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Ask HN: Anyone using a Quest Pro instead of monitors?

3 points by z9znz ↗ HN
For those with firsthand experience, is the Quest Pro good enough to replace monitors?

Without additional constraints, I imagine the answer is No. But...

For a frequent traveling developer, would the Quest Pro provide a nice alternative to having only the laptop screen?

9 comments

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metadat
Do you get motion sickness from VR?

Even the thought of the Quest strapped to my face for hours makes me nauseous.

y42
Motion sickness comes from simulated movement, not just wearing the headset.
smoldesu
The Quest Pro is a bad value prop compared to buying a 2 or 3 1440p monitors. The Quest 2 on the other hand... maybe? At $400 it's at least competitive and gives you something otherwise unattainable at that price range.

I had the original Quest, and the biggest problem I ran into was eyestrain. Modern headsets are good at mitigating motion sickness, but having a pair of bifocal lens in your face causes headaches after an hour or two. The only thing I continued using it for was watching movies in a theater-like setting, which looked great on the OLED display. If you're interested in a casual use-case like that, you probably won't be super disappointed. It's not going to replace your external display anytime soon though.

z9znz
At home I have a quality 32" 4k monitor parked just above my laptop (so one big screen and then the small laptop screen below). That works fine. Of course I would like a LOT more screen real estate, but I don't want to radically change my desk setup right now.

The big issue for me is that I (like to) travel a lot, and I like to travel light. Someday if/when there's a glasses solution to replace monitors, I'll be a super happy traveler. I'm just hoping to hear from people using the latest/greatest that we're close now...

smoldesu
The experience is getting there, I think Lenovo's ThinkReality[0] is working on something you might be interested in. Their product seems to be solely targeting comfortable virtual display use, and early reviews have been pretty positive. I'd expect a sub-$1000 product in this space before 2025.

[0] https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/thinkrealitya3

z9znz
Thanks! I had not heard of this one. The more the merrier, because it will get us there faster.
pestatije
People are having laser eye surgery to avoid using glasses...and now they want to strap a monitor to their head!
z9znz
It's just a matter of time. All our tech gets smaller and lighter with each generation. One of these days the display glasses will be barely more than regular eyeglasses.

And just maybe in my lifetime we'll get a neural link so visual won't even be necessary to "see" the info from the computer.