Ask HN: Are you still using a Vision Pro?

unless Apple allows adult content applications on Vision Pro its future is doomed.

There are only two first-adopters for any new technology: military and adult industry.

Without these you wont get any traction

I use it every day, approx ~95% of the days since it launched over 2 years ago. Many hours a day. Far and away my biggest use-case is connecting it to my laptop for gigantic (private) movie theater-sized screen.

Getting it comfortable was the most important step. The 6-months-old DualKnit band is really great for making it a lot more comfortable. An open face mod (eg $10 Macally on amazon) helps a lot with eye breathability, and restoring peripheral vision.

Also really great for being able to work well from anywhere.

Sad that so many people are sleeping on it, but what can you do? Check out r/VisionPro for tons of people that love theirs and use them constantly.

having developed multiple apps on it and tried every which way to use it (as an XR enthusiast in general), I have never been so happy to put a headset up on the shelf and never pull it out again.

using as a spatial monitor was cool. for about 10min until my neck got tired of the added weight. but I’ll give credit that those 10min were pretty cool.

I bought the refreshed M5 version with the new headstrap. I read so many complaints about weight and it was just never an issue for me personally. Maybe the new strap is that much better?

That said, the battery cable was super annoying, id accidentally catch it multiple times per day. The battery is good for less than 2 hours so i used it plugged into the wall.

For zoom calls, the persona thing is hilariously bad, unusable in a business context. Interesting for a few minutes as a tech demo though.

The virtual layout is good - a big citrix app screen (its the ipad app) for remote desktop, zoom, safari etc off to the sides and then things like calendar widget pinned to physical wall. But text clarity / quality is just slightly not good enough for software development. Almost, its close. If you dont mind large fonts its good enough.

Ultimately returned it but it was a close run thing, i almost kept it.

I do still hanker for something like this, tempted to try xreal or other glasses but seems like the PPD is even lower.

The only feature that looked compelling to me was the ability to have "multi-monitor" on a plane.

Did anyone ever use that and did it live up to the hype? Or did you just get sick from having a headset on?

Not regularly, but I do watch movies on it once in a while (in those beautiful environments), especially when I'm on a flight.

WWDC also just rolled out some quite exciting features to RealityKit: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2026/279/ as well as visionOS itself (https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2026/287/)

It makes me wonder if Apple is really giving it up as news have claimed.

Waiting for Steam Frame.

Stopped using it after about a week or two of usage. The only interesting use case was screen mirroring from my Mac, but that wasn't compelling enough to endure the weight of it on my face. I expected watching a movie would be a good use case, but in reality the brightness of the screen would reflect (I guess?) off my face and create a glare... so it ultimately wasn't a good movie device. Gave it to a friend who was excited about it, and he also stopped using it after about a week or two.

Almost every day. Meanwhile my quest pro gathers a lot of dust. The AVP as a screen is just so much more comfortable and productive for me and nothing beats it for entertainment. It also just still feels like a really great user experience and I was genuinely sad to see the project sunsetted.

Yes, I use mine many times per week for hours at a time, and my top use case is as the ultrawide theater sized screen for my Macbook Pro. I'm a software developer and the lack of text clarity doesn't bother me much. It's really not that bad. Of course it helps that I make the screen really big so it's easier to read everything.

And it doesn't put strain on my neck like others have experienced.

One bonus benefit is that with normal computer screens I have to wear glasses, but inside the Vision Pro, I don't. So when eye strain becomes an issue after hours of programming, it's very comfortable to switch to the Vision Pro. Much less eye strain.

I recently just picked up a used, like new, M5 Vision Pro for a steal. I've had it for a month and use it a few times a week, mostly for content consumption but very occasionally when I need to work, want a bigger screen, and don't want to sit at my desk.

Does the AVP still not integrate with VR games/simulators? I understand why Apple wants it to be a productivity tool not a gaming device, but it really sucks to restrict it in that way.

I'm an indie that travels a lot. I'm interested in it to have more flexibility with ergonomic setups for development, such as being able to stand without needing a way to elevate my laptop to eye height (it's easy at least to find ways to get my keyboard halves to proper height for standing) or lying with keyboard halves at my sides.

Curious if anyone is using it successfully for ergonomics (not just for the convenience of having a big monitor which is secondary for me - Macbook + iPad sidecar display is very travel-friendly but very difficult to use ergonomically away from home).

Are they worth it if you fly frequently?

Yes, it feels like the future every time I put it on. For work, the ultra wide has been wonderful when I'm not at my desk. I also get to have the NBA playoffs to the side on a 10ft screen while I work. For videos, it's a complete game changing experience. They're slowly but surely releasing more "immersive" features. Eg, I recently watched an immersive Lakers game and immediately thought I'd pay to watch games like this. It reminded me when HD became default and we finally realized what we were missing. I don't want to watch games where I'm not courtside anymore.

The two things that consistently delight me are AI and my AVP. I'm trying to combine the two.

I got bored with mine after a week and returned it. I couldn’t even muster up the energy to actually use it on the final weekend I had it.

The window management was buggy. I didn’t see a point to the virtual displays on the Mac. Maybe it was me, but some elements were tack sharp while others felt blurry, which messed with me a lot. The battery didn’t last long enough to feel like I could be cordless, but also got in the way while plugged in. Overall the whole experience felt really finicky.

Some of the immersive content was cool, but the cuts in the video were really jarring. I felt like they should have been done in a single shot.

Movies were… ok… I watched Avatar for the first time, and in 3D. It was fine. Not enough for me to sit down for 3 hours to watch the 2nd one before returning it.

I thought the dinosaur demo was the most impressive, but it was rather short and I didn’t know where to go for more stuff like that. I had the new one, so that demo was already old by the time I tried it, and still the more impressive part of what I tried.

I found some immersive 360 travel videos on YouTube, which were cool, but limited.

I wanted to like it, but the discomfort wasn’t worth what it gave me.

Asked recently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48275508

It's quite fun and I'll drop into it from time to time, but it's mostly a novel plaything for me. I do have a friend who has used it for full-time work for years though.

No, haven't found a killer use case for it as of now. Was only a really good personal movie theater.

I'm using it ocassionally - whenever I have time to do further WebXR development beyond what I've already done, and when an interesting new immersive video or 3D movie becomes available on it. I'll sometimes use it to relax and catch up on any new VR180 videos on youtube.

For other work or entertainment that doesn't take advantage of its spatial features, I tend to revert to using a computer with an external display. The display in the Vision Pro cannot quite match the resolution and HDR headroom of the external display I ended up having (a Pro Display XDR). Maybe if it didn't get outclassed by my external display when displaying 2D content, I'd have additional motivation to use it more often.

Primarily as an external monitor and when good 3D or immersive videos are released.

I still use mine pretty consistently for some specific use cases. Video editing in DaVinci Resolve using my MacBook Pro w/ Mac Virtual Display helps a ton with workflows where I need the extra space, and is definitely what I find the most helpful for it. I've also used it some for music production with Logic Pro, and it can be somewhat helpful, as long as I'm not live tracking instruments. Pretty much anything that benefits from more screen real estate is great on it.

Also, media consumption in general on it is unparalleled. I watched Lawrence of Arabia a few weeks ago in the Super Panavision 70 native resolution and was in awe of how much a difference it made for my appreciation of the film.

It's not a product for everyone, but I've not used anything quite like it. One of my favorite memories of it was getting my father to send me some of his favorite photographs from his travels (he's a professional photographer with a great camera setup) and making an album of spacial and panoramic photos for him and some other family members to relive. My grandma literally cried because she can't travel anymore so being able to see the world as if she was there was super meaningful :)

Yes, nearly every working day.

The ability to focus on something while the world around me melts away. When it is just myself, the virtual display of my Mac, and the drifting grains of gypsum at White Sands, I seem to be at peace with whatever I am working on.

I'd love to buy one cause I love the idea of watching movies in that and I watch stuff alone all the time.

I just can't justify the $5000CAD starting price to watch movies. I've considered getting a used M2 model, but I believe you still need to get fitted for the eye piece to ensure a proper seal, and the closest Apple Store to me is about a 6 hour drive. Also I'm not even sure all the cool new Siri stuff yesterday would be supported on the M2 model, so it'd kinda suck to spend all that money and be locked out of new features right away.

No

I wish I could buy them and had the money for them.

Perhaps I can buy the Galaxy XR some day, they are half the price and similarly specced. But it's not available in Europe at all (and the vision pro only in a handful of countries)

I use my Quest 3 and Xreal (AR) headsets a lot though. For content (including adult as I've mentioned elsewhere, but not only of course) and also development of dedicated corporate stuff.

I use it every day, sometimes for hours. Once I embraced that fact that my family goes to bed before I do, I use it watch all of my "nerdy" shows at night. During the day it's been really great for having a large desktop that I can see throughout the house. For gaming, I use the geforce now service and a playstation controller. It's been quite fun!

I use it about once every 3 months now to watch content while laying in bed when I don't think it'll annoy my wife too much

well, i never could afford it, but was so intrigued by it. i was hopeful that this would be the product to usher in HMDs as more than a medium for indie gaming. i thought that perhaps, with the biggest in consumer tech producing their very own XR headset, we'd surely see rapid developments in device weight, lens and display quality, pricing, and whatnot. don't get me wrong, great strides have been made, but still, XR for productivity doesn't feel as if it has crossed a certain threshold. The devices are still too weighty, 4k-per-eye is still too expensive, and glasses like that of XREAL are heavily limited in FOV. ultimately, not enough is offered, in my mind, to justify dropping two bands on something like the Galaxy XR, when two 1080p monitors costs ~$300, and a portable laptop monitor extender costs ~$150. one of these days, but certainly not now.

Yes. Best YouTube and Movie/TV viewer. And occasional large screen interface to my MacPro.

It is still heavy as hell on my head, even with tons of 3rd party harnesses. On the other hand, my neck muscles are getting stronger.

My wife is the primary user and frequently uses it when she works. She also travels with it and doesn’t mind occasional weird looks.

I use it occasionally, either to watch movies or the content that Apple releases specifically for it.

Still using the AVP but not exclusively, about 3 hours a day, with a hardware Bluetooth keyboard.

Mostly multiple safari windows opening on servers via webterm, cli and emacs.

It’s especially great when traveling.

Only problem, I cannot share a window when presenting…

I have been waiting for a vision pro 2 for 2 years ...

I bought it on launch day, and I still use it at least a couple times a week. I also pretty much always take it with me when I travel (along with my MBP). Frankly, I'd use it even more, but because it's a fairly anti-social device I prefer to use it only when I have meaningful alone time. If I were living alone by myself, I imagine it could be a daily device for me.

My main use cases are Mac Virtual Display, movies/entertainment, PS5 gaming [0], casual browsing, and -- most surprisingly -- reading. The first few are pretty self-explanatory, but reading is one of my favorite unexpected niche use cases. It's really nice having a floating book (via Apple Books) perfectly positioned at eye height in front of you in your favorite virtual environment, listening to music of your choice. This use case didn't really take off for me until the recent dual knit band fixed the comfort issue. I dabbled with reading in the Vision Pro before but the comfort level just wasn't quite there yet. The new band is good enough to make this one of my favorite ways to read today.

[0] I use the Portal app for this. It lets you stream PS5 games into a gigantic screen inside the Vision Pro. I combine it with a Dolby Atmos surround sound speaker setup in our upstairs game room. It's truly a stunning experience. The only reason I wouldn't declare this the gold standard way to play games is because it currently relies on WiFi streaming, which introduces some input lag. The lag tends not to be an issue with the games that I play, but it's enough that you wouldn't play competitive twitch shooters with it. If Apple had just allowed you to plug in an external device via HDMI, this would hands down be the most impressive gaming experience out there. I'm personally very sensitive to input lag thanks to years of low-latency PC gaming, but I know not everybody is. If you're not, you may be even more impressed by it than me.

Yeah -- mostly for media, though. Occasionally with my laptop while traveling for work, for the sake of the huge screen.

My buddy hasn't used it to do any work in a while. Only uses it every now and then to watch movies.

Almost every day, watching videos, having meetings, hands on (the agent) coding and playing games.

I'm more into Rayban Meta Glasses now. I think they are just more useful.

yes, nearly every day. i focus much better inside avp. i am lucky to find it comfortable, especially with the dual knit band, but i still take breaks every hour to rest my eyes.

probably intended to be the rehearsal for building applications that will power more ergonomic form-factors released when the hardware is perfected

never owned one but this makes sense

I have bought one recently and am using it almost daily.

No I barely use it

Reading these responses it's clear the biomechanics works for some, but also clearly doesn't work for others. How much this could be compensated for by physio or gym isn't clear, but it says to me that that the system may simply never suit some people who have higher sensitivity to the weight and momentum.

In the same sense, your dependency on corrective lenses and the nature of the problem also stand out. Some people feel fine, Some people feel fine with script matching inserts, some people can't handle internal reflections and the focus effects of a "pseudo horizon" on your focus region.

TL;DR Some people.

No, headaches after 15 min. Same with XReal.

Got mine on launch day. It's been sitting in the case for over a year. It's frankly just not comfortable to use for more than 10 minutes.

Not really. I keep waiting to see if Apple would take it as a trade-in for something else. It's great for watching movies but only as a solo-experience.

Yes, except, wait, I don't have one. Nvm.

I forgot those existed