrong.
I feel similar feeling of discomfort as if I try to work on something not in computer in low light in real world. Might be it have something to do with my bad eyesight.
I honestly did not tested AVP enough. Its just good enough for me not to immediately want to stop using it, but again I have no idea what would really happen after a week of use for 3 hours. I did it once for a few hours and it felt amazing, but its Apple and there lots of other reasons not to buy their locked down hardware.
> every time I tried to open IDE and terminal after 10 minutes my brain just say full stop.
I'm wondering if it is because the screen was "flat" in front of you and you had no possibility to change your perspective. It would be interesting if the IDE had been in 3D space and you would look at it as if it was on your desk, capturing head movements etc.
This is certainly interesting idea, but I guess main problem isnt just UX and representation on 2D surface, but just pure amount of text data that you suppose to look at and understand what exactly it does.
When you have fiction or game dialogue text there is good bunch skimming going on so you dont care about every single symbol and or digit. So eyes dont get stuck looking at specific parts of text.
So yeah its very much possible that using VR as a virtual monitor setup it's just wrong aproach and there have to be paradigm shift in how we interact with dev environment to use it efficiently in VR.
I work on a Quest 3 no problem. This is sharper.
For me personally the Quest 3 is absolutely unusable for any text work. Even small font in games looks shitty. This is so far off for what it ought to be for comfortable work that I'll wait for devices with at least double the resolution per axis, i.e. 4x the pixels of the Quest 3 screens to even bother trying again.
Edit: And I'm writing this on a 32" 2560x1440 display which looks just dandy to me, so it's not like I'm super sensitive or have above average eyesight (quite the opposite actually)
I have tried this in the past and it wasn’t nearly sharp enough but I guess I see people using 1080p screens at work and those make me want to rip my eyeballs out.
Honestly I'be tried Quest 3 and it was not enough for me to consider it anything more than just a toy.
How many hours a day you spend in it? How often do you use it?
Most days often for several hours.
How many flights are you people taking that it's cutting into your work time? When I fly I just read a book.
For me it's more that flights are extremely boring. I find watching any movies or TV shows on a plane to be a horrible experience. The noise of the plane can ruin even the best of movies.
Maybe better for a train; the benefit is that when you unfold your bike for the last mile, you just put your work into partial transparency and navigate using the external cameras.
Also only possible if you've got a power outlet (Surprisingly even today many long haul flights do not) as its only got just over an hour of battery life.
It has a 21.6 Wh battery. You can easily get a power bank 3+ times this capacity, thus can last 4x longer. If anything, I would rather have that weight in my pocket or backpack than on my head, all things considered.
Can't use power banks on many flights now
Anecdotal, but on the last few flights that I've taken. I was told that you can use them, but you can't charge them on the flight. This was inside the US, American Airlines, and United. I can't speak to the other airlines.
I believe the restriction is on charging devices out of sight (in luggage, seatback pockets etc).
Depends on the airline and jurisdiction.
Using it while flying will be complicated by the fact that all airlines have banned the use of power banks. If the onboard USB socket isn't very powerful then you'll only get an hours' use.
Source?
Last I checked I'm allowed 100Wh of power bank on a flight. And for flights where that's not enough I'm used to having a (~100W) socket.
I can confirm that all the flights I have been on this year we were told not to use power banks. You can have one with you (well you have to since you're not allowed to check large lithium ion batteries) but you aren't allowed to actively use it.
100 W sockets? All the flights I've been on that provided power have had a really low current USB A port that can barely keep my phone from discharging when the screen is on.
In constrained plane environments https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini works well and has long battery life. I fix the screen to the seat using adapted helping hands and use a wireless keyboard/mouse for input. Super comfy as long as your eyes can deal with the reduced distance (look down the aisle occasionally).
Magnifying style shop glsssed might actually be perfect for this. I use them for electronics repair (they also only focus close which is sort of a benefit here). Downside for me is they fit in a way that is too high (they are designed for looking straight ahead) that would be great for this
> https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/8671
This is Compiz Fusion [1,] 20 years later.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR8x5Wb26ew
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawkc3jH3ws
If only the Steam Frame had a decent pass through mode.
i miss my wobbly windows
The Frame's screens aren't good enough for general computing. This is purely an entertainment device.
As far as I've kept track, a good-enough-for-reading headset doesn't exist yet. So it's not like Frame bad, it's whole industry still bad.
The Vision Pro is close, close enough for at least some people. Which is also why it's over 3x the price.
> The Frame's screens aren't good enough for general computing.
We did "general computing" in 320x200 screens. I think the Frame's screen is a bit better than that.
The issue is that magnifying the screens to fill your vision makes reasonably sized text very hard to read. You have to make the entire screen/text in front of you fairly large to make it legible. There are many other headsets with identical resolution panels, you can find this info everywhere
I disagree and I've got one
Just increase size/scaling of everything I guess right?