I think a hackable Linux PC in a VR headset is very exciting. But the major problem is the screen resolution is not good enough to make it a viable desktop replacement. It'll work great for gaming or media consumption, but reading smallish text will be difficult at best.
If they made a more expensive version with a better display it would potentially be interesting as a portable workstation/laptop alternative. But I don't think the SoC they're using supports displays much larger than this, so they'd have to upgrade that too. When you have such a wide FoV the number of pixels you need to cover it all at high resolution becomes very large.
xerox intentionally replicated what the typical office desk 'experience' looked like to create the 'the desktop'; this approach either isn't possible or just hasn't been explored by someone with a headset on
maybe we just need to think of work differently to be productive in an enviornment where we sacrificed horizontal and vertical fidelity for a third dimension?
Given the current direction of technology it seems more likely that the need for highly precise and information dense UIs will be reduced, and we will do most of our work by directing agents through language. Where language is not enough we will use custom visualizations and purpose-built UI controls that contain and directly manipulate only the relevant information for the task at hand, constructed on-the-fly. We may not need highly general UIs based on abstractions and metaphors to the physical world anymore.
it's already taking me a lot of time to 'translate' the architecture diagram in my head to something that i can type for an ai, likely losing fidelity on the way
just let me TRON into the machine and show them all how it's done :D
Out of curiosity do say this after trying with a recent e.g. Vision Pro or Quest 3 and finding that resolution itself (not inputs, UX, ergonomics, etc) is the limiting factor for work and if so what use case?
I have used most of the major headsets. Vision Pro is close to monitor resolution but not quite there. Quest 3 and Steam Frame are nowhere near that. Vision Pro's ergonomics are bad, as are Quest 3's, but Bigscreen Beyond 2 is much, much better and could be acceptable for laptop replacement I think, especially with the flip-up halo band they are working on. For inputs, passthrough with keyboard and mouse/trackpad would be fine for desktop work, and eye tracking could be used in combination I think, along with tracked controllers for 3D tasks.
Something with the ergonomics of Bigscreen Beyond 2, passthrough and resolution improved beyond Vision Pro, and the hackability of Steam Frame, I think could be pretty attractive as a laptop replacement for some people. Of course we're nowhere near that product yet. But a Steam Frame with a higher resolution screen and a better head mount (and the Arcturus Vision passthrough camera add-on) would be pretty close.
I'm not sure what you mean by monitor resolution but if you mean comparing the screen real estate you have in e.g. 32" flat area in an HMD versus a modern monitor it's both correct and irrelevant. Yes a relatively affordable modern monitor will have way better resolution compared to even the most expensive HMD but ... that's not correct since you can have whatever surface, even multiple layers, you can use as screen real estate. You can also adjust readibility, e.g changing font size, based on distance, have foveated rendering from eye tracking, and lots of other techniques that are impossible with just a normal monitor.
IMHO usable real estate relative to the task (because coding doesn't have the same need as video editing, 3D modeling, etc) is a proper way to compare, not pixel density or anything or the sort that doesn't take what VR can actually offer.
PS: I do spend times in HMDs to work, including Vision Pro, Varjo, Frame, other HMD I can't mention, and in my experience it did already reach point where it is actually "good enough" for most tasks even one where a lot of text (which is typically quite demanding for readibility) is needed, but we don't have the same eyes, workflow, etc. It is though not good enough if you try to reproduce what you already have and compare exactly, but it's also not the point.
Angular resolution, not "screen real estate". It limits information density. Yes, the VR headsets have much higher FoV than a monitor, but it hardly matters for desktop work. Angular resolution is much higher on a monitor. Swiveling your head constantly to look at low-res windows floating all around absolutely sucks compared to having one monitor in front of you with higher information density. Varjo is the exception, and yes I'd say Varjo's resolution is good enough, but Vision Pro is borderline and Quest/Frame are much worse.
No I don't think angular resolution does justice to the comparison either because you are in 6DoF, not in 3DoF. It is a used measure and sure it's better than just resolution but it does not capture the actual situation of the user. Screen real estate means how much screen you can actual use and is resolution independent, meaning if you have a tiny screen but use a huge resolution, you can manipulate a lot of content, vice versa, big screen but low resolution, not a lot of content. Unfortunately I don't know of any metric right now that properly does the comparison which is why I initially asked if you actually tried. Anyway you did and it's just not good enough for you now it seems. I still don't know for which use case but that's fine, hopefully it will reach a sufficient point for you if that's something you find useful.
Why would you want to replace your desktop with this? I keep hearing things like that, but anyone who has tried VR knows that it's just never going to happen. VR's killer app is gaming, and that's it.
In the xreal form factor it is pretty viable. It just needs a bit more resolution, and for more immersive gaming a bit more FOV, what it has FOV wise is fine for screen replacement.
If they made a more expensive version with a better display it would potentially be interesting as a portable workstation/laptop alternative. But I don't think the SoC they're using supports displays much larger than this, so they'd have to upgrade that too. When you have such a wide FoV the number of pixels you need to cover it all at high resolution becomes very large.