7 ms·

If you live with other people, the appeal is limited. I can see the appeal for my friends who live alone in small apartments. They can get this and a nice pair

If you live with other people, the appeal is limited. I can see the appeal for my friends who live alone in small apartments. They can get this and a nice pair of headphones and have a great home theater experience. This is something that would be difficult to do in their current situations. I also see the appeal for people who travel a lot for work. This is probably an amazing way to watch movies on a plane or in your hotel room at night. I have a wife and two small kids, so I will not be buying this to watch movies at home.

whstl 3y ago
Putting on my doomer glasses: with the so-called loneliness epidemic and the rising prices of property (forcing people to co-habit with non-family/friends), I can definitely see something like this becoming as popular and perhaps as necessary as mobile phones.
makeitdouble 3y ago
This is indeed a great use case for people living alone. But then they they'll also get way cheaper options if it's just to watch streaming services. I'd assume devices like the xreal are lighter and cheaper, and the Vision Pro's extra resolution is less an appeal if it's just to watch Netflix.
FemmeAndroid 3y ago
I'm hoping there is a better selling point than a really good home theater for single people. When I was single, having a TV and couch was valuable so that even though they were 95% used alone, they could be shared with guests. If I was into media enough to spend $3,500 to have a great experience, it would be a bummer if I couldn't watch a movie with someone else occasionally.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  I mean, you can still have the TV to watch things with guests. Or if you're both into the big screen VR experience, you can both wear headsets. Watching movies in a shared virtual movie theater is already a thing and works great. Even better is that you can be in your home and your romantic partner can be in their home (or traveling) and you can still watch together.
  - simiones 3y ago
    > Or if you're both into the big screen VR experience, you can both wear headsets. For the low low price of 7000$, vs 1000$ for a TV.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      I mean, right now it's for the low low price of $500 for a pair of Oculus Quest 2's. Just as big screen, but you'll effectively get 1080p quality on the virtual screen rather than 4K. Obviously for the Vision we'll wait for prices to come down.
  - jacksontheel 3y ago
    If I'm watching a movie with my romantic partner, I'd like to be in the same room as them lol. Not really interested in a VR Chat relationship.
    - Philpax 3y ago
      Yes, that's preferable when it's an option - unfortunately, that's not always possible, especially when life intervenes. Wouldn't you still want a way to share a space with your partner and watch a movie with them?
- solardev 3y ago
  You can just share the headset and each look into one eye.
Remedwme 3y ago
We have a projector at home. Still my wife watches her stuff on a phone. People actually don't care about quality more often than not. But the quest 3 should be cheap enough already for this and good enough and still is not the mass market
- jayd16 3y ago
  Quest 3 doesn't get you a 4k image and you can get a 4k Tv for less than the Quest. It's almost just sharp enough for text but not quite. I don't think you can really make the claim that the Quest 3 is good enough. Probably the Quest 4 though.
  - nsxwolf 3y ago
    It provides immersion. Your brain eventually filters out what little bit of screen door effect there is when watching a movie. Sometimes when I go to the movie theater I forget to bring my glasses, but I still have a good time. I'd be surprised if anyone thought the Quest 3 didn't render sharp text. I find everything very readable.
- greedo 3y ago
  We too have a nice 4k projector. Wife prefers to watch in the living room on an old LCD. She doesn't even mind watching DVDs (no upscaling on this TV). That makes my eyes bleed, but she doesn't care one bit.
kllrnohj 3y ago
At $3500 though you can easily put together a decent-to-great 75-80" home theater system with the latest gaming console(s) and have plenty of money left over for multiple rounds of pizza & beer with friends over. 77" OLED TVs from Samsung & LG are only around the $2000 mark these days, after all. Compromise even just a smidge to a full array local dimming mini-LED QLED TV and you're now down to under $1k for the TV. Surround-sound soundbars that sound fantastic are plentiful below the $1k mark as well and require next to zero setup. It seems like you need to live alone and be rich enough to afford it such that you likely already have a great home theater anyway and still be interested in the Vision Pro. Or you actually don't want a TV at all for some reason but still want a home theater experience. That seems like a quite small market?
- simmerup 3y ago
  You’re forgetting just how much space that all takes up
  - kllrnohj 3y ago
    It takes a wall. Most people that can afford a $3,500 VR toy usually have at least one wall - often at least 4 of them, even!
    - pwthornton 3y ago
      A lot of homes are not built with an obvious spot for a TV, especially a big one. Hence all of the people sticking TVs over their fireplaces (which is way too high for proper viewing).
    - macintux 3y ago
      A wall. And power. And furniture to hold the 50 cables and 5 auxiliary devices that go with the TV. And a place to comfortably sit that works with all of the above.
- bfeynman 3y ago
  I don't think those are really comparable. Spending a ton of money on a home theater is a large and static purchase. You put it in your home, and that's it, you can't move it easily or adapt it much. The Vision Pro, on top of having other functionalities, lets you have that home theater experience anywhere. Want o watch in bed? on the couch? outside on porch? waiting at the airport? People spend a lot more on phones because of the portability aspect.
worldsayshi 3y ago
I'm somewhat of a VR enthusiast. But my headset is mostly gathering dust. There's one use case that I do think I would actually use once it's good enough though. It's using glasses as replacement for computer monitors when doing work. But I'd prefer the Nreal/Xreal Air form factor and price point. My inner VR enthusiast thinks the Apple Vision is cool but my inner realist wonders if anyone is really going to use anything beyond smart glasses.
- filoleg 3y ago
  > My inner VR enthusiast thinks the Apple Vision is cool but my inner realist wonders if anyone is really going to use anything beyond smart glasses. My personal prediction - smart glasses as a smartphone replacement, AR/VR headsets as a poweruser workstation machine replacement. The market segments map out nicely with your prediction as well - almost everyone has a smartphone of some kind (just like i expect almost everyone to have some sort of smart glasses in the future), while a relative minority (even though it is a large one) has poweruser workstation machines (just like with AR/VR headsets in my prediction). That is, until at least the tech gets insane enough to allow packing full functionality of an AR/VR headset into the form factor of glasses, with an insane battery life to boot. I don’t see that happening in any foreseeable future though, sadly, barring some transformational and unexpected battery chemistry breakthroughs.
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    > My personal prediction - smart glasses as a smartphone replacement I still struggle with seeing smart glasses as a viable smartphone replacement unless paired with some sort of peripheral to perform input privately. Doing everything by voice or expressive gestures around others isn't going to work for people.
    - filoleg 3y ago
      That’s a really good point I totally forgot about. I would expect it to be controlled by a combo of gestures using eye tracking + some auxiliary input device, like a ring or a smartwatch or something like that. I agree, for now we have no good or even barely established UX/HCI paradigms for hypothetical standalone AR glasses. Not that we even have those types of paradigms established for currently existing AR/VR devices, but we are getting there slowly. With each year since I first tried the original HTC Vive, every new device and update slowly but surely made the interactions better, simpler, and feel more “worked out”. What gives me hope is seeing how the touch-only UIs have changed since the original iPhone release. At first, everyone was scoffing big time at touch-only interfaces ever becoming functional, viable, and widely used. The first third party apps on the App Store were also extremely disjointed and had almost nothing in common between each other in terms of UI/UX. Felt like everything was just spliced together and stamped with “we think this should work.” Not casting shade at devs of those apps, everyone was in that position back then, as there were no established UI/UX for touch-only interface smartphones. In 2024? While there are still continuing changes, things slowed down overall as the general cohesive UI/UX principles for touch-only smartphones have been established. And they indeed became functional, viable, and widely used devices.
hydroxideOH- 3y ago
Are there a lot of people who live alone in a small apartment that are willing and able to buy a $3500 headset? I feel like this entire thread has a blind spot to the fact that this device is very much a luxury item. A 55-inch TV is ~$300. A high-end laptop is ~$1000. High-end noise-cancelling headphones are ~$250. You could buy all of those and still not reach half of the cost of this device. The only people I can see buying the device are rich people looking for another toy, not as a serious competitor to other entertainment tech.
- jimbokun 3y ago
  The price will come down. This version is for wealthy early adopters.
- DetroitThrow 3y ago
  >The only people I can see buying the device are rich people looking for another toy, not as a serious competitor to other entertainment tech. I'm surprised at how consistently people think that a technology that is so expensive and serving such a niche will end up having adoption asides from a few wealthy enthusiasts. iPhone 2 suggested retail price was $300 (~$425 in todays dollars) and provided "smart" replacement for your cell phone matching its features 1-to-1 while also providing more than what was available. If someone imagines themselves buying this to watch movies "on the go" or at hotels or something, they're part of an extremely exclusive club.
  - ok123456 3y ago
    It's 10x the cost of an entry Oculus device. And no one wants that either.
    - pwthornton 3y ago
      Meta Quest's are basically video game devices. It's a much different market than AVP. Meta is selling hundreds of thousands of units a month, so I don't know if I'd say no one wants it either. It seems to be selling pretty well overall, but Meta way overinvested in some of the stuff and is having a hard time making enough money.
jayd16 3y ago
With the AVP we can actually have the game on while the wife and kids control the living room TV.
dylan604 3y ago
If you live with other people, it could still be appealing. Not everyone wants to watch the same thing at the same time. Also, living together does not mean everyone is family.
nsxwolf 3y ago
I am curious to see the image quality of the VP, because the Quest 3 already does a pretty good job as a home theater replacement for $500.
lm28469 3y ago
> They can get this and a nice pair of headphones and have a great home theater experience. This is something that would be difficult to do in their current situations. For that price you can get 3 of your friends a nice 1080p short throw projector and studio monitors which will outlive the vision pro and won't cause neck/head pain after an hour.
unusualmonkey 3y ago
The other problem here is that the is very little moat here - all you need is a good screen and decent headphones, both of which are commodity. The AVP is vastly overpriced and overspecced for basic media consumption.
- sunnybeetroot 3y ago
  Moat like water around a castle?
raydev 3y ago
> have a great home theater experience We'll have to see how people handle 1.5lbs of headgear for long periods. Maybe it'll be fine, but the Quest is already heavy enough.

whstl 3y ago

Putting on my doomer glasses: with the so-called loneliness epidemic and the rising prices of property (forcing people to co-habit with non-family/friends), I can definitely see something like this becoming as popular and perhaps as necessary as mobile phones.

makeitdouble 3y ago

This is indeed a great use case for people living alone. But then they they'll also get way cheaper options if it's just to watch streaming services. I'd assume devices like the xreal are lighter and cheaper, and the Vision Pro's extra resolution is less an appeal if it's just to watch Netflix.

FemmeAndroid 3y ago

I'm hoping there is a better selling point than a really good home theater for single people. When I was single, having a TV and couch was valuable so that even though they were 95% used alone, they could be shared with guests. If I was into media enough to spend $3,500 to have a great experience, it would be a bummer if I couldn't watch a movie with someone else occasionally.

crazygringo 3y ago
I mean, you can still have the TV to watch things with guests. Or if you're both into the big screen VR experience, you can both wear headsets. Watching movies in a shared virtual movie theater is already a thing and works great. Even better is that you can be in your home and your romantic partner can be in their home (or traveling) and you can still watch together.
- simiones 3y ago
  > Or if you're both into the big screen VR experience, you can both wear headsets. For the low low price of 7000$, vs 1000$ for a TV.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    I mean, right now it's for the low low price of $500 for a pair of Oculus Quest 2's. Just as big screen, but you'll effectively get 1080p quality on the virtual screen rather than 4K. Obviously for the Vision we'll wait for prices to come down.
- jacksontheel 3y ago
  If I'm watching a movie with my romantic partner, I'd like to be in the same room as them lol. Not really interested in a VR Chat relationship.
  - Philpax 3y ago
    Yes, that's preferable when it's an option - unfortunately, that's not always possible, especially when life intervenes. Wouldn't you still want a way to share a space with your partner and watch a movie with them?
solardev 3y ago
You can just share the headset and each look into one eye.

Remedwme 3y ago

We have a projector at home. Still my wife watches her stuff on a phone. People actually don't care about quality more often than not. But the quest 3 should be cheap enough already for this and good enough and still is not the mass market

jayd16 3y ago
Quest 3 doesn't get you a 4k image and you can get a 4k Tv for less than the Quest. It's almost just sharp enough for text but not quite. I don't think you can really make the claim that the Quest 3 is good enough. Probably the Quest 4 though.
- nsxwolf 3y ago
  It provides immersion. Your brain eventually filters out what little bit of screen door effect there is when watching a movie. Sometimes when I go to the movie theater I forget to bring my glasses, but I still have a good time. I'd be surprised if anyone thought the Quest 3 didn't render sharp text. I find everything very readable.
greedo 3y ago
We too have a nice 4k projector. Wife prefers to watch in the living room on an old LCD. She doesn't even mind watching DVDs (no upscaling on this TV). That makes my eyes bleed, but she doesn't care one bit.

kllrnohj 3y ago

At $3500 though you can easily put together a decent-to-great 75-80" home theater system with the latest gaming console(s) and have plenty of money left over for multiple rounds of pizza & beer with friends over. 77" OLED TVs from Samsung & LG are only around the $2000 mark these days, after all. Compromise even just a smidge to a full array local dimming mini-LED QLED TV and you're now down to under $1k for the TV. Surround-sound soundbars that sound fantastic are plentiful below the $1k mark as well and require next to zero setup. It seems like you need to live alone and be rich enough to afford it such that you likely already have a great home theater anyway and still be interested in the Vision Pro. Or you actually don't want a TV at all for some reason but still want a home theater experience. That seems like a quite small market?

simmerup 3y ago
You’re forgetting just how much space that all takes up
- kllrnohj 3y ago
  It takes a wall. Most people that can afford a $3,500 VR toy usually have at least one wall - often at least 4 of them, even!
  - pwthornton 3y ago
    A lot of homes are not built with an obvious spot for a TV, especially a big one. Hence all of the people sticking TVs over their fireplaces (which is way too high for proper viewing).
  - macintux 3y ago
    A wall. And power. And furniture to hold the 50 cables and 5 auxiliary devices that go with the TV. And a place to comfortably sit that works with all of the above.
bfeynman 3y ago
I don't think those are really comparable. Spending a ton of money on a home theater is a large and static purchase. You put it in your home, and that's it, you can't move it easily or adapt it much. The Vision Pro, on top of having other functionalities, lets you have that home theater experience anywhere. Want o watch in bed? on the couch? outside on porch? waiting at the airport? People spend a lot more on phones because of the portability aspect.

worldsayshi 3y ago

I'm somewhat of a VR enthusiast. But my headset is mostly gathering dust. There's one use case that I do think I would actually use once it's good enough though. It's using glasses as replacement for computer monitors when doing work. But I'd prefer the Nreal/Xreal Air form factor and price point. My inner VR enthusiast thinks the Apple Vision is cool but my inner realist wonders if anyone is really going to use anything beyond smart glasses.

filoleg 3y ago
> My inner VR enthusiast thinks the Apple Vision is cool but my inner realist wonders if anyone is really going to use anything beyond smart glasses. My personal prediction - smart glasses as a smartphone replacement, AR/VR headsets as a poweruser workstation machine replacement. The market segments map out nicely with your prediction as well - almost everyone has a smartphone of some kind (just like i expect almost everyone to have some sort of smart glasses in the future), while a relative minority (even though it is a large one) has poweruser workstation machines (just like with AR/VR headsets in my prediction). That is, until at least the tech gets insane enough to allow packing full functionality of an AR/VR headset into the form factor of glasses, with an insane battery life to boot. I don’t see that happening in any foreseeable future though, sadly, barring some transformational and unexpected battery chemistry breakthroughs.
- sho_hn 3y ago
  > My personal prediction - smart glasses as a smartphone replacement I still struggle with seeing smart glasses as a viable smartphone replacement unless paired with some sort of peripheral to perform input privately. Doing everything by voice or expressive gestures around others isn't going to work for people.
  - filoleg 3y ago
    That’s a really good point I totally forgot about. I would expect it to be controlled by a combo of gestures using eye tracking + some auxiliary input device, like a ring or a smartwatch or something like that. I agree, for now we have no good or even barely established UX/HCI paradigms for hypothetical standalone AR glasses. Not that we even have those types of paradigms established for currently existing AR/VR devices, but we are getting there slowly. With each year since I first tried the original HTC Vive, every new device and update slowly but surely made the interactions better, simpler, and feel more “worked out”. What gives me hope is seeing how the touch-only UIs have changed since the original iPhone release. At first, everyone was scoffing big time at touch-only interfaces ever becoming functional, viable, and widely used. The first third party apps on the App Store were also extremely disjointed and had almost nothing in common between each other in terms of UI/UX. Felt like everything was just spliced together and stamped with “we think this should work.” Not casting shade at devs of those apps, everyone was in that position back then, as there were no established UI/UX for touch-only interface smartphones. In 2024? While there are still continuing changes, things slowed down overall as the general cohesive UI/UX principles for touch-only smartphones have been established. And they indeed became functional, viable, and widely used devices.

hydroxideOH- 3y ago

Are there a lot of people who live alone in a small apartment that are willing and able to buy a $3500 headset? I feel like this entire thread has a blind spot to the fact that this device is very much a luxury item. A 55-inch TV is ~$300. A high-end laptop is ~$1000. High-end noise-cancelling headphones are ~$250. You could buy all of those and still not reach half of the cost of this device. The only people I can see buying the device are rich people looking for another toy, not as a serious competitor to other entertainment tech.

jimbokun 3y ago
The price will come down. This version is for wealthy early adopters.
DetroitThrow 3y ago
>The only people I can see buying the device are rich people looking for another toy, not as a serious competitor to other entertainment tech. I'm surprised at how consistently people think that a technology that is so expensive and serving such a niche will end up having adoption asides from a few wealthy enthusiasts. iPhone 2 suggested retail price was $300 (~$425 in todays dollars) and provided "smart" replacement for your cell phone matching its features 1-to-1 while also providing more than what was available. If someone imagines themselves buying this to watch movies "on the go" or at hotels or something, they're part of an extremely exclusive club.
- ok123456 3y ago
  It's 10x the cost of an entry Oculus device. And no one wants that either.
  - pwthornton 3y ago
    Meta Quest's are basically video game devices. It's a much different market than AVP. Meta is selling hundreds of thousands of units a month, so I don't know if I'd say no one wants it either. It seems to be selling pretty well overall, but Meta way overinvested in some of the stuff and is having a hard time making enough money.

jayd16 3y ago

With the AVP we can actually have the game on while the wife and kids control the living room TV.

dylan604 3y ago

If you live with other people, it could still be appealing. Not everyone wants to watch the same thing at the same time. Also, living together does not mean everyone is family.

nsxwolf 3y ago

I am curious to see the image quality of the VP, because the Quest 3 already does a pretty good job as a home theater replacement for $500.

lm28469 3y ago

> They can get this and a nice pair of headphones and have a great home theater experience. This is something that would be difficult to do in their current situations. For that price you can get 3 of your friends a nice 1080p short throw projector and studio monitors which will outlive the vision pro and won't cause neck/head pain after an hour.

unusualmonkey 3y ago

The other problem here is that the is very little moat here - all you need is a good screen and decent headphones, both of which are commodity. The AVP is vastly overpriced and overspecced for basic media consumption.

sunnybeetroot 3y ago
Moat like water around a castle?

raydev 3y ago

> have a great home theater experience We'll have to see how people handle 1.5lbs of headgear for long periods. Maybe it'll be fine, but the Quest is already heavy enough.