Coding without a laptop: Two weeks with AR glasses and Linux on Android

Nice to read I'm not alone thinking of this nomadic kind of setup. And also I got the feedback I hoped on the Xreal Air 2 glasses : https://eu.shop.xreal.com/fr/products/xreal-air-2

Hey thanks (I'm the author)! BTW the "Pro" version has the electrochromic dimming, so I recommend paying a little extra for that unless you're really sure you're not going to need it.

EDIT: To clarify, I meant the "Xreal Air 2 Pro", not the "Xreal One Pro". The latter are much more expensive.

Might even use the phone as a trackpad/mouse for other non cli tasks.

this is rad

Your price point for the used glasses is quite lucky to just play around with it or using it sometimes.

They cost 800 new :|

1080p is that really okay?

I've been thinking about using xreal glasses for coding but all the reviews I've seen seems to think that the fidelity isn't good enough for reading text for lengthy stretches of time. This article is the first counter argument here.

What a shame that you really can't do this using an iPhone. Unless things have changed recently the closest you can come to this is using iSH to run some linux binaries (x86_32), but it's quite limited last I checked.

Now that Google is rolling out native Debian with Android, this will only get better - in addition to Google's native DeX.

I'm sooo ready for the one device life! :D

Awesome! Regarding the keyboard I would recommend going towards the mechanical path. Browse https://kbd.news/ for some inspiration. I built a 36 keys for myself that is portable and very capable. You can even map keys to control the mouse and much more. Definitely going to keep an eye on the advancements of AR glasses from now on.

UTM runs virtual machines on iOS and has been around a while: https://getutm.app

Issue is that Apple doesn’t allow apps to run JIT so if you want the JIT version of UTM, you need to sideload or Jailbreak. The non-JIT version is on the App Store.

> I really didn't want to root the phone, but nothing else did what I needed

Shame that rooting is such a pain, and risks bricking the device. (Apparently Google's introduction of an anti-rollback bootloader this month has caused a few people's devices to get bricked when they tried to root.)

Are there any OSes that have usable performance (<1min to boot) on iOS without JIT? I tried a few and they were impractically slow.

> The biggest downside of the glasses is that the FOV is actually too big. Seeing the top and bottom edges of the screen means moving your eyeballs to angles that are just a little uncomfortable,

Is there a window manager and/or eyeball tracking trick that could be added to this setup to bring content into the center?

They are $299 on sale on the vendor website right now. I won't link because I don't want to promote them necessarily, but I think you must have seen a different vendor or something?

Oh that's a cool coincidence, I was just watching a video of someone coding a game without a laptop. In their case it's a VR game on a VR headset (based on Android), using Godot.

It's not really related I know but it's neat how all those not-strictly-computers are getting more useful!

Edit: forgot the video link! It's https://youtu.be/4ZAzi-4Ko3g?feature=shared

This is my favorite portable keyboard: https://www.logitech.com/en-us/shop/p/keys-to-go2-universal....

Unless they have a way to lock open, foldable keyboards will always subtly bend which is annoying enough for me to ditch the folding part entirely.

I have these same AR glasses and I really like them. The one downside is that they don't seem to handle heat too well--they'll crash if I run them in full sunlight for more than a few minutes. Also, they are not really AR--they are just a floating screen, and supposedly there is motion-tracking hardware, but no software. That's OK; a big floating screen that is fixed to my head is actually good.

In full sunlight I think this requires opacity. I lost the plastic cover for the lenses and I hacked up some cardboard thing.

These glasses have a really cool 3D side-by-side mode. The button activation is awkward, but it effectively turns this into a 3840x1280 screen. I couldn't really find much desktop support for this, but there are a few YouTube videos that are 16x9 SBS and they look really really cool. Unfortunately in this mode the desktop is then super-wide and spread across two eyes, so it's almost impossible to use a regular laptop with them. A 3D OS desktop would be killer on these!

I didn't try to go full mobile with a phone.

The cord is somewhat annoying, but I think I prefer it over a big stupid battery and some wireless protocol.

One wrinkle is that the interface is USB-C. The glasses need power, and though you can/could power them over HDMI, they don't support that. You need the device to support HDMI over USB-C and recognize the glasses as a display. The manufacturer offers a completely hilarious battery-powered HDMI-to-USB-C adapter. I have no idea why there is no powered solution; maybe there is.

I also paid less than $300. OP must be referring to a different model.

I wish they also included the trackpad beneath it. I basically want a laptop base without the screen.

> I unfortunately had to upgrade my phone, because to drive the glasses you need to have DisplayPort Alt mode. My very cheap, very crappy old phone did not.

I also run a low spec android phone, and I tried the same brand of glasses with it. My workaround was a screencast to HDMI adapter, paired with an HDMI to to DP over USB-C. Both are cheap.

Occasionally the screencast flakes out. But when the network is working well it's pretty good.

Technically wouldn't it be much easier to just do the actual programming in a GitHub code space ?

I guess you'd need a stable connection though. I might try this as soon as Android actually impliments desktop mode correctly. Surprised OP didn't use Samsung Dex.

Wow, there's some very nice builds there. I so far I hadn't seen anything that seemed genuinely pocket-able but there are a few there that look like they might work. I'd still really love something that can lock flat and be used on a lap, but that feels doable.

I'm quite far sighted, is it possible to use AR glasses for farsighted people?

The focal plane of the glasses is around 10 feet, so I think you should be able to see it just as well as anything else at that distance.

Thinking the same. Also considering the amount of speed up you get from the copilot .

How do glasses like this work for someone who wears eyeglasses for myopia and astigmatism, and doesn't like contacts?

I love kbd.news and was recently struck by the novelty of the Tackle keyboard[0]. Seems rather extreme but my first thought was it could be a great complement to AR glasses. The design could be improved with improved with some tenting, because those keys at the edges will be easy to accidentally trigger when reaching for other keys towards the center.

[0] https://kbd.news/Tackle-keyboard-2549.html

There are perscription lenses, but not sure how well they work https://lensology.co.uk/xreal-air-2-ultra-lenses/

Air 2 Pros!? I have those and can't stand using them for work. I was hoping the One Pros would be a big enough step up that I could use AR glasses for daily productivity.

> I wrote most of this blog post sitting at a picnic table in a park. Screen glare and brightness is not an issue. I can fit into tight spaces. This setup was infinitely more comfortable than a laptop when on a plane. Some coffee shops also have narrow bars that are too small for a laptop, but not for this. The phone has a cellular connection, so I'm not tied to wifi. In other words, there's a sense of freedom that you do not get with a laptop. And I can be outdoors. One of the things I've grown tired of as software dev is feeling like I'm stuck inside all the time in front of a screen. With this I can walk to a coffee shop and work for an hour or two, then get up and walk to a park for another hour of work.

Am I the only one who wishes they could be inside in a windowless room 24/7/365? There’s climate control, HEPA filtration, good chairs, peace and quiet, precisely the light level and color and direction I like, etc, at all times. Every time I go outside, the environment is worse than being at home indoors.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one on the planet who doesn’t enjoy being outdoors at all.

I wonder if the keyboard covers for the Microsoft Surface tablets could somehow be repurposed.

I've been wanting a simulavr since I saw the first videos. A proper Linux dev environment in a pair of VR classes (and I really wouldnt want to hack around Linux on android). Too bad that they still far away from being real.

Nah, there are at least few of us.

I still go out though to walk and cycle, sometimes eat, but anything else is more comfortable at home.

> Am I the only one who wishes they could be inside in a windowless room 24/7/365?

I spent a decade in a building like that for my 9-5 job. It gets old, unless you really hate sunlight and fresh air.

Apple is releasing Vision OS 2 which lets you do an ultrawide display on the Vision Pro. It looks phenomenal and has no lag

Don't forget the lack of bugs landing on you and crawling on you!

they don't work for me having astigmatism with or without prescription glasses.

I hope they can figure out why these give some people headaches and eye strain (like myself) I really want to use this, but can't stand the pain for more than a few minutes.

When I did a Vision Pro demo they had lenses on hand to accommodate my astigmatism. It was pretty nice…and about 10x the cost of this

One reason is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergence-accommodation_conflic.... Very difficult to solve.

> ultimately, the aarch64 glibc rootfs tarball of Void Linux fit the bill, and it's been running beautifully.

Void FTW!

> 1080p

So good enough for gargoyling or other situations where even a laptop form factor is a pain, but not a proper replacement yet.

Very cool experiment and the piece is written really well, manages to communicate a ton of relevant information without being overly verbose. One side note though - whats the deal with working in the park/on the bench etc, is the author really able to be productive in an outside environment? I dont think I could ever work like that, either with or without the AR glasses.

You can just unmount the display and have a base. I used such setup for 6 months as a teenager plugging it everywhere I go.

With the new 6DoF glasses it could be a viable alternative to a laptop, yes.

For normal VR/AR, definitely, since you want to have objects moving in the Z direction. For this usecase it should be enough to show the "flat" virtual screen at the focal distance.

Ive been thinking the same thing! Except with Code-server or some other way to get vscode's remote over ssh

I find that working outside or at a cafe is too distracting. I agree with what you're saying with regards to work or even reading.

I enjoy outdoors for relaxation and forgetting about work though.

First thing I thought. If I go to a coffee shop or the park, it's because I want to enjoy that place, not do the same work I could do (better) at my desk. That's an aside, though, the OP's setup is really cool and intriguing.

They have an ultrawide mode available now. Personally I find it very uncomfortable. You have to move your whole head to see the sides, and the vision pro is heavy. Looking off to the side for a length of time is uncomfortable.

I don't use AR glasses, and I don't code on my phone, but I do like to use it for writing without having to carry a backpack.

The keyboard I use and really like is the iClever BK05:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018K5EJCQ

It is backlit and has a standard full size PC layout, including function keys and an "inverted T" cursor key section. The key feel is nearly as good as my ThinkPad. And it comes with a nice little stand to support your phone at a typical laptop screen angle.

It comes with a soft pouch that holds the keyboard, the phone stand, and the manual. Folded up, it fits easily in the cargo pocket of my pants.

Like the keyboard described in the article, it is not suitable for use on your lap because it doesn't lock open. That doesn't matter for me, because I need a place to put my phone anyway.

If you read the reviews, note that the "top rated critical review" has a glaring mistake:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1RVWODQ8SCS2X?ie...

The reviewer says that the keyboard has no support at the left and right edges, so those outer sections don't lay flat and tap against the table as you type.

Wrong! This reviewer didn't notice the two little black tabs that you need to flip out so the keyboard lays flat and well supported. This is also described in the short manual.

Can you explain why you don't think you would be productive outside?

I can’t grasp tech professionals who nickel and dime over their setup. Like buying used, not using late gen hardware etc. You’re spending half your awake hours in front of the thing, just buy the latest and greatest.

That's not a FOV issue, that's a DOF issue.

You can't comfortably use any XR system for more than videos, if you can't use your neck to look around.

Why

The Xreal glasses are going to be the near-term winner for AR/VR form factor. A “personal screen” you can carry around with you and use to look at whatever is on your phone in a much larger, private format.

This just adds more value more simply than the new ecosystems most AR/VR glasses are trying to establish.

Oh, that's really cool though that they can handle it!

It's funny that 3500 seems sooo much to spend for hardware now... over the last 25 years, it's gotten so much cheaper between lower price macbooks and not needing to upgrade phones and laptops nearly so often.

> Am I the only one who wishes they could be inside in a windowless room 24/7/365?

Seems like the sort of thing that might later turn out to have been a bad idea regardless of how it seemed at the time.

The foveated rendering didn’t look phenomenal for me the last time I tried. It gives the perception of a wide FOV but your peripheral vision is still blurry.

I could make people SO uncomfortable if I worked as a receptionist with this strapped on and threw in some very subtle signs of enjoying it. Reminds me of the south park nipple twisting guy. Very cool keyboard for VR and AR though. Can't really think of anything better if you wanted to type something quick in the middle of a physical VR game.

Well I guess for a lot of people it would be self-explanatory, but if I go outside to a park, or to a coffee-shop, or whatever - I go there to enjoy myself, not work. Apart from that, I would not really have the ergonomic benefits of my controlled working environment, not to mention bugs, people walking by, random noise or whatever it is.

There are various products like https://inateck.com/collections/tablet-keyboard/products/blu....

There’s also https://www.esrgear.com/products/ipad-air-13-2024-ascend-key... which I think are standard Bluetooth as well.

The exact same thing jumped out at me, for the opposite reason. I have unlimited data + tethering, so I can use my laptop with fast internet anywhere. That's the big breakthrough for me, not the glasses+phone combo.

Working in a park is amazing. You are still enjoying the ambience/vibe, but yeah, you're also writing a blog post or whatever. For me, that doesn't distract from the park or the productivity. They both enhance each other.

Same with a coffee shop -- this is why coffee shops have wifi passwords, because many people in there are on the internet, soaking up the ambience/vibe.

> FOV is actually too big [...] Seeing the top and bottom edges of the screen means moving your eyeballs

Or head tracking.[1] Aphysical rotation exaggeration avoids trading eye for neck stress.

> I do feel a little weird wearing these in public, but not that weird.

Non-weird can be an expensive constraint, fruitful to relax if going beyond a minimalism setup. A baseball hat can barnacle quite a bit before people find it remarkable... at least around Boston. For instance, for head tracking, an Intel RealSense, or a hat fisheye camera and tennis ball on the table, or an optical marker on a hat chopstick, can be simpler, easier, lower power, and less expensive, than invoking "and it has to look non-weird". With current tech, that's almost as challenging as "and it has to be a product".

> as these AR glasses continue to improve and Linux continues to be flexible and awesome.

I suggest Nreal (now Xreal) made a bad call here. They developed internally on Ubuntu, but chose to shut out linux. (Caveat: I've not followed in a few years, maybe that's changed.) Unicorn dreams and race to mass market - maybe the right call if everyone started watching media on phones with glasses. But it could have been an inexpensive risk mitigation, and a worthwhile investment once market fit was clearly a long haul. Is there some doc which lays out alternatives for a company who thinks they have a crown-jewel binary blob, to allow the community to wrap it for linux consumption, with minimal "we just throw a blob over the wall - we don't support linuxes" cost? It's been a lot of years that something like TFA has been possible, during which a lot of developers could have been exploring for viable market niches. Instead of... not.

[1] https://x.com/mncharity/status/1225091755667853318#m

That’s a great place to look because they sell this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface-pro-flex-keyboard/...

Tempting!

It is disappointing that this requires rooting. Essentially this requires deciding if you want a dev environment or banking apps/nfc wallet or be willing to play an endless game of cat and mouse.

As far as I'm aware, the proposed mechanisms for this have to do with the distance to the focus point -- in other words, the fact that the display is close, not that it's a display. The virtual distance to the display, and hence your eyes' focal distance, is definitely something you can change in VR, and presumably also AR, so I think this would actually presumably be better, wouldn't it?

Actually not sure if the focal length prevents this, if so very exciting

My AR glasses (viture xr pro) have a focus distance of ~3m. I actually find them more relaxing to look at than my monitors or epaper displays, and that focus distance is what I attribute it to.

I work in Quest 3 regularly and in a "normal" weather I like to work outside (in a safe environment aka backyard). It's just nice to have fresh air. But once I decided to work and sunbath on the balcony of the hotel in the Swiss Alps in a sunny spring day. It was lovely until sweating made the work really uncomfortable (but yet practically possible). :)

with the gen ai cli tools, i think if i go all in, i could skip lugging my laptop around. theres some UX warts to phones where i think i need a keyboard for tab, ctrl+c, ctrl+v, ctrl+d, delete, and so on, that arent in gboard, but i think it could be a fun side project to design and build a tiny mechanical keyboard that only had those buttons i need

im running the newer pixel fold, so ive already got a ton of screen real estate.

ive made a couple code changes phone-only now, using the amazon internal browser that has ssh access to my dev desktop.

im missing the ability to get cloudwatch logs and the like, but when i get a good mcp, i think i can leave my laptop at home

my previous workflow was mostly on pen/paper though, only touching the keys when i know what code im going to write, or when i need to lookup something specific, so i think im in a better spot for phone dev than somebody with ten monitors each showing some chunk of code

> https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39982728/

Did you paste the wrong link? This meta-study does not seem to say anything about "up close".

From the abstract:

> Study selection: Primary research articles investigating the association of exposure to digital screen devices (ie, smartphones, tablets, game consoles, computers, or television) with myopia-related outcomes

i wish i could have those bright window spots everyone hates. the glare doesnt bother me.

i do just go outside on the building deck instead

AVF feels a bit janky with its constant crashing on startup. 16GB space is a bit restrictive, though I doubt it won't be raised at some point.

Wow, I had little idea the readily available tech is this far

> Termux, which is an Android app that provides a mix of terminal emulator, lightweight Linux userland, and set of packages that are able to run in that environment.

Tim Cook, I know what you know (and fear losing Mac sales to iPad and iPad sales to iPhone, so you want them nerfed), but this would make me upgrade my 2018 iPad Pro. I’d love to be able to leave my expensive macbook home for the vacation, and still be able to do some emergency hotfix on a tablet with keyboard (ideally connected to eg. hotel TV).

I suspect that's a personal bias. If you go to most any cafe (at least in the US) there will be a half dozen people there typing away at their laptops. This is even more common with the rise of remote work where people will (for better or worse) commandeer cafes as their personal office.

im debating rhe upgrade to the surface studio thing now that its eol.

the best and greatest is that pen+touch experience, and its gonna be gone maybe forever

That's a great compliment; thank you.

As far as being outside, I imagine it's very dependent on personality. I often get restless and distracted working from home, and being outside or in a public space will help me feel a lot calmer and more focused. There's also a certain amount of intentionton it takes to "go to a specific place to do a specific thing" that helps me mentally.

It's not something I'm doing every day, but when the weather is beautiful and I'm feeling stuck behind a desk it's so nice to be able to work outside.

I have the same setup, it works well, been doing this for years now. I like to be outside as much as I can and for that reason I like having 20 hour battery life (good phone with an external battery). My setup fits in my pants pocket and usbc chargers are everywhere (bars, restaurants, hotel lobbies, everyone has then at home) if you don't need to charge a laptop with them. Where I live is a lot of sun and seeing your laptop screen even in the shade is hard; no problem with this.

The issue with the top and bottom edges and the too low res are the only downsides; both will be fixed as time passes and the inconvenience beats lugging a laptop and charger around and finding outlets instead of literally never needing any except while sleeping.

you would have to do the same thing with an ultrawide monitor, minus the weight of the AVP

The Vision Pro is a joke. Way too low resolution (PPD), heavy, expensive, and over-engineered and power hungry. It's baffling how it was ever greenlit.

Looks like they’re weirdly expensive through the EU store. Just navigate from xreal.com - I see them for $US 299

What’s the performance penalty for the non JIT version?

You got them post-rebrand. If you shop by the old name "nReal" then you can find the non powered HDMI adapter. Also, the app is called nebula, but the motion control is just annoying and not worth it. I like mine, they work great, but the FOV is tiny, and all of the chirping about AR from influencers/media just doesn't help how underwhelming they are if you go in with those expectations rather than just a HMD.

https://www.amazon.com/Formerly-Connects-Lightning-Compatibl...

they arent that nice, compared to what im currently using (epo64: https://a.co/d/gRQnvjE apparently on sale atm)

that said, my surface pro 3's keyboard is quite old now, so maybe the new ones are nicer

i go outside to get sun.

grab a set on a ledge somewhere and think. that works for work, if the thinking is about work.

major benefit is that none of the people walking by are going to try disrupt what thing youre working on to be different work

Reviews on the App Store say very slow and you can’t move windows without waiting minutes. A Linux distro that’s CLI only seems to work.

What about using this to replace a multi screen setup at home?

I forked Hacker's Keyboard so it would work on newer versions of Android and some other customization for GNU Screen shortcuts. That with another personally forked ConnectBot (SSH client) and I do 95% of my hobby clojure (tersness helps) programming on my pixel.

I bought this keyboard years ago and enjoyed using it for about a week. Then 3-5 keys stopped working entirely and nothing I did would fix them. Recall having a tough time getting a refund on Amazon.

Guess it's good to hear I must have had a dud.

Well of course its a personal bias - I never claimed no one else could work like that, just myself ;) I am aware of all the folks typing it out in the coffee-shops. Just that I could never be productive in that setting. Answer some e-mails - perhaps, but not really do any (meaningful) programming work as such.

Does anyone know if these glasses, or any other glasses, can be tried in-person and used on desktop? I'm legally blind, but have just enough vision to use a screen without a screen reader. The problem is I have to be about 6 inches from a 27 inch screen. I'm tall, and I'm almost bent in half to do it. It's been hell on my back and neck. I've only really made it work because I've modified so many things to get around it (i.e. customising Windows, Firefox, and so on).

The part that makes it so tough is monitor arms come in standard sizes and are nowhere near long enough or extend far enough for me to sit comfortably. My dad modified my desk for me years ago to mount a monitor arm on wooden blocks, but it means I can't move the monitor much.

Being able to wear glasses and ditch the monitor entirely would be a game changer for me. I know next to nothing about AR though, being as I assumed, perhaps wrongly, it isn't something that would work for me.

Edit: Thank you for the replies. It means a lot. I've got some options to explore here now thanks to you.

As someone developing hyperopia, I wonder if this would help...

if you are based in the USA, most stores have 30 day return policies. perhaps order them, try at home, and return if you they arent a fit for your situation

You can use them just as a monitor/without AR - some require a special USB-C to DP cable if you don't have native USB-C video out (or Thunderbolt), but they are a bit blurry compared to normal screens for me. I'm not sure how well they'd work for you.

The other problem is they aren't quite up against your eyes the way VR headsets are. They project a screen that appears to be quite far away. I imagine you could lower the resolution though, and it might look closer.

Aren't there SSH clients for iOS? That should work for an emergency hotfix.

I think the next version of Android is supposed to include a terminal that can run Linux.

I don't know the specifics but it would be better than having to root the phone and use chroot.

It's sad that a phone running java on top of Linux isn't able to run Linux app without big downside like termux and proot. Hopefully it changes.

Glasses like these put the screen at a focal distance further than a monitor, closer to TV distance. Optics wise it’s basically the same as VR, if a VR headset is easier to try.

If your corrected vision needs stuff 6” away, don’t expect AR or VR to be a solution with current optics

once i asked mom to buy me the most expensive knife and fork of the store, she looked at me and said: you are so silly and dumb! later that year she gave me a golden spork. since then all my meals are much better

iSH sort of works as well as BlinkSSH for remote clients.

really useful when you are travelling without laptop and you need to quickly fix a thing

Android has a terminal in the newer beta versions, indeed - a proper one

it was sorta possible before too, but now, it can start up programs with a window etc (and of course someone ran doom on it)

This is what I've been worried about. I have lens implants so I already have a fixed focus as well. The combination of the two would likely be a problem.

Thanks for this. I definitely would lower the resolution if I could as I do the same thing with my screen. The only complication with that might be that in addition I also use: https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_10_dpi_fix....

I'm in the UK, but the same idea applies, you're right. I'm just hoping there is a way to do it in-person as I might need to try quite a few types to get something that works.

I know this isn't what you're asking for - I wasn't either - but I found a used surface pro (arm or x86) is better for this use case than I imagined. They're so cheap used on eBay or FB marketplace that I think it's worth trying if you're already willing to buy a new iPad anyway.

I have two now - the SPX - they're ~$200 used, with LTE and 16GB of ram, and a SP8 - i5/16gb of ram ~$350 used from FB marketplace. The SP8 runs Fedora 40 and it's light enough that I just keep it in my backpack whether I'll need it that day or not.

How can they fix the smallish FoV without a hardware upgrade?

Basically all XR devices put the focal plane at between 0.5 and 1m away. It’s a very very complicated reason why, but this is unlikely to change for a very long time.

Do they have a USB-C cable running from the phone to the glasses?

What I always wonder about with these Headsets is how can this not damage your eyes, focusing them at such short distance for prolonged periods. Anybody with experience in using such a device would like to comment on this?

How do ARM64 binaries like window managers, Firefox, etc run and with graphical acceleration on Android?

I guess as a start the chroot provides glibc and all the other libraries that run natively, but how does any of this interact with hardware?

In a VR headset the virtual screen distance is set by the distance of the microdisplay from the lens in the headset.

It's not crazy to think you could move the microdisplay position and get a virtual display at 6". There might be other optical consequences (aberrations, change in viewable area) but in principle it can work.

Not an answer to your question, but re: monitor arms.. mine can be pulled out far enough it would touch my face. It mounts into a grommet drilled into my desk. I assume there's other reasons this isn't workable for you, but if it's for lack of finding a suitable arm, let me know and I'll find a link for you.

My other recommendation would be to consider a standing desk. Even if you prefer to use it sitting, you can tweak the desktop height to your liking and help mitigate the posture issue.

Seriously. Why is using your own pocket computer so hostile to user intent these days?

I have very high myopia (over -10) and share your concerns. I really wish these things were designed to cater to people for whom alternate display tech would actually simplify our lives.

So far I haven't seen anything that can deal with more than -8, and getting a custom prescription is usually prohibitively expensive. I can wear contacts to offset things somewhat, but they just cause added eyestrain.

I use Blink extensively, as well as RDP connections to Linux hosts (which can support hardware acceleration and low-bandwidth links very well)

> It's sad that a phone running java on top of Linux isn't able to run Linux app

It can. It just can't run something expecting glibc, X11, Wayland, or any of the other large number of userspace libraries that Android doesn't have.

But a pure Linux app works no problem. Just shell in and run it, easy.

Huh? I've always seen numbers larger than that

Xreal claims

> To mitigate this, the industry usually maintains the VID at over 1 meter; for instance, Apple's Vision Pro employs a distance of 1.1m, Meta Quest 3 sits at 1.25m, and Hololens boasts 2m.

https://us.shop.xreal.com/blogs/buying-guide/prescription-le...

Though strangely they don't give a number their for their own devices.

The article claims the focal plane on the xreal glasses is 10 feet (roughly 3m).

I have Android 15 (regular release) and it's there. Feels snappy I didn't use it to run desktop environment though.

So this is probably a silly question but… can’t you fool your eyes into focusing at any distance you want if you’ve got a stereo screen at a fixed distance (ie a headset)?

Isn’t this just a function of the parallax when rendering both screens?

If working in cafes without annoying people is a requirement, mechanical probably isn't so good.

IIRC: Like Google Glass and VR headsets, they use some optical tricks to focus at infinity.

So to your eyes you're focusing at an object 2-3+ meters away rather than 2-3 cm in reality.

OP wanted to work on a plane though.

> I have these same AR glasses and I really like them. The one downside is that they don't seem to handle heat too well--they'll crash if I run them in full sunlight for more than a few minutes.

Yup, I found laying my head on the left side where the cord comes it also causes them to overheat quick. My solution is to always lay on the right hand side of them and I actually put some stick on heatsinks on the left "leg" body that also really helps keep them more comfortably cool.

Also weird quirk with them and USB-C I've found.

If you plug them in to a macbook it's 50/50 if they work or just turn on the tint. If that happens, rotating the USB-C plug causes them to work.

Yes, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining. I'm not sure if I could work in public like this but I am interested to find out.

Good read, this is one of those things I've considered doing myself, but never committed to. Having someone describe the experience in such detail is very much appreciated.

> RAM usage often gets close to that 12GB ceiling.

Unused memory is wasted memory. Just because you're almost maxing out those 12 gigabytes doesn't mean you'd be in trouble with less.

I'd be open to trying something like this. It might be the kind of simple solution that would work for me.

> Tim Cook, I know what you know (and fear losing Mac sales to iPad and iPad sales to iPhone, so you want them nerfed), but this would make me upgrade my 2018 iPad Pro.

Can check out side-loading UTM using AltStore or a local dev account.

https://docs.getutm.app/installation/ios/

You do lose JIT support in newer iOS though.

That's kind of you to offer, and I'd appreciate that if you wouldn't mind. I have seen some that are a bit longer, but the height is too low for them to be of use.

Would you be willing to share your fork?

Focus is distinct from convergence - convergence is how much you have to cross your eyes to look at something, but focus is where muscles squish and stretch your eyeballs to change the distance of your retinas from your pupils. Just like a camera, if your eye is not focused at the real distance to subject, it will look blurry because your pupil is not a perfect pinhole, but has area (so a single eye is already seeing the same object from slightly different angles, on either side of the pupil).

Usually your brain learns a strong correspondence between focus and convergence, but this can be unlearned quite easily, and indeed must be in order to view e.g. VR, 3D films, Magic Eye pictures, etc... - all of which encode 3D information through convergence, while requiring your eyes to focus on a fixed plane.

Not if it's curved.

I had tried a similar setup over a year ago. The blurry edges of the screen and weight of the glasses were an annoyance, but the main reason I didn't continue using it was because I'm moderately near-sighted and often switch from contacts, to glasses, to no corrective lenses, which wouldn't work with fixed focus VR glasses.

I know what you mean. I can't help but wonder what it would take to make a pair of these. The hardware requirements for low-vision users would be lower, as we wouldn't need things like ultra high definition displays.

No, and VR’s inability to match focal distance with parallax causes the vergence-accommodation conflict.

The microdisplays are usually fixed in place (and sometimes the display and optics are a single package), so it would likely be a bespoke solution.

It's not too difficult to actually assemble - you just need some displays, a display driver, and the optics - but getting optics fabricated to meet your requirements might be challenging.

I do the same, but I find looking at my laptop to be quite distracting; I mentally "lock in" to my laptop, which defeats the purpose, and also ends up being ergonomically challenging much of the time.

I'd like to use AR glasses for this, as it means I can look straight ahead and take in more of the atmosphere, while still keeping good posture.

You can get quiet mechanical switches that are comparable to laptop keyboard switches in terms of noise. There's a bit of art to the selection, but there are definitely options.

a) You can always get them, try them, and return them in the given period if you don't like them. That's what I did with these same glasses and I didn't get any crap about it

b) There are monitor arms that extend quite far, and are easy to install. I use this one: https://a.co/d/fV5llce. Granted I don't keep it 6" away from my face and my desk is a bit too big for that, but I could get it really close if I wanted and my desk was smaller.

They more-or-less improved the keyboard immediately after the SP3. The SP4 is a night-and-day difference to the SP3 (to the point where I was considering getting a SP4 keyboard for my SP3 when I still had it), and they've gotten better since.

There are people who have bought MBPs with broken screens and deleted the screen to use them with the Vision Pro. Works quite well!

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUa_pPUbpGQ.

Some ar glasses support adjustable focus, and others support custom prescription lenses.

Can you point to something to learn more about this?

  >  Can someone please make a good folding keyboard? This little $18 piece of plastic is decent for what it is, but this was the weakest part of the whole setup, and it feels like it should be the easiest.

You may want to consider the Protoarc xk03 https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/1akevd... or adding a Bluetooth mod to the old palm folding keyboard: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMobileComputers/comments/sqvrsg...

I think custom prescriptions for the xreal air 1 are around $80: https://vroptician.com/prescription-lens-inserts/nreal-air

Which I could see that being a deal breaker, but maybe it's lower than you thought

I remember more than a decade ago I used this [0] keyboard on my HP Jornada Palm Pilot. Surprised to see it's still being sold. Folds up into a nice case.

[0] https://eshop-cy.com/en/product/targus-pa820u-stowaway-porta...

To add to this: I have a Vision Pro and a 34" curved ultrawide. The latter is much more usable in this regard, because the effective resolution per degree is higher, which means you can keep your head static and use your eyes to look around.

By contrast, you have to use a giant screen on the Vision Pro to get equivalent resolution, which means you have to move your head. It still has its advantages (you can take it wherever you go, and the resolution of the virtual screen can be higher), but it's not yet comparable to a physical monitor, to my chagrin.

> " ...I have to be about 6 inches from a 27 inch screen. I'm tall, and I'm almost bent in half to do it ... The part that makes it so tough is monitor arms come in standard sizes and are nowhere near long enough or extend far enough for me to sit comfortably ... "

Google for "long reach" monitor arms; some models have a reach of 30 to 40+ inches. They're not exactly cheap since they come from ergonomics vendors but they allow you to bring a large monitor as close to your face as you like and, depending on the model, clamp to a table like a standard monitor arm. I've had various models of them for a couple of decades now.

Amazing, I just linked the targus one somewhere below but it's for an HP Jornada Palm Pilot, awesome that its been revived for bluetooth!

It's the best possible headset that could have been built with the technology at the time, but the technology at the time was insufficient for the experience that it's designed for. It still has its uses (it's incredible for watching movies and doing work in environments where you don't have a suitably sized monitor), but I agree that it's not a product anyone other than extreme enthusiasts should buy.

I certainly hope it'll get smaller, cheaper and more efficient. I would love more resolution, of course, but I'd be more than happy to keep the existing resolution if the actual ergonomics were improved.

There's a whole blog post explaining that. Try clicking through!

The latest and greatest is often not a significant enough improvement over used hardware to merit the price delta. Just because we can throw money away doesn't mean we necessarily should.

(Also, not everyone can throw money away! The US tech market is an aberration compared to the rest of the world.)

You can get switches that aren't any louder than typing on a laptop, these days "clicky" is just sub-category. The low profile 'choc' switches from Kailh are probably a good option to try.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHAK1kJtMVQ - have a listen. Some of them are inaudible under a mic, but really you need to buy a grab bag and play around at home to see what works.

This is a real problem, but it's fine for most VR use cases as you're usually looking at content that's rendered at a distance greater than the focal plane. The problems start to occur when you look at nearby content - that is, content less than 2m away - as it ends up being extremely uncomfortable for your eyes.

There are solutions being developed for this, but they have not been successfully miniaturised and/or cost-reduced for productisation. It's unclear how far away it is at this time, but Reality Labs has several generations of solutions that physically change the distance between the lenses and the displays, and alternate solutions like lightfields capable of simultaneously displaying content at different focal planes are being investigated.

Happy to (hopefully) help. I have the Fully Jarvis monitor arm[0]. But it looks like you can find substantially more options here[1] from Uplift, some of which might have better range.

Back to the Jarvis, though: see how the photos of it show the arm in a typical "bent knee" shape? You can totally use it with both halves of the arm pointed in the same direction. I just did a quick measurement on mine and each of the arms is about 25 cm long, and they're fixed at a ~45° angle. So if you center its mount on your desk, you should be able to bring the monitor around[2] 35 cm closer to your face and still retain a lot of height adjustment (~34 to ~50, as measured from your desktop to the center of the display).

If you go this route (and your desk doesn't have an existing grommet hole you can use), they sell a drill bit to bore one in the right diameter.

[0]: https://store.hermanmiller.com/office-furniture-desk-accesso...

[1]: https://www.upliftdesk.com/desk-accessories/monitor-arms/

[2]: cos(45°)*50cm

I'm not the person you replied to, but if you get a monitor arm made for an ultra-wide monitor, it will be longer and taller than most.

I use this one myself: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00B21TLQU

It can go far taller than I need it to, and the length of the arm itself should be enough that, positioned well, I imagine you could get it situated however you wanted.

The pair I have (original xReal Air) include a glass insert that can be ground to your prescription. It's a thin piece of glass, I don't know exactly what kind of prescription can be put onto them, but it might be helpful.

This is a really good idea. And the "Measurements" image does a good job showing the exact ranges of motion it has. Looks like it can bring the display 16" (~40cm) towards you.

The optics on the Vision Pro are... well, they're not fantastic. It's a challenge to blow up displays that small to meet your field of view. Peripheral vision on the Quest 3 is far better, but the displays are over double the size, which made the lens design problem less challenging.

Apple have since purchased at least one lens design company [0], so future iterations of the Vision Pro should hopefully be less optically-challenged.

[0]: https://mixed-news.com/en/apple-buys-lens-manufacturer-limba...

With import tax to the EU, yeah, it's a deal breaker. Even from the UK. Also, that site only has lenses for the first gen, and above -10 there's a surcharge of EUR 70.

I pay more for eyeglasses than for a Quest 3, so... I don't want to double that.

On a somewhat related note, I feel any specialized device development should come hand-in-hand with a great developer experience with a well-designed simulator experience.

I was an original Google Glass developer (2013) and not allowing development via a simulator was one of their biggest mistakes ever. You had to continuously test squinting into the actual hardware. After about 25min it would overheat and you were forced into a cooldown period of about 30min. You couldnt easily put together tests or parallelize testing mundane parts of the app off-device. I ended up with the worst headaches after three months and we pivoted our business to something else soon after.

That is usually for very low prescriptions. Judging by the photos, I don't think you can use those blanks for much more than -2.

What about running the userland app?

It is too difficult to assemble precisely for that reason.

Thanks to both of you for the suggestions. I should've asked about this ages ago.

The assembly is easy: the part sourcing less so ;-)

The Xreal Air 2 Pro costs $299 new; why would you buy it used for $260?

I've long wondered whether working within AR glasses improves one's ability to focus. My hypothesis is that I have fewer shiny objects in my periphery to create distractions. Can anyone who has experience with AR glasses comment?

is a Pixel phone the best way to go for this setup or can a Samsung phone work too?

I had soemthing like -9.50, but had LASIK, and now I can't focus on anything less than eight or so inches away. I have never tried AR glasses or a VR headset, would they work?

It's not "at such a short distance" compared to how people use laptops, or even desktops. The focal distance on these headsets is all >1m (the author quotes 10 feet for the glasses they are using in particular).

I have the non-cover version of this (or at least, it's another Logitech keyboard with a very similar design but lacks a cover - the K380s), and I also have a Keychron B1 Pro and a TKL mechanical keyboard, but my cheapo K380s still feels better to use to me.

Ive mounted monitor arms to the front of the desk, rather than the back, and extended them out toward me for a somewhat similar situation. Bluetooth keyboard goes in my lap, thumb ball mouse goes on my arm rest. I can extend the monitor about 2.5 feet toward my face in this way. Hope it helps

Something you can consider are "dentist office screen mounts". They're what they seem like, arms like you'd see at a dentist office/hospital that swings around an entire room, to hold a light or screen. See this example Amazon listing for one that mounts to a wall with a 5foot swing area: https://www.amazon.com/DW630-1218-Long-Articulated-Adjustabl...

Man, I tried this too but eventually went back to a laptop. Though maybe that wouldn't have been the case if I was able to use chroot. Still, for me, a laptop is quite nice for being able to just whip it out and start doing stuff immediately. With phone + glasses + external keyboard, I have to pull out several things and plug in the glasses.

But proot being slightly too slow is a real bummer. I was able to get a lot of stuff working natively on Termux, but every once in awhile you hit a wall and it's sad.

I tried this with the VITURE Pro XR (has adjustable lens so if you are nearsighted and wear glasses they work) but with a linux laptop. I couldn't stand the static image (focusing on the top and bottom of the screen was painful) and wanted headtracking which only worked on Windows or the phone. There was a project I found of someone adding support for it but it was pretty jank at the time.

Anyways, ended up returning it but kind of wish I thought of just using the phone. Might finally get me to learn NeoVIM

As long as your prescription isn't to extreme the VITURE Pro XR exists and is similar. I tried it and it worked surprisingly well but returned it because the headtracking didn't work on Linux and I didn't like the static view.

Google is now shipping a full Debian Linux VM on pixels, apparently this is a part of the plan to introduce a desktop computing mode on Android. https://www.androidauthority.com/android-desktop-mode-leak-3...

https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/13/android_15_linux_debi...

It sounds like we have a similar situation. I've been wondering if these kinds of glasses would work for me but it just seems like such a hassle to order a pair to try just to end up returning them if they don't work. I wish they were sold in a store that I could just walk into and try them for a minute.

FWIW, I use a monitor arm that's mounted on the front left side of my desk (my dad also modified my desk so this would work) so I can pull it as close as I need. It does mean I can't push it back to a normal monitor distance but I'm the only one using my PC so that's not a problem. Oddly enough, I recently got cataract surgery so now I have a lens that makes me focus further away, but now text is too small to read at that distance so I have to use readers to focus closer and use the arm.. seems a little silly but it mostly works out.

Another option: you can buy a $40 monitor arm (they're all pretty good in my experience) on Amazon and mount it in the front of the desk to the left or right side and then swing it into position in the middle anywhere, even feet in front of the desk.

Over a decade ago microsoft actually sold a Bluetooth adapter for the surface keyboard

Anyone - I need this! or something similar as a wearable keyboard. Please help me.

I rigged together a torso/chest mounted keyboard system using rugged keyboard and laptop chest harness modified. It actually kinda works but this Tackle keyboard would work really well for my use case, which overlaps significantly with this post.

I use Viture XR glasses, similar to the Xreals in the post. And I have a rugged laptop in a backpack with LTE modem and external antenna. Then what I do is go hiking in woods and periodically stop and open a Ta-Da chair, which I use as a walking stick or carry on my back, then put on the XR glasses which connected to laptop just using the Viture HDMI adapter, open the keyboard harness, and start working, all terminal based work.

The worst worst part of this crazy setup is the keyboard system. It’s awkward and kinda scares other people as it looks like maybe I have a tactical military vest on. opening it up and getting oriented is like 90% of the hassle.

Please someone help me get this Tackle keyboard. I don’t have the physical engineering skills needed, I’m a software guy. DM me on reddit with same username as HN. I will PAY decent money to anyone who can deliver me a working version of this Tackle keyboard.

I also own and tried tap strap and it’s not viable. Keys needed. LLMs combined with Voice to Text is promising and something on software side I’m looking into actively, but I don’t think no keyboard is a productivity retaining option anytime soon.

I do at least 10K steps daily when I have this system working and my goal is to get to 15K steps and drop weight. My preferred environment is outdoors away from desks and tables and civilization.

It being an office building, you likely did not have nearly the level of environmental control I describe.

I do really hate sunlight, but fresh air is essential. If you don’t have fresh air indoors, your HVAC design is bad. Air is one of the easiest things to move around.

proot is just good enough to make you want to try it, but not good enough to keep using it. chroot was far better and if that's what was holding you back I'd recommending trying chroot.

I can relate to the clunk of having 3 different pieces to the setup, but I found myself using just the phone + keyboard pretty often for quick things. And since the desktop environment seems to sit in the background just fine, it wasn't much more than just turning on the phone and opening the keyboard. So in that sense it wasn't much different than a laptop.

It wouldn't be too expensive to make what you want, you could always buy a small plot of land and build a custom home to try it out. Shouldn't be more than $200-400k, possibly less depending on the area.

I have been eyeing off this setup for ages but I'm stopped by the fact that the glasses only project 1080p displays. They seem to have been stuck at that resolution for years and I'm not sure if it's a technical limitation or something else. I just know I wouldn't use a 1080p screen in real life except in an emergency so I'm super sceptical that I'd be happy with the glasses.

Very curious why these have stalled out at 1080p. They don't have to go much higher, give me 2560x1600 and I will be very happy.

Can you elaborate what the main issue is for you?

Can I now completely get rid of the physical keyboard? I will go full in on AR(/VR) when I can comfortably type into thin air, lying down, kinda like this: https://ibb.co/nv8Qj72

I’m doing precisely that, but I have simulated the same in the meantime by taking a normal residential house and completely blacking out and sealing the windows in the largest upstairs room. It’s excellent. When I turn off the lights it can be pitch black and 68F at noon in the middle of the summer in the Mojave.

I had to cover the windows in all the adjacent rooms to make this work, but it does.

The article says his one is 10 feet (3m).

one of the problem that I have using AR glasses for work is that I have to refocus my eyes every time I try to type anything, which is an annoyance. The eyes focus to the infinity on the AR glasses, but near sight when typing. This is on top of the fact that keyboard is much dimmer to look at when wearing the AR glasses.

some AR glasses come with built in correction up to -5.00. Beyond that, they recommend correction lens insert, so it can work for more. The built-in correction does not do astigmatism, that will require prescription insert too.

a few AR glasses come with adjustable knobs for nearsighted people. So, not all of them are fixed distance.

> On average I'd drain about 15% battery per hour. So 4 to 5 hours before you need to be thinking about charging, but I'm not sure you'd want to have the glasses on longer than that anyway.

I know there are splitters break a USB-C port out into a USB-PD port and a data transfer port, but can those (or a different accessory) also be used to provide PD to the phone for prolonged usage?

eta: Never mind, just saw that the XREAL Hub addresses this. I still wonder if there's a cheaper option, but most seem to be designed for PD out, not in.

Virtue One's prescription insert is $100.

They should work, because they are at infinity in your eyes' perspective.

Learning to touch-type would be helpful in this case

Because the world is full of malicious entities who want to exploit people and most people do not need root.

I came back briefly to ctrl-f for 'gargoyle' once I got about a third of the way through the article so thanks (still would though).

If you don't mind having a "personalized" desk, arms that are meant to / able to go through the grommet often just have two (large) bolts. You could pretty easily drill through the middle of a desk and mount it at any distance.

I have the dual version of this, which they don't seem to sell any more: https://www.upliftdesk.com/crestview-single-monitor-arm-by-u... but if you look at the "all components" image, you can see the steel plates and bolts that I use to attach mine - the bolts aren't part of the bent black thing, they work with that or either of the shiny steel plates. Those both fit within a grommet hole (the large circular holes in desks) with bit of free movement to adjust it, and the bottom of the "stand" is completely flat so it could very easily go anywhere - you put the plate under the desk, stick the bolts through it + through the desk hole, and they go into threaded holes on the underside of the stand.

Some monitor arms are only meant to clamp onto the edge of a desk, and you won't be able to do this - I'd probably avoid those in this case tbh.

(I've probably failed to adequately describe it - I can take pictures or draw something out if you'd like. It's not complicated, it's just... there are not many similar things that I can point to as a comparison that most people have at hand)

You might also look at arms that use a vertical post with a horizontal arm coming off of it, rather than the gas spring height adjustment. They can come in a variety of heights, I think mainly because the systems are designed to allow multiple rows of screens (like a big 3x2 grid).

Off the top of my head, I know I've seen this for Knoll Sapper, which the PDF brochure (linked below) says has posts up to 32" high. Not sure if the 17" horizontal extension is enough for you, though you could also drill a hole in a desk and mount the post further forward instead of clamping on the back. Or heck, clamp it on the side or front.

See page 7 here: https://www.knoll.com/document/1352941326370/Copy%20of%20Sap...

is your HDMI to DP adapter active (powered)? what brand?

Does it include package management? Can you run Python for example?

Surprisingly: USB-C cables do have an orientation. It comes up a lot with these kinds of female-to-female USB-C cable extenders: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTT1FJL6 (I have not used this one, it's just an example)

>Important Note: Ensure your USB-C cables support video transmission when using this coupler for video pass-through. If the connection doesn’t work initially, try reversing the orientation of the cable’s plug to ensure proper functionality, as USB-C protocols depend on connector orientation.

AFAICT not all cables are like this, but quite a few are, and broadly it appears that it's the sockets that are reversible and are simply hiding this - cables often just use one side. So when you bridge two cables like this, you need to make sure those (unmarked) sides line up.

So I suspect one side of your connection is either damaged or cheap (and didn't fully meet the reversible spec to save money).

(but only suspect, I haven't found a way to fully validate this)

  >  I wish they were sold in a store that I could just walk into and try them for a minute.

I've constantly wondered why this doesn't really exist. Not even just with AR or VR but with lots of products. I thought that early on in the transition to more online purchasing that it was well understood that people were still visiting stores so that they can inspect items before purchase. There always seemed to be a weird perverse incentive where for a given store their online prices would be cheaper than those in store. Combined with wider selection of sizes and styles, it felt weird not to buy online, especially if you were not in a major city. Employees would even tell you this! Themselves being unable to just handle the "online" sale for you (baffling...). Malls offered a lot more business value than just facilitating direct purchases. They do a lot to build brands, loyalty, and advertise to customers.

Being a lanky kinda guy I could never find clothes in my sizes in store but it was still quite helpful to see the difference between certain materials and would often lead to buying a more expensive version than another. Without the stores, it just seems to make a market of lemons[0], and I think that's kinda apt given general consumer frustration. You can't rely on reviews and you can't rely on images or even product descriptions...

How the fuck am I supposed to know what I'm buying?

My hypothesis is that some bean counters saw that sales were plummeting in stores and concluded that they should then close them. Having the inability to recognize that the purpose of the store had changed, despite them likely using the stores in the new fashion themselves. Hard to make effective decisions if the only viewpoint you have is that of a spreadsheet...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

6DoF feels like overkill to me if you're only trying to replace a laptop. I'd agree that it's really a lot better with at least 3 though.

The phone market is stuck at 1080p bc the screens are small. When the wearable market is large enough, someone will develop glasses with higher resolution.

I mean if you couldn't stand using the device long enough to test it (not that you should have to - i agree on that), maybe the problem was that the device simply wasn't in anyone kind of ready state to be shipped as a revolutionary new way of interfacing with computers. Like christ, it would overheat after 25 minutes?

Several other factors probably pushing the bean counters:

  * Real estate in high-traffic areas, especially in malls (do those still exist?) can be extremely expensive.
  * With retail stores, shoplifting is the business's problem, after the switch to ecommerce, a lot of theft is shifted to being the customer's problem (porch pirates)
  * Customer service staff in the store are likely more expensive than outsourcing call centers and now AI is well on the way to cutting out most of those jobs.

So while I doubt they completely overlooked the value of a physical presence, they probably calculated that it's an acceptable tradeoff.

I think Apple does a really good job at blending their physical stores and their online business into a very seamless experience. Not many companies can operate at that level of excellence. Although I have many complaints about Apple's business practices, however, their retail stores and customer service experience are not among them.

> ...it was well understood that people were still visiting stores so that they can inspect items before purchase.

You have all the pieces but you're not putting them together.

Bricks and mortar stores cost money just to exist - rent, rates, staffing, etc. - and that's why they can't compete on price with online stores, which can just be giant warehouses with shipping. The online arms of some physical stores can benefit from the same economies as totally online businesses, leading to cheaper prices online even for companies with a physical presence.

How can a physical shop make any money if they are just treated as a gallery for browsing before the buyer heads to Amazon to get the item 10% cheaper? It's not bean counting, it's basic economics.

How the fuck are you supposed to know what you're buying, indeed - patronise physical businesses because you recognise the value in their existence, and understand that that's worth paying an additional premium for.

There is a review of Xreal glasses in russian internet, auto-translate is interested. Guy started losing vision pretty quick after using them as monitor replacement. Take care

https://www.iphones.ru/iNotes/otkazalsya-ot-ochkov-rasshiren...

This is neat. I’ve been thinking about doing something like this on my Quest 3, but it’s a fair bit bulkier than this setup. One upside is, you already get an Android and can setup pretty much anything you might want! (I’ve sideloaded F-Droid on mine, going to see if Termux works.)

Re: Bluetooth keyboard – you can get a Thinkpad keyboard as a Bluetooth one. It’s slimmer that the usual bottom half, so it’s much more portable. But it’s not folding, of course.

  > Bricks and mortar stores cost money just to exist

I understand this. I'm not sure why you think I don't. I thought it was a pretty obvious thing...

  There's roughly 4 different approaches to Linux on Android:
    • virtual machine emulating x86_64
    • Termux
    • arm64 binaries running in chroot
    • proot..  Same idea as chroot, but doesn't use forbidden system calls 

Fifth option: arm64 pKVM VM from Android 15 on Pixel 7+ phone/tablet hardware using nested h/w virtualization. Shipped in 2025 under the uninformative name of "Linux Terminal" via Development options, Android now has full Debian Linux with VM root, no emulation, compatible with USB-c desktop display.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43973395 & https://www.androidauthority.com/android-linux-terminal-purp...

> The main purpose of this Linux terminal feature is to bring more apps (Linux apps/tools/games) into Android, but NOT to bring yet another desktop environment.. Ideally, when in the desktop window mode, Linux apps shall be rendered on windows just like with other native Android apps.. GPU acceleration is something we are preparing for the next release.

Hopefully Android 2025 Linux VMs will lead to iOS 19 VMs at WWDC, since Apple wants to sell smart glasses to compete with Meta glasses.

I see - actually in my case I'm on Samsung, and Dex takes several seconds to boot. I like the desktop but It sounds like chroot + Termux:X11 would be way faster in every way.. I just really wish there was a Termux:Wayland - my favorite desktop doesn't seem to have an equivalent in X11 (niri, though maybe I need to look harder)

I'm quite aware that stores cost money. I'm not sure why you'd think I didn't.

I agree that Apple is doing it right and is kinda what I'm talking about. They do focus on the experience even though I'm sure most sales translate to online sales. They do understand that the physical presence generates many of these sales. It's not trivial to measure like direct sales but it is measurable.

I'll admit Apple has an advantage that it isn't a franchise (pretty sure?). But that doesn't mean the other companies couldn't adapt to the new environment. But clearly a lot of them failed due to this. The experience still matters to customers but if they don't have many choices they still gotta do what they gotta do

Being one of the 3rd party developers to create apps for a nascent platform is a great position for your business to be in. It just so happened that Google Glass didn't work out. But imagine being an early developer for Android or iOS.

Does GitHub code spaces allow you to compile stuff and get artifacts? I've never used it so I'm not sure what the limitations are compared to the Linux desktop (which is about as powerful as you can get)

I use NOMone; works really well. Runs everything I need including vscode/cursor, node and anything else I need without any fiddling, it just all works. Obviously the new linux vm is likely nicer, but this works really well so far.

0] https://desktop.nomone.com/

There are fairly long arms which any vesa mount monitor can be attached to. This is no option for you?

I remember back then my laptop broke during the beginning of COVID, and I was left with a smartphone that is incapable of doing Termux stuff.

To cope with that I have ended up making some toys like Discord bot that evaluates code, requested access from Insomnia 24/7 to SSH into Linux environment for programming purposes.

It was fun experience and I've ended up learning a lot of programming stuff before I've even started my study in university for computer science.

Thanks for the pointer, seems to be using VNC, https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/18psg3p/linux_o...

The specific company I would point to is Ergotron. In the worst case you can just daisy-chain extra arm extensions as long as it's within the total weight limit, and I'm 100% confident after using the same monitor arms for years that the result would be reasonably stable.

It says it doesn't use VNC while others do:

     While current solutions depend on VNC to display the Linux interface, we got rid of VNC altogether along with the problems it causes.

WHAT

Thanks

Thank you internet stranger. I like having termux running on my phone, just in case. I will definitely try this out.

There used to be also some Amazon Basics branded ones that are also produced by Ergotron (or the same factory that produces Ergotron - not sure). They were 100% compatible, and looked/functioned the same for quarter of the price.

It's doing VNC-alike "graphics remoting", but with less isolation/security in the name of efficiency/performance:

> We thought this is too inefficient. So we decided to combine both into a single application, to eliminate most of the interprocess communication, and avoid having the Linux server run in the background, and thus suffering from power optimizations. We still have a framebuffer, but we do the scrapping and updating directly. We have reduced all the hassle to mere memcpy and texture update operations. This turned out to be huge! In the future, we hope to reduce this overhead even further by rendering directly to the texture, and this saving the need to scrape and copy memory.

When the next release of Android Linux Terminal ships vGPU with virtio, it will provide better graphics performance than VNC, while retaining strong security isolation between Debian guest VM and host Android.

Box64 is yet another option

Non-greedy vendor winning by offering choice to consumers by unbundling display-only device from custom OS/hardware/ecosystem.

One could evaluate this hyptothesis with blinders, no glasses required.

Just tried to install that on my pixel 9, and the option is there (Linux development) and the Terminal app is there, but it seems to freeze on launch, when it asks for permission to get Location. Bummer I was looking forward to this!

That's right, but why make rooting almost Impossible? Why they are fighting rooting at all? They could make rooting easier, for example in the hidden developer menu.

I am curious if it is possible to render a separate monitor per-eye, basically having the benefit of two monitors without having to turn your head. Has anybody tried something like this? Is it viable or is it too disorienting?

I actually tried doing web dev on a Meta Quest 3 recently, but found the biggest limitation to actually be the lack of devtools in Android.

Here is the blog I did discussing the limitations: https://benkaiser.dev/web-development-in-vr/

I wonder if something like this running on the quest could technically work, but I suspect it would be too heavy running Linux chrome in a chroot. You also lose the cool "place and resize your windows anywhere" if it's all stuck inside one window for a desktop.