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

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

They cost 800 new :|

1080p is that really okay?

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

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.

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.)

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

Void FTW!

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

I enjoy outdoors for relaxation and forgetting about work though.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Tempting!

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

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 do just go outside on the building deck instead

> 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).

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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

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

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

  >  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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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...

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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)

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...

>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.

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

  * 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.

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.

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.

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

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

  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 

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 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

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

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.

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

Thanks

> 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.

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.

Well, though not in production any more, there is one that is absolutely perfect: Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard.

You can still find it on eBay, and it’s unfathomable — though perfectly in-character — for Microsoft to have terminated it.

One overlooked aspect is ergonomics. Laptops are terrible for posture, unlike the poster's HMD setup.

I've done some cursory research on the XREAL Air 2 Pros because they are currently discounted at 299 USD. I'm interested in retiring a 4K 43" monitor which has been slightly too large.

My question to anyone who has tried XREAL's products is whether the more expensive XREAL ONE model provides a much better productivity experience for 499 USD?

So far, I'm not convinced the Air 2s provide a 'stable' enough image for productivity tasks as this article states. I found a Youtube reviewer who created a rendition of what it is like to use them for video editing - and they weren't enthusiastic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZhD8Dt6akY&t=316s

Linus Sebastian from LTT did go on Jimmy Fallon a few months ago and show off the XREAL ONEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=vybLi25Q8Fw

For me, I'm not interested in XREAL's Android offerings; I'm more interested in Graphine or e/OS, but would need to purchase a new tablet and a new phone with USB-C display output. I did pick up a Chuwi Hi10 X1 Intel n100 tablet a few months ago for about 200 USD, so that solves the battery problem for me. https://store.chuwi.com/products/hi10-x1-n150

If I didn't have that, and wanted to go the powerbank with X86 route, the company MeLE does have some very, very small mini pcs. https://store.mele.cn/products/mele-quieter-4c-n100-3-4ghz-f...

To many people asking about keyboards, I'd recommend simply getting a 60% with bluetooth, or an adapter which converts a regular USB keyboard into a bluetooth adapter. I'm also a trackball user, and the Japanese company DEFT makes some decent ones.

The Vision Pro, like most full headsets, tries to do too much.

Since you're in Europe, Klarna might work there.

VR/AR/MR headsets aren't precisely focused at infinity, it's usually 10ft or so. They also have lower resolution than human eyes(~60 px/deg or 1MOA) while at it. This combined means you don't need full correction, I personally use -3 for both eyes, and it seem to work for me in VR.

YMMV.

I tried once the apple vision pro and it seemed fine, amblyopia-wise at least. It was too briefly though to know for sure how it would be like using it for longer.

Thanks for explaining the unexplainable! Also seen with couplers and gender-changers for connecting USB-c cables.

Something made of precisely cut 2x4 lumber or 2040 frames, assembled like a whiteboard frame but have just a single beam where the board would be. Then the pole of monitor arm can be bolted onto the beam to hang upside down.

Once assembled, the whole thing can be rolled in and up to the front edge of the desk, right up to your face. If someone else needs to use your computer, the carriage can probably be moved back towards the wall.

The reason why display arms extend only so far is because a long cantilevered weight love to wreck the base. The desk top is going to break if it's too far out. So stretching the arm is probably no go.

However for python I got "no install candidate". Probably doable after adding necessary package repos

I hope rooting will be easier for all the interested.

https://quantifiedself.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/585958...

In some franchises, store owners get a vote on change. They also have no inventive or desire to be a mere showcase for purchases happening elsewhere, such as online.

Combine this with a sometimes contracted inability for the company to "compete" with franchises, and you get some very weird behaviour.

And the of course, as people and politics are involved, you may see non-optimal, status quo results from votes.

It's only really been 15 years, since retailers have really seen a notable dive in store sales, and the last 5 years being the most harsh.

Meatspace speed is slow. Most of the world's behaviour is ossified compared to people on HN.

In other words, the Internet is fairly new. I think eventuality we'll see some stabilization here, over the next 10 years.

An example...

Used to be, before opening trade with China, that most cultery was made in the US. There were in fact 4 or 5 main manufacturers of cutlery.

Once the cheap stuff came in, this all collapsed. All of them shut or went bankrupt.

Yet out of the ashes one emerged, and I think a second now. The market was in such turmoil, sales collapsed so fast, that they all weakened at once.

But at least one can exist.

My point is, we're in this period of chaos now. It'll sort out I think.

2 years ago I switched to a 55" 8k TV as my primary monitor.

While everyone was giving me the usual crap about it, this guy, when I showed him what it would look like with 400% Zoom, he went and bought one for himself at home.

He thanks me every few weeks, but still didn't dare to set one up in the office.

(ps I have mine standing on a normal height-adjustable table, so you wouldn't have to hunch at all)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y941mt8mtmk

I haven't keep up lately, but as a linux-only dev, is there any hw combo which would give me full native hardware support and the ability to develop for the platform?

(I don't count linux-on-[android|win] as a solution)

The main goals is preventing a spread of "google play" alternatives with paid apps.

One thing that would concern me a bit with this though is how I'd use my neck. To give an example, when sitting in front of my screen now, if I want to see the browser tabs at the top of my screen, then I have to tilt my head backwards to see them. But if I need to see the taskbar, I have to tilt my head down. It doesn't sound like much, but doing that all day rather than just moving your eyes instead adds to overall fatigue.

With your suggestion, I can't picture if that would still be required or not. Thanks for sharing the idea. I'll look into it.

I am thinking about some kind of wearable keyboard, either attached to trousers on laps, or kind of gloves. But gloves usually have no tactile response.

Researchers ate already able to translate thoughts into text[1][2] by wearing a special cap with a fair amount of accuracy.

[1]: https://www.extremetech.com/science/new-cap-uses-ai-to-read-...

[2]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.14030

The laptop harness closes so the keyboard is strapped to my chest while walking and there isn’t any screen as I use the Viture glasses as the monitor when I stop and work while sitting.

> I've constantly wondered why this doesn't really exist.

and if you understand that real stores are more expensive to run than online stores, then the rest seems obvious?

Places like that did exist in the past - they were the places we had to go to buy things. Online prices are lower so people bought online instead and drove most of them out of business.

Perhaps I'm missing something?

https://i.imgur.com/mjcqjfZ.jpeg

I use my 4K TV as a monitor (though from ~8ft away) and for me Windows' scaling (found under Display in Control Panel) allow me to easily read text from so far away

Maybe it could help you

I still read it as phone manufacturers on my first pass!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43985513#44016985

https://kbd.news/Tackle-keyboard-2549.html

I want to try some version of this next. I’ve tried tap strap (overlaps with glove idea) and I currently use a retractable lap approach, where the keyboard folds out from chest to be used, it’s still too much friction and too awkward.

This Tackle keyboard approach is a bit obvious once you see it if one can be fully touch type without crossing middle then a split keyboard mounted on torso could work… perhaps … these things require actually trying I’ve found.

Realistically nobody would even hear you typing on this unless you're in a quiet room, and there's a ton of mods you can do to get it quieter.

Anyway if you are into solving niche keyboard use cases definitely look into the custom build scene, it's surprisingly easy to build high quality custom solutions, and even easier to find someone to build it for you for few hundred $.

On keyboards I found a Royal Kludge mechanical keyboard, feels great but unfortunately one of the keys switches is cracked, I'm sure I could glue it down but haven't yead had time to dismantle it.

In terms of lilputian mice, the "CapacMouse" is.. far far better than it should be.

Google lens was shot down by a society of thoughtless individuals but we'll see ar happen in a couple decades, I'm sure.

Will be great to life through phones being replaced by glasses and then eventually contact lenses.

They could have worked out the details to make these devices less hostile to bystanders but they didn’t because it was all just a marketing gimmick with no solid business underpinnings.

There are also 55" monitors, but they'll likely be more expensive but behave much better.

You are essentially keeping the same angular size, and by moving an 85" TV to 19" from your eyes, you get text to be sized just like your 27" at 6" (3 x 27" = 81").

Won't help with your neck issues though, since you'll have exactly the same issues.

might have to try it with AR glasses. but, the screen is bright enough that it's usable outdoors anyway

i've been using copilot with voice input, with a bit of on-screen keyboard usage when it's not cooperating. i'm mostly giving it fairly simple edit instructions ("write a for loop at line 50"), rather than full on vibe coding, and it's working much better than i expected

i'm not using emacs/vim, because the steam keyboard doesn't have a ctrl key, and i have to use a less ergonomic kde on-screen keyboard to push it (and i'm a heathen that prefers vscode anyway)

They're running a 3rd party OS on their phone using a 3rd party external keyboard and 3rd party display. Interoperability! Imagine that! Running whatever software you want with whatever accessories you want on hardware that you own! Tech should have made it easier to accomplish this!

This is what my Amazon purchase history linked to, but I think the one I got in September looked very similar but without a logo on it.

I think this is only a bandaid to the problem that we're still spending so awfully much time at work, despite massive improvements in worker productivity. I _don't_ want to be working on the bike trail or while lounging or by the pool, I want be in places that are not work

My issue is the phone. I will need at least 24Gb of ram for my work.

Do American phone companies block sharing wifi from your phone, or why would someone with a phone feel they are tied to a wifi when needing to use a laptop?

But it's true that it is the best we got, sort of the cringy but effective treadmill desk.

I am a complete novice with this but very interested in replicating the setup as I feel the urge to be freer while coding

Even if you have absolutely no intention of ever buying one it would give you a free and easy way to find out if a headset type device would work well with your vision or just be totally incompatible.

When I am hiring engineers, I nearly always hire the ones who built their own setups out of crappy old hardware, just to learn how it works and build something cool. Those guys are in it for the love and will work all hours to get something working. The ones who wont work on anything but the latest apple hardware are invariably the awkward ones in the team who demand to be treated in a certain way, and are disliked by everybody else for being picky and looking down their nose at everybody.

Not saying this is a hard and fast stereotype which fits all, but my experience of hiring IT engineers in the UK has shown me this is often the case, and my teams are more productive and happier after weeding those guys out.

A monitor arm of the right length and height lets you sit so that the monitor is close to your face, floating at or beyond the front edge of the table, and the keyboard is physically behind the monitor, letting your arms be in a more natural position for typing.