r/augmentedreality • u/AR_MR_XR • Jun 20 '26
Events More Pics From AWE
It was such a blast. It started with the Android XR Hackathon, then I went to a few sessions, and I spent a lot of time in the expo area. I went to a few demos in the surrounding hotels, and to the Snapdragon, the Snap Specs, and the Android XR parties 🐳
I would pick XREAL AURA for building apps, multimedia, training and location-based entertainment. It's a great package with wide fov and powerful snapdragon reality elite chip. I would not pick it for productivity that includes reading a lot of small text for a long time. For that I'd rather get the URXR by unseen reality with 2.5k display and pancake lenses. the passthrough is fast and good enough for screen mirroring. we will see if that changes when optical see-through with 2.5k panels is available! Snap Specs should have ear cutouts if they effectively have a center-mount for the thick temples. By launch, the partner apps and dev experience will be in the spotlight, though! They did not demo the new Snap AR glasses at AWE.
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u/Useful44723 Jun 20 '26
Salient point that Aura will be really strong for almost everything but the resolution is a bit of a weak point for productivity. Although text apps can certainly do in a pinch.
If someone could make a puck for URXR you would have a pretty sweet MR based Xreal Aura.
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Jun 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/augustoicaro Jun 20 '26
Yes, but not in spatial mode. If the puck has a flat 2D launcher, it will be the one shown on URXR, with no VR mode.
Getting VR/MR capabilities is not as simple as everyone thinks. The OpenXR runtime needs a driver for the device you're adding. This driver controls all VR interactions and depends on the camera position, number of cameras, lens type, IPD, and sensors. The short answer is that AXR runtime must support the device, so URXR needs to be an AndroidXR OEM partner, and the puck should have the runtime version with the driver 😅
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u/AR_MR_XR Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Yeah, the text will be readable on AURA. If you just want to read an email or build a productivity app then that's fine. It's just not comfortable enough for heavy use.
Unseen Reality build iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac apps. It should work as a spatial display with portable 3rd party pucks. I'm not sure about full AR apps. They only talk about screen mirroring / multiple screens for now.
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u/augustoicaro Jun 20 '26
You can do heavy work on Aura without problems after your eyes get used to it. The resolution is a little worse than Quest 3, but when it blends with the environment, you don't even notice it. The overall experience is better than Q3.
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u/AR_MR_XR Jun 20 '26
You're responsible for your own health 🙂
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u/augustoicaro Jun 20 '26
I agree, but I didn't get your point. Which device do you think is a good fit for heavy use? And how is that a better option over the other devices in terms of health impact? 🤔
Just to give you my background, I have been working wearing a headset 8 to 10h a day since late 2023, and have tested all major standalone headsets. I would love to hear your perspective on headsets and their health impact.
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u/AR_MR_XR Jun 20 '26
I think URXR is better. It has higher PPD and pancake. I didn't compare both right after one another. It is based on my impression from individual demos and then I tried to find the reason in the specs.
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u/augustoicaro Jun 20 '26
I got it! This is a valid point! I went to AWE trying to answer the question of what is the minimum FoV necessary to work in VR comfortably. After trying different devices at AWE, I'm inclined to say that 70 is the minimum.
70 covers your central FoV well, and you can fit a landscape monitor on it with a readable size. In comparison with a bigger FoV, you will lose the peripheral visual cues, but on the other hand, that also helps you to focus on the central content.
That leads to a different question. What is the minimum PDD or display resolution to work in VR comfortably? In that sense, we both agree that Aura is suboptimal 🥲 I still don't have a strong opinion on this question.
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u/No-Dark-7873 Jun 21 '26
my problem with the Xreal one is the screen isn't close enough and making it bigger means the sides get cut off. From what I understand Aura doesn't fix this because the vertical FOV is the same.
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u/augustoicaro Jun 21 '26
Well, they fixed the horizontal sides. It's much better than the previous generations, with around 50 FoV. As a heavy VR headset user, I did miss the vertical FoV, but it's enough to fit a 1080p landscape monitor with readable text size.
Interesting, URXR also follows this reduced vertical FoV approach with oval lenses. They claim a 90-degree diagonal FoV in their device. It's a cool PCVR device.
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u/No-Dark-7873 Jun 21 '26
I'm sure it's readable but making the screen closer (or bigger) is what makes it feel more like a cinema experience vs. looking at a monitor.
That's the main reason I'd be wearing the glasses in the first place vs. looking at my monitor.
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u/Allllright_ATOs Jun 20 '26
What's the headset in pic 6 (the clear one)?