Welcome to the Vision Pro, Apple’s most complex piece of hardware yet. So complicated that we’ll need more than one teardown to tackle it. First up: Those creepy eyes.
It’s an Apple device, what did you expect?
The thing even has an external battery pack, and instead of using USB-C so you could use any power bank you already own, they designed a completely new proprietary connector. In 2024.
Who the fuck does that anymore, except Apple?
I can see the argument for having a connector that can’t be pulled out: if you were crossing a busy street or walking down a stairway with one of these strapped to your head and the cable came out, you’d be instantly blind.
Actually I would argue it is VR first and AR second because in its dormant, non-powered state your view is completely blocked whereas if it were AR first you would just be looking through transparent glass lenses in its dormant, non-powered state.
Apple’s final destination with this product is AR and they are using it as AR but it is a VR headset replicating an AR experience because we do not have the technology yet to make something like this being AR dominant.
I say AR because they do full video passthrough first and have their UIs try to look a part of the real life environment (shadow effects on irl objects, menus are all semitransparent, etc).
You have to choose to do immersion instead, even the dorky eyes are implied to make it useful in IRL settings.
Not everything is good (the eyes are a total miss, the avatars are uncanny).
But the proprietary connector plug itself is almost identical to the lightning connector, the only difference is that the bolster has some notches in it for the BATTERY to lock into. All the locking is in the battery, they could have, should have, used USB C or any other existing connector.
I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. The USB-PD spec can cover a verity of voltage and amperage combinations covering practically any digital electronic device up to 100W.
The only reason it’s not used everywhere, is that it does add complexity to extremely simple and inexpensive devices. This thing is not simple or inexpensive, and it doesn’t draw more than 100W.
The USB-PD spec can cover a verity of voltage and amperage combinations
That’s not really true - it maxes out at 5 Amps which is only a decent amount of power if you use (relatively) high voltages. Vision Pro runs at 13 volts, which isn’t supported by USB and if it was that would only be 65 watts - nowhere near enough to power this product.
Running at higher voltages (USB can do up to 48 volts) would likely have problems, it might be less efficient for example (which would mean they have to give it a larger battery).
Not to mention the praise for “innovation”. I swear to God most of the “innovation” I see is more proprietary or useless shit to screw over the customer. I suppose regarding company priorities that’s excellent innovation.
You can use any USB battery with it, just plug it into the battery pack. Why? Because releasing this without a battery and leaving it to the customer to source one would be super weird.
Battery pack accepts incoming USB-C charging. You can apparently daisy chain chargers together with any USB-C battery pack that can output the right power.
I’m just imagining some goober with a MacBook and Daisy chained battery packs and that weird mouse charger and the stylus sticking out out of their ipad
Yeah but then its another like 300g and then why in the first place have a battery pack? and thats even worse, a lightning output a usb-c input? Next they add a Serial Data input there.
External battery makes sense as the thing without it is already as heavy as a quest 2. Just absolutely no reason not to have it be a standard USB-PD power bank.
It has already, a external battery, it goes to the headset with a lightning ( battery side ) a apple connector ( headset ), so another batter on the already heave battery pack is like having a backpack full of daisy chained battery packs ( dont do it! Fire hazard! ).
I don’t think it has power pass through, meaning that the electricity goes into apples battery pack, into the battery, then into a device. A power pass through means, upon battery and device charging, the battery will route the power from the wall (or second battery) directly to the device.
Power pass through is important because without it there’s great inefficiency (less run time) and lots of heat. The battery is being both charged and discharged, creating more heat and wearing the battery down significantly. And also for the love of God just let me plug in any battery I want to.
I bet it does have power pass through. Lots of people are going to use this all day at a desk and you’d get to a thousand cycles in just three months if plugging it into the wall just charges the battery. It needs to be passthrough.
It does have power pass through, I have 2, picked them up on release day at the store, power pass through works fine and is how I use it mostly.
My understanding with the “new” lightning cable was that normal USB wouldn’t work since the battery pack also houses a lot of the power regulation tech too to offload it from the headset and this new connector has the ability to manage the power requirements and control other required data between the battery pack and the headset.
Since I am writing already and haven’t posted my thoughts on this thing anywhere I figure I might as well post them here;
Many people consider this device a comical effort from Apple and from the outside it does kind of look like that but having used it for a bit I can say it is a pretty amazing experience and definitely a window into the future of computing and how we interact with the digital world.
I’ve always felt that most tech evolves to be functionally invisible, flint and tinder becomes a lighter and then matches, big clunky wall phones and two way radios eventually became smartphones (wallets, film cameras and so many other devices also got melded into the smart phone), grandfather clocks became wrist watches… all of the tools we use eventually move to be more useful, compact and integrated into our lives. Desktop computing with keyboards, mice, monitors and etc will all be boiled down to a device similar to the Vision Pro but of course smaller and more integratabtle into our daily lives. The Vision Pro is an excellent move forward toward that future. It’s expensive but that is normal for this type of thing and it is following the steps that all cutting edge technology make before it becomes standard. Remember those shoulder bag mobile phones from several decades ago, we couldn’t skip that step to get to the smartphones we have now.
There are many missing features and several things that don’t make sense as to why they did things a certain way. Apple is clearly experimenting here and, yes it is expensive, but no one is being forced into buying one of these things and for every one that sells this type of device will get cheaper and better in the future because this new tech will get feedback and refinement with each user. I am all for it, the more we get things like this the closer it gets to cheaper everyday use.
The price it is at right now, I doubt Apple is getting much in terms of profit, it is loaded with manufacturing techniques and hardware that are not standard or common, this is future tech and cutting edge design and implementation, that always is expensive; like runway model clothes from fashion shows, that is super expensive but eventually the styles, techniques and color and patterns trickle down into the styles of the general population. It will be the same with the Vision Pro. Without stages like this tech moves forward more slowly so having a company willing to experiment like this moves the needle faster and I’m all for it. It’s not for everybody right now but it will be soon, we just have to learn the usability lessons first and the early adopters are paying that price.
As someone who has built solar battery packs, that’s not how batteries work. They have a single connection (positive and negative), not a charge and separate discharge port. If the charge voltage is the same as the battery voltage, it goes directly to the device.
The only problem is that you can’t keep the battery at 80% charged in this mode, which would be better for battery life while it’s not used.
Like said before, what a joke then, headset => battery pack ( apple connector and a lightning connector ) => wall socket ( Usb to ?? ). Apple, next time please add another step where the wall socket connector has a serial connector, just to increase e-waste even more.
You’re a little slow. I’ll spell this out for you. Headset to battery with built in connector. Included battery to any battery bank of your choice with any usb-c cable.
It uses a proprietary lightning connector on the battery end on the cable for the vision pro, so no it’s not possible to simply plug the Vision Pro into any USB-C battery bank, you can however plug it’s proprietary battery into USB-C to charge it, which is hillarious
I will give it to @[email protected], it IS possible to Daisy Chain a usb-c battery pack to the actual battery of the apple vision pro, but that is a fire hazard, do NOT try it. But i still dont get it if he is just a troll, or a apple fanboy who cant read because everything can be read through siri?
Like said, its totally useless either way, either to an another powerbank or to the wall socket. Still it would be utterly useless and could be a fire hazard to daisy chain powerbanks. And next time you can be a little bit more respectful. I did not offended you or said something bad to you.
You read something that was true, falsely claimed it was incorrect, a different person corrected you, and rather than checking to see if you were right, which would be a simple google search, you doubled down that something is not possible. And now that you realize you’re wrong you move the goalposts and say it’s useless either way. It’s exhausting dealing with people like you.
I dont get what you want too. You said you can connect DIRECTLY to the headset with usb-c, then after another comment you said its possible to daisy chain it onto the battery pack ( that is dangerous ), then you said i am lying about that. I dont know anymore too, its just funny to discuss with people like you.
You apple fanboys are more fanatic into the product than everyone else.
I own two, they are pretty great. It is not ideal having a battery pack with a cable but it is not that big of a problem. 98% of my usage so far has been sitting, if I am standing and using it then I am usually not standing using it for 2-3hrs at a time anyway. Most of the areas in my house have a USB-C plug nearby anyway so I just plug in the battery back when I sit down and continue using it, it really isn’t much of an issue.
This issue is similar to how some people love wireless keyboard and some people hate them but for most people it doesn’t matter to much. This is a doesn’t matter too much issue for everyone who has tried this thing, and honestly, if you have the money to buy a Vision Pro then do it or don’t but I don’t think many people are seriously going to be dissuaded from the purchase due to the battery issue. I was concerned about it before purchase but it isn’t really an issue for me after using it a lot over the past few days. Most of my hundreds of hours of VR usage over the past decade have been sitting near a charger anyway, so I won’t really be an issue going forward for me anyway. I’d prefer it to have an onboard battery that would last for a week’s worth of usage but we’re not there yet and I am under no illusions that we should be there now. As far as existing tech goes this device is a window into the future and it is setting the roadmap for how this tech will be used in the future. It only gets better from here.
It is pretty hilarious seeing people hate on this thing so much, like you can’t think beyond your own circumstances to allow for the idea that this may be an incredibly useful tool for a certain segment of people and that segment of people may have the the money to spend on tools for their trade and the money I spent on it has an ROI of months based on time saved at my rate of pay.
I am truly truly sorry for you that you think it is a good use of your time to rip on a product that you have never used, is not made for you and has no baring on your life what so ever. I am perfectly happy with my purchase. I have already logged a lot of hours these past few days putting it through its paces and figuring out my workflow with it and my team. We are excited to have this tool available to us and I am also ecstatic to have something that helps with all my sensory issues due to my autism and adhd. This device is exceptional in helping me maintain my focus and dampen any distractions and interruptions.
I am sorry you can’t accept that others have different needs than you. Keep on shaming the handicapped buddy, I am sure it will pay off for you eventually and everyone will see you as that hero of truth in your product reviews for things you’ve never tried before. I am sure spreading your special brand of negativity out into the world will eventually get you all those positive vibes you crave.
Good luck to you, I very much mean that and I am rooting for you.
I meant directly to the headset, of course you can dangerously daisy chain another battery pack with usb-c to the battery pack ( thats a possible fire hazard btw, so please dont try it out thx )
Daisy chaining extension chords is dangerous because there is a current limit on them and no fuse. Also, the voltage drops the longer the cable is and thus there might not be enough left at the end to power whatever you’re trying to connect.
All of this doesn’t apply to electronically controlled and fused power supplies.
What? That’s not a fire hazard at all. Your second battery would provide at most 100 watts which is perfectly safe and not going to cause any fires.
If you submerge the battery in water or stab it with a knife… sure it might catch fire. But that’s pretty much the only risk so long as you stick to reputable brands that comply with safety standards.
It’s an Apple device, what did you expect?
The thing even has an external battery pack, and instead of using USB-C so you could use any power bank you already own, they designed a completely new proprietary connector. In 2024.
Who the fuck does that anymore, except Apple?
It’s even worse. The cable appears to be a bigger version of Lightning, because of course it is.
I can see the argument for having a connector that can’t be pulled out: if you were crossing a busy street or walking down a stairway with one of these strapped to your head and the cable came out, you’d be instantly blind.
Who the fuck wears a VR headset walking in the street, let alone crossing a road?
Walking in the street with a vr set on, that would be silly
No one, yet. The idea is (very obviously, I might mention) that we will be wearing AR or VR glasses just like many wear a smartwatch or carry a phone.
https://youtu.be/UvkgmyfMPks?si=dfGF9Zw5u0e3gZXR
That’s wild 🤯
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/UvkgmyfMPks?si=dfGF9Zw5u0e3gZXR
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Apart from Apple users?
That is what the AR aspect of this headset is all about. It’s AR first VR second.
Actually I would argue it is VR first and AR second because in its dormant, non-powered state your view is completely blocked whereas if it were AR first you would just be looking through transparent glass lenses in its dormant, non-powered state.
Apple’s final destination with this product is AR and they are using it as AR but it is a VR headset replicating an AR experience because we do not have the technology yet to make something like this being AR dominant.
I say AR because they do full video passthrough first and have their UIs try to look a part of the real life environment (shadow effects on irl objects, menus are all semitransparent, etc).
You have to choose to do immersion instead, even the dorky eyes are implied to make it useful in IRL settings.
Not everything is good (the eyes are a total miss, the avatars are uncanny).
First of all this should NOT be the use case, it is dangerous, stupid, idiotic and shows that you dont care for your life and others.
But the proprietary connector plug itself is almost identical to the lightning connector, the only difference is that the bolster has some notches in it for the BATTERY to lock into. All the locking is in the battery, they could have, should have, used USB C or any other existing connector.
Um, it has twice as many pins. The same number of pins as thunderbolt which likely isn’t a coincidence.
Exactly, so it could’ve just been USB C
deleted by creator
Did USB-c match their needs?
I can’t imagine it wouldn’t. The USB-PD spec can cover a verity of voltage and amperage combinations covering practically any digital electronic device up to 100W.
The only reason it’s not used everywhere, is that it does add complexity to extremely simple and inexpensive devices. This thing is not simple or inexpensive, and it doesn’t draw more than 100W.
Up to 240W now actually
That’s not really true - it maxes out at 5 Amps which is only a decent amount of power if you use (relatively) high voltages. Vision Pro runs at 13 volts, which isn’t supported by USB and if it was that would only be 65 watts - nowhere near enough to power this product.
Running at higher voltages (USB can do up to 48 volts) would likely have problems, it might be less efficient for example (which would mean they have to give it a larger battery).
I’ve heard that argument floating around and I don’t buy it. Step-up and down converters are a thing.
That’s a terrible argument. Apple could have very easily made this run at something other than 13v.
I’d be surprised if the headset even drew 65W, the other points notwithstanding
Yes, and apple did choose not to, so their customers will praise apple that they got ANOTHER only apple connector!
Not to mention the praise for “innovation”. I swear to God most of the “innovation” I see is more proprietary or useless shit to screw over the customer. I suppose regarding company priorities that’s excellent innovation.
You can use any USB battery with it, just plug it into the battery pack. Why? Because releasing this without a battery and leaving it to the customer to source one would be super weird.
No you can not? It has a lightning connector and a new apple connector, just wow what apple designs is just e-waste.
Battery pack accepts incoming USB-C charging. You can apparently daisy chain chargers together with any USB-C battery pack that can output the right power.
I’m just imagining some goober with a MacBook and Daisy chained battery packs and that weird mouse charger and the stylus sticking out out of their ipad
Yeah but then its another like 300g and then why in the first place have a battery pack? and thats even worse, a lightning output a usb-c input? Next they add a Serial Data input there.
External battery makes sense as the thing without it is already as heavy as a quest 2. Just absolutely no reason not to have it be a standard USB-PD power bank.
It has already, a external battery, it goes to the headset with a lightning ( battery side ) a apple connector ( headset ), so another batter on the already heave battery pack is like having a backpack full of daisy chained battery packs ( dont do it! Fire hazard! ).
I don’t think it has power pass through, meaning that the electricity goes into apples battery pack, into the battery, then into a device. A power pass through means, upon battery and device charging, the battery will route the power from the wall (or second battery) directly to the device.
Power pass through is important because without it there’s great inefficiency (less run time) and lots of heat. The battery is being both charged and discharged, creating more heat and wearing the battery down significantly. And also for the love of God just let me plug in any battery I want to.
I bet it does have power pass through. Lots of people are going to use this all day at a desk and you’d get to a thousand cycles in just three months if plugging it into the wall just charges the battery. It needs to be passthrough.
It does have power pass through, I have 2, picked them up on release day at the store, power pass through works fine and is how I use it mostly.
My understanding with the “new” lightning cable was that normal USB wouldn’t work since the battery pack also houses a lot of the power regulation tech too to offload it from the headset and this new connector has the ability to manage the power requirements and control other required data between the battery pack and the headset.
Since I am writing already and haven’t posted my thoughts on this thing anywhere I figure I might as well post them here;
Many people consider this device a comical effort from Apple and from the outside it does kind of look like that but having used it for a bit I can say it is a pretty amazing experience and definitely a window into the future of computing and how we interact with the digital world.
I’ve always felt that most tech evolves to be functionally invisible, flint and tinder becomes a lighter and then matches, big clunky wall phones and two way radios eventually became smartphones (wallets, film cameras and so many other devices also got melded into the smart phone), grandfather clocks became wrist watches… all of the tools we use eventually move to be more useful, compact and integrated into our lives. Desktop computing with keyboards, mice, monitors and etc will all be boiled down to a device similar to the Vision Pro but of course smaller and more integratabtle into our daily lives. The Vision Pro is an excellent move forward toward that future. It’s expensive but that is normal for this type of thing and it is following the steps that all cutting edge technology make before it becomes standard. Remember those shoulder bag mobile phones from several decades ago, we couldn’t skip that step to get to the smartphones we have now.
There are many missing features and several things that don’t make sense as to why they did things a certain way. Apple is clearly experimenting here and, yes it is expensive, but no one is being forced into buying one of these things and for every one that sells this type of device will get cheaper and better in the future because this new tech will get feedback and refinement with each user. I am all for it, the more we get things like this the closer it gets to cheaper everyday use.
The price it is at right now, I doubt Apple is getting much in terms of profit, it is loaded with manufacturing techniques and hardware that are not standard or common, this is future tech and cutting edge design and implementation, that always is expensive; like runway model clothes from fashion shows, that is super expensive but eventually the styles, techniques and color and patterns trickle down into the styles of the general population. It will be the same with the Vision Pro. Without stages like this tech moves forward more slowly so having a company willing to experiment like this moves the needle faster and I’m all for it. It’s not for everybody right now but it will be soon, we just have to learn the usability lessons first and the early adopters are paying that price.
I really love this write up, extremely reasonable and makes sense. In the end, it’s no bother to me if I don’t buy it
I cannot put into words how much I appreciate your kind reply but these will have to do, thank you!
As someone who has built solar battery packs, that’s not how batteries work. They have a single connection (positive and negative), not a charge and separate discharge port. If the charge voltage is the same as the battery voltage, it goes directly to the device.
The only problem is that you can’t keep the battery at 80% charged in this mode, which would be better for battery life while it’s not used.
Yes you can. The battery plugs into the wall with USB-C.
Like said before, what a joke then, headset => battery pack ( apple connector and a lightning connector ) => wall socket ( Usb to ?? ). Apple, next time please add another step where the wall socket connector has a serial connector, just to increase e-waste even more.
You’re a little slow. I’ll spell this out for you. Headset to battery with built in connector. Included battery to any battery bank of your choice with any usb-c cable.
Imagine if you could just connect it to any battery bank, like I do with my Quest 2 via USB-C. Only 300 bucks.
I’m just correcting the guy who said this was not possible and that Vision Pro did not use usb-c. Didn’t realize people don’t like facts around here.
It uses a proprietary lightning connector on the battery end on the cable for the vision pro, so no it’s not possible to simply plug the Vision Pro into any USB-C battery bank, you can however plug it’s proprietary battery into USB-C to charge it, which is hillarious
I will give it to @[email protected], it IS possible to Daisy Chain a usb-c battery pack to the actual battery of the apple vision pro, but that is a fire hazard, do NOT try it. But i still dont get it if he is just a troll, or a apple fanboy who cant read because everything can be read through siri?
I would never buy a Vision Pro, doesn’t mean I’m not going to correct people when they are wrong about tech.
Like said, its totally useless either way, either to an another powerbank or to the wall socket. Still it would be utterly useless and could be a fire hazard to daisy chain powerbanks. And next time you can be a little bit more respectful. I did not offended you or said something bad to you.
You read something that was true, falsely claimed it was incorrect, a different person corrected you, and rather than checking to see if you were right, which would be a simple google search, you doubled down that something is not possible. And now that you realize you’re wrong you move the goalposts and say it’s useless either way. It’s exhausting dealing with people like you.
I dont get what you want too. You said you can connect DIRECTLY to the headset with usb-c, then after another comment you said its possible to daisy chain it onto the battery pack ( that is dangerous ), then you said i am lying about that. I dont know anymore too, its just funny to discuss with people like you.
You apple fanboys are more fanatic into the product than everyone else.
I own two, they are pretty great. It is not ideal having a battery pack with a cable but it is not that big of a problem. 98% of my usage so far has been sitting, if I am standing and using it then I am usually not standing using it for 2-3hrs at a time anyway. Most of the areas in my house have a USB-C plug nearby anyway so I just plug in the battery back when I sit down and continue using it, it really isn’t much of an issue.
This issue is similar to how some people love wireless keyboard and some people hate them but for most people it doesn’t matter to much. This is a doesn’t matter too much issue for everyone who has tried this thing, and honestly, if you have the money to buy a Vision Pro then do it or don’t but I don’t think many people are seriously going to be dissuaded from the purchase due to the battery issue. I was concerned about it before purchase but it isn’t really an issue for me after using it a lot over the past few days. Most of my hundreds of hours of VR usage over the past decade have been sitting near a charger anyway, so I won’t really be an issue going forward for me anyway. I’d prefer it to have an onboard battery that would last for a week’s worth of usage but we’re not there yet and I am under no illusions that we should be there now. As far as existing tech goes this device is a window into the future and it is setting the roadmap for how this tech will be used in the future. It only gets better from here.
Woah did you take out a loan or what? If apple is there it doesnt get better, it gets just in the direction “Boring Future Dystopia”
It is pretty hilarious seeing people hate on this thing so much, like you can’t think beyond your own circumstances to allow for the idea that this may be an incredibly useful tool for a certain segment of people and that segment of people may have the the money to spend on tools for their trade and the money I spent on it has an ROI of months based on time saved at my rate of pay.
I am truly truly sorry for you that you think it is a good use of your time to rip on a product that you have never used, is not made for you and has no baring on your life what so ever. I am perfectly happy with my purchase. I have already logged a lot of hours these past few days putting it through its paces and figuring out my workflow with it and my team. We are excited to have this tool available to us and I am also ecstatic to have something that helps with all my sensory issues due to my autism and adhd. This device is exceptional in helping me maintain my focus and dampen any distractions and interruptions.
I am sorry you can’t accept that others have different needs than you. Keep on shaming the handicapped buddy, I am sure it will pay off for you eventually and everyone will see you as that hero of truth in your product reviews for things you’ve never tried before. I am sure spreading your special brand of negativity out into the world will eventually get you all those positive vibes you crave.
Good luck to you, I very much mean that and I am rooting for you.
Don’t worry, this person also accused me of making fun of their disability which wasn’t only out of left field, it was pathetically lazy.
You’re wrong, go watch some review videos.
I meant directly to the headset, of course you can dangerously daisy chain another battery pack with usb-c to the battery pack ( thats a possible fire hazard btw, so please dont try it out thx )
Why is it dangerous? If the battery can deliver 30W then it’s in spec.
Its dangerous like all the other reasons why not to daisy chain a extension cords.
Please explain why. Do you really think an extension cord works the same way as a USB cable?
Daisy chaining extension chords is dangerous because there is a current limit on them and no fuse. Also, the voltage drops the longer the cable is and thus there might not be enough left at the end to power whatever you’re trying to connect.
All of this doesn’t apply to electronically controlled and fused power supplies.
What? That’s not a fire hazard at all. Your second battery would provide at most 100 watts which is perfectly safe and not going to cause any fires.
If you submerge the battery in water or stab it with a knife… sure it might catch fire. But that’s pretty much the only risk so long as you stick to reputable brands that comply with safety standards.