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There are other battery-less headsets that exist, though. Plus, if Apple is just going to offload part of the device elsewhere, why not just put the processor i

There are other battery-less headsets that exist, though. Plus, if Apple is just going to offload part of the device elsewhere, why not just put the processor in your hip too? Hell, why not just run it off a Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt cable? Going halfway with the cable-based headset seems like a recipe for redundancy.

Geee 4y ago
I'm pretty sure the whole computer is on the hip. It makes sense. There's no way they could get the headset light enough otherwise. Even the best wired headsets are too heavy currently. It should be 200-300 grams to be comfortable.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  At that point, I have two questions: 1. Why can't I just plug it into a Mac/Macbook instead? 2. Does this mean the battery/compute pack will be an optional add-on?
  - Geee 4y ago
    Maybe you can plug it in. But then you'd be tethered to the computer. However, Mac might not have low enough latency / high enough bandwidth for best experience. My thinking is that it will be an ultra-optimized highly integrated device designed to do just AR/VR, and that's also why it can beat all competitors which interface with standard PCs. I have a very high-end VR headset and GPU, and it just isn't good enough. Apple has to make some miracles here.
- tpmx 4y ago
  The logic board in a modern iPhone is very light, perhaps 10-20 grams?
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  They would need to take all the tracking camera feeds, compress them and send them over a high bandwidth low latency interface, do the compute, then send the result back up to the displays. That all requires a bunch of interface electronics, which may eliminate the savings from moving the CPU to the hip.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
> There are other battery-less headsets that exist, though. Sure but not battery-less standalone headsets as far as I know. I mean obviously they have to have a battery somewhere to be standalone, but I am not aware of other standalones that have a hip battery. I am however not an expert, but anyway we know that their big competitor Meta doesn't have a hip battery so the headset could be lighter than theirs. > why not just put the processor in your hip too You have all these cameras that have to be in the headset, plus the screens and other basic electronic components. To put compute on the hip you have to have a high bandwidth low latency connection to the hip pack, then back up to the headset. You already have to have an interface pcb in the headset to collect and compress the data to send over this high bandwidth interface, and the cable has to be expensive, etc. Whereas sending power up a cable is trivial. It may be that when looking at all these tradeoffs, remote compute is a net loss, but remote power is easy.

Geee 4y ago

I'm pretty sure the whole computer is on the hip. It makes sense. There's no way they could get the headset light enough otherwise. Even the best wired headsets are too heavy currently. It should be 200-300 grams to be comfortable.

smoldesu 4y ago
At that point, I have two questions: 1. Why can't I just plug it into a Mac/Macbook instead? 2. Does this mean the battery/compute pack will be an optional add-on?
- Geee 4y ago
  Maybe you can plug it in. But then you'd be tethered to the computer. However, Mac might not have low enough latency / high enough bandwidth for best experience. My thinking is that it will be an ultra-optimized highly integrated device designed to do just AR/VR, and that's also why it can beat all competitors which interface with standard PCs. I have a very high-end VR headset and GPU, and it just isn't good enough. Apple has to make some miracles here.
tpmx 4y ago
The logic board in a modern iPhone is very light, perhaps 10-20 grams?
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
They would need to take all the tracking camera feeds, compress them and send them over a high bandwidth low latency interface, do the compute, then send the result back up to the displays. That all requires a bunch of interface electronics, which may eliminate the savings from moving the CPU to the hip.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

> There are other battery-less headsets that exist, though. Sure but not battery-less standalone headsets as far as I know. I mean obviously they have to have a battery somewhere to be standalone, but I am not aware of other standalones that have a hip battery. I am however not an expert, but anyway we know that their big competitor Meta doesn't have a hip battery so the headset could be lighter than theirs. > why not just put the processor in your hip too You have all these cameras that have to be in the headset, plus the screens and other basic electronic components. To put compute on the hip you have to have a high bandwidth low latency connection to the hip pack, then back up to the headset. You already have to have an interface pcb in the headset to collect and compress the data to send over this high bandwidth interface, and the cable has to be expensive, etc. Whereas sending power up a cable is trivial. It may be that when looking at all these tradeoffs, remote compute is a net loss, but remote power is easy.