There have been a lot of reports about issues with FSD v14 Lite on Hardware 3 (HW3), and I’ve been experiencing them firsthand. Beyond classic phantom braking, I noticed a weird bug at a red light: every few seconds, the car would momentarily release the brakes and re-apply them ~500ms later. I’ve also had to take over twice because it failed to recognize a dedicated turn lane and almost steered into oncoming traffic.

What could be causing this? Here is my guess on what’s going on:

To get v14 to run on HW3 silicon, Tesla likely had to quantize the model (e.g., down to INT8 precision) to fit within HW3’s 8 GB memory and bandwidth limits. On top of that, because the models have grown so large, HW3 is forced to split compute across both onboard chips to run a single stack rather than running redundant checks, which adds processing latency.

When you quantize a model, you introduce “quantization noise.” In simple terms, minor environmental shifts—like early morning sunlight glare, moving shadows, or passing traffic—can cause the model’s confidence scores to jitter wildly right around the decision threshold (e.g., dropping from 51% to 49% and back every few frames). That rounding fluctuation causes the control system to panic, leading to those quick ~500ms brake pulses at stoplights and sudden brake-stabbing on the road. Subtle details like turn arrows or lane lines also get blurred out by quantization noise, which is compounded by HW3’s lower 1.2-megapixel camera resolution compared to HW4.

What frustrates me is how widespread this seems. Between my 2018 Model 3 and my friend’s 2022/23 Model Y (which actually handles it worse), the issue is constant; like every 30min or so.

If quantization noise, split-compute latency, and reduced model capacity are the root causes, this won’t be a quick fix. As it stands, v14 Lite feels less predictable and less acceptable than v12. I hope Tesla can resolve this by heavily tuning their temporal smoothing filters for HW3, because right now, it makes it really hard to trust FSD.

A little Beatles reference for you. Hello gentle readers. Its been a LONG time since I’ve written. I have been working at Samsung for 11+ years and finally the fully expected force reduction in the XR div happened. No regrets, I really enjoyed my time there working on XR related topics, but pretty much like most of the industry right now, AI is causing shifts at major scales. The good news is: I was already starting to work on VLMs and LLMs on a few side projects that I never seemed to have enough time to work on, but now that should not be a problem anymore.

However, this is not a post about Samsung.

BTW, I’m at a cafe waiting on my order and writing this on my Xreal glasses with my micro keyboard and using my Galaxy S23 phone as a mousepad.  What I love about this is I could carry everything in my pockets if I wanted, but instead I used my Japanese nerd bag.  I like having the dimming to a min so I can see around easily.  As much as I love the Xreals, there are some hacks I need to make on them. 

So what am I going to do?  I have a number of side projects I want to put time into, like an app for the Wear OS watch,  there are a couple hacks I want to do on the Xreal glasses, and finally I have a long term AI project that I have been thinking about for the last year.  This project will take a while but that’s ok.

tl:dr for the last two years, just after Corona started up, I started playing guitar again, (mostly The Smiths) and then took up the hobby of ‘looping’ Looping is creating a song using a digital sampling device. Basically playing a riff or pattern, and then repeat it over and over, Then adding more and more riffs or patterns on top.

Sept update: Finished ‘There There’ by Radiohead. This took a LONG time because I had to change my workflow a bit. Also created a video the way I wanted to do it.

I need to create a part II for ‘There There’ where I explain the break down and the new things I got working to do this project. For example, using MIDI to play drums and fire events to Quantiloop on the IPad. I’ll get to that later. But for now, here is the new video!

When I first started looping, I was using an Boss RC30, however over this time I ended up changing to an iPad, new guitar, new effects pedal, learning post production using a computer, and wasting lots of time trying to figure how to film this using a cell phone. All while still working, so basically finding buckets of time here and there. However, 1.5 years later, finally ready to post some of the results.

I will update this over time but for now, consider this post a placeholder for the videos.

I recommend you open in YouTube. Also ‘Why PeriVision Loops’ is pretty long, so unless you are interested in looping, you can skip after the first part.

Update: I may just put the link to youtube instead of putting the player in the blog directly.

For example, here is just the playthrough of ‘Shoplifters of the World…’ currently my favorite of the 3 released so far.

https://youtu.be/2SbzWgEelmQ

Video List:

• Why PeriVision Loops: How and why for this hobby.
• The Smiths – Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
• The Smiths – Shoplifters of the World, Unite and Take Over
• The Smiths – Last night I Dreamt

This is the first video. Its ok, but I may redo it. I also want to figure out how to bass as I’m playing. Future effort.

This is my favorite so far. Really happy with the sound. My only regret is I figure out how to get a good sound out of my holo-body guitar AFTER this was done. Oh well.

This is my second song. I was still learning how to do these, and really did not get the sound I wanted. After this was done, I was planning on creating another version, but I wanted a dark 1950s tube amp sound and a feeling like you are hearing this in some dank pup somewhere where smoking is not allowed but happens anyway. Go figure, I recently found a version of this sound that pretty much hits what I was after.

Check it out: https://youtu.be/hp-Ic3wZrGM

New Cat in the house

So keep in mind, there was not a lot of thought as to how were going to deal with Cha-san. This is a cat that has lived its life outside. Can he live in a house? Will it drive him nuts? I bought a really large dog cage in case he could not handle being indoors. Eventually we decided he should stay in my office until we see how he reacts. When we got him, he was exhausted. Completely shaved and shivering. We had an extra cat bed and put it out. We also carpeted my office with puppy pads in case he did not know how to use a cat liter box… he didn’t. He stayed in the cage at first, but after a few hours, he ventured out and discovered the cat bed. Guess he never seen one before but it was instant love for him! He immediately curled into the bed, and my wife covered him with a blanket. He was asleep in minuets. This is still his favorite place. Perhaps 23 hours of the day. (Picture)

With exception to getting water and food, as well as being spoon fed, he never left the bed, meaning we had to clean it three times a day. Sigh.. However, after the 3rd day, he figured out the litter box.. Kinda. He would keep stepping in his mess after he made it, so still twice daily cleaning. However, he was still weak, so we were able to move him around to fix his bed up. Soon he remembered we were one of the people who would feed him. He also connected that we were the ones fixing up the bed he so loved. So much, the unthinkable happened. We could pet him! And he purred!

The bird must leave the nest

I guess a week went by and he recovered quickly. Started to explore the room, got better at the litter box, and did not need to be spoon fed anymore. However, my office is not that big, so we had to move things out to make room for him. He still does not leave the office, but we need to get him to walk more. The first sacrifice was moving the cat tree. Both my wife and I work in my office which is the brightest room in the morning. So the cats like to be here with us. Now the cat tree is in the small dining area in the middle of the house. I kept a guest bed in the office, both for guests, and when I nap. That’s gone too. Have to build shelves to store the bed parts. We needed to make the space as large as we could so we could put his food/water, and litter box away from his bed. All that is left is my desk, so at least I can still work there. (Picture)

Eventually, slowly, he started to venture out of the office. Normally quick explorations of the house and then right back to the safety of his bed. At night we still keep the door closed because the other cats are afraid of him, and we are not sure how he will react to the other cats. At some point though, he meet Mochi our white 11year old female. At first Mochi gave him lots of space or would just run out of the house. However, she started to figure out as long as she was not on the floor, he could not reach her. It was at this time we decided, we need to leave the door open at night. Cha-san like to be active at night, like most cats and being stuck in a small room at night was starting to get to him. Even found him growing and biting his tail. We have to give him more space.

Time to meet the family

The dynamics between Mochi and Cha-san were pretty interesting. Mochi, whom was also feral for the first 3 years of her life, was VERY cautious about this this new cat. This was not the first new cat for her though. A little more than a year ago, we got Kenzo. That went more smoothly since Ken grew up with other cats and dogs and was still only a year old. Ken knew to roll over and show his belly when he first meet Mochi, so the adoption time was quite short. Not quite with Cha-san. Cha-san’s first encounter with Mochi was to try to intimidate her by looking straight at her and walking very slowly directly towards her. Each time she would blink and run away. The odd thing is though, after the encounter, Cha-san would return to the office and howl. My guess is he wanted Mochi to know this is his territory now.

Encounters with Kenzo were even shorter. Kenzo was becoming an outdoor cat and has been getting bullied by a cat that lives a block away, so he has enough on his mind and simply did not want to deal with a new cat. So he comes home, eats, leaves. At one point after seeing Kenzo run off, he went to the living room and howled. Guess he felt he could expand his territory.

Just recently though, perhaps 3 nights back, Mochi stopped running from Cha-san. Hissed when he got too close. However, she would meow and hiss, so I’m guessing she is saying ‘hey pal, I do not want any trouble, but Imma dune a run’in.’ This time Cha-san backed down and headed back to the office … and howled. Now seems they are ok with each other. Mochi still keeps off the ground, but does not seem to care about Cha-san so much now that she made her point. Cha-san sees that she will not attach him, so he is a little less cautious. Now just need to Kenzo and Cha-san to come to terms.

No office, no sleep

As all this is going on, the outside drama of Kenzo and the neighborhood Himalayan, called Lovey, became louder, more often, and typically after 1am. So we have run out of the house with a spray water bottle to break up the fight and chase off Lovey-chan. Seems Ken also decided he was dune-a -run’in from his own front yard and started to put up a fight. But he still was not winning.

Add to this, leaving the office door open so Cha-san can explore the house at night. Typically something would happen and he would howl and I would have to come downstairs and escort him back to the office. Last time, 3.30am, I had enough. He was howling downstairs and I got up, turned on the light at the top of the stairs and said; “Cha-san. Knock it off and go to bed.” Well what do you know. That worked.

Well two nights back seems Kenzo finally won a fight with Lovey in the backyard. Still had to get up at 1.30am to break it up, but at least progress. Also today he came into the office, looked at Cha-san and simply left. Again he does not want to deal with him, but perhaps he is getting some confidence. Also, Ken slept in the house yesterday. A change. I expect more fights, more howling, and more times I hear some loud noises and have to come downstairs to see what is going on. All between 1m and 7am. Sigh. Not to mention now Mochi is getting back to normal, meaning she wakes us up at 7 to get more breakfast. Until Ken can keep Lovey at bay, and when I do not need to worry about Ken attacking (in self defense) Cha-san attempts to dominate him, this will keep up.

So where are we then with all this?

Well, Cha-san is mostly recovered. We can pet him and he feels free to walk around the house when he wants. Still only sleeps/naps in the office, but yesterday he discovered the space heater my wife uses when working at the kitchen table and hung out for 30+ min. His hair is growing back and kidneys seem to be ok for now. On special food from the vet. Hopefully he will learn to be comfortable with living inside a house in time. Remember, 16years of being outside only. I know there will be adjustment issues for a long time. Perhaps we can get him used to a cat walker and be able to take him out when his hair is grown back and the weather is nicer.

Mochi seems to be ok with Cha-san, does not follow and play with him like she does with Ken, but he is pretty old so understandable; so Kenzo is more fun for Mochi.

Ken, well Ken has his own neko drama to deal with. We will see what happens in the near future.

Me, well last week happen to be a VERY busy week, so I was already low on sleep. The multiple post midnight neko wake-up events are starting to wear on me. Hopefully things will settle down.

But this is our neko life now. The adventure continues.

More update: Cha-san has started to sleep at my wife’s feet under the dinning room table where the space heater is. A kind of Kotatsu of sorts.

Have not heard any fighting the last two nights. Fingers crossed. Last night I slept 7 hours with no interruptions. First time in a month.

The tl;dr: We adopted a 16 yr old cat that lived in a neighboring parking lot. Our two cats were not thrilled, lost my home office, and have to get up once or twice a night to deal with neko (cat) drama. Due to everyone always asking, we created a blog for the cats; mochi.perivision.net I also link a few times in my post so as not to repost the same images.

The beginning

So lets go back about a year and a half. My wife and I were taking a walk down our street and happened to look into a neighboring condo parking lot. There we saw a scruffy old looking cat. Checked it out and it looked like there were a few bowels of water and food around. The next day we saw it again. Just stilling in parking lot or laying under cars. After a few more days of seeing this, I ask the maintenance people and the person sitting at the condo front office about the cat. They did not seem to know anything about it. Called SPCA and they said that I could borrow a cage, catch it myself and bring it. They would have a look, perhaps clean it up, but I could not adopt it. The policy is to release it back where the cat was found.

Next I thought, ok, I’ll put up some flyers to see who can help. Then I was told I was not allow to post anything. Sigh… Well, I was getting pretty close to simply getting the cage when we ran into someone who is taking care of the cat. Seems there are a number of people who have been feeing him over the last est. 16 years. 16 years living in a parking lot! So the thinking was, ok well, its been 16 or more years of living here, may as well let it finish his life here. And I thought that was the end of the story…

For a year and a half, we joined this rag tag random group of people leaving food and water. My wife would take on the extra task of cleaning up the area since the maintenance people were not happy about all these bowls as you can imagine. I found where he sleeps at night, against a wall where the hot water pipes run. (picture) So I dug down a bit a placed a pad and covered it again to keep him off the wet soil. He was brown so my wife called him Cha-san. Or Mr. Brown in Japanese. Seems everyone that took care of him had a different name: Master, Diamond, MiMi, Kat. I’ve had cats all my life, so I went with Kat as well as Cha-san.

Cha-san likes being around people, and did like another cat that came by, but no one could get closer than 6 feet. (guess he took Covid seriously) Never approached you unless you made a sound of dry food in a container, then he might come by and see what you brought. Otherwise, we have a complete loner and did not want to be touched. Pretty amazing a cat that growled if you got too close to him would develop such a following.

So about a month ago, I guess a new resident decided that the cat was getting worse and needed help. A SVACA volunteers came out to trap the cat. Gave the same answer, they almost never kill the cats; always return them… Turns out this was not one of those times.

The clock starts ticking

When others found out the cat was taken, there were a flurry of calls from various people trying to get answers. The SVACA said they have never seen such interest in a feral cat before. However, they have decided to put the cat down unless someone comes and claims it before 4PM. One of the people who care for the cat, told her friend what was happening. He asked no questions but jumped in the car and headed there. He claimed the cat. However, they would not let him take the cat unless he found a vet who would take the cat under care, again before 4pm. He was on the phone calling every vet in the area until he found one that was willing to take care of him. Next he has to rush to find a cage and get the cat before the clock stuck zero time. He barely made it.

Oh my God

This was the reaction of the vet. He was shocked at the cats age and condition. Said most likely he will not come back from anesthesia. But was given the greenlight anyway. After he was under, they shaved him, ended up making a few deep cuts because of badly matted the hair was, clipped nails including one that was growing into his paw… And amazingly, he came back. But now what? They could not keep the cat, no home for it. Keep in mind, there was not a formal organization for this group, it was a case of one person who know another who knew another. Text messages were flying everywhere. My wife said to pass a message to whomever has the cat, that we would take him in. 36 hours later, the messages finally connected and the people with the cat who have no choice but keep the cat in a garage the night before finally got our address and came by to drop off the cat.

Part II: A new cat in the house

SOoo much to unpack from yesterday. Ok, lets take this one at a time. First the stock jump to over $1000 a share. In less than a week, TSLA went from $775 to close at $1080 today with a peak at $1094. This 25% jump is pretty crazy. So what is going on? Two things. Tesla made it numbers starting the run and then an unusual run on call options.

“Investors spent $5.11 billion on call options, compared with a total of $279 million on puts, according to an estimate by Nomura Securities. The firm calls the 18-to-1 ratio “unheard of.” And all the spike in calls means options dealers needed to snap up shares to avoid unwanted risk.”

The Motley Fool

Second Hertz placed an order for 100k cars!! Its this second event that is really interesting to me. So yes this is a great marketing move from a back-from-the-dead car rental company, but this also places a lot of pressure on other car rental services to match this offering. Does not necessary mean they will buy Tesla, but most likely that will part of the mix as other car manufactures try to get their EV exposed to the consumer market. As such, I would not be surprised to see other orders from other services in the near future. Does the mean the stock price will go up even more. No idea.

In other Tesla news, FSD started it first large release. Unfortunately, 10.2 had a pretty bad bug, ( I experienced it) and they had to pull it back. But soon after they released 10.3. So far so good! Yes its VERY much a beta so you have to pay very close attention. Big issue I noticed right off is the system does not always understand the concept of driveway slope paving when entering a community. It thinks it still on a road (according to Google Maps) and not only does not slow down, but unless you stop it, it can curb the tires pretty bad as its cuts the turn.

Other issue is when turning right. Often there is space for the car to occupy to bypass other cars in the right hand lane going straight. However, FSD does not understand that. That is an issue when cars behind you get confused that you turned on your blinker but did not get to the far right side of the lane.

Another odd one you will see in the video is when the car thought it was stuck trying to turn right and decided to go around. Only issue is, if you try that, you will not make your right hand turn anymore. I should have let it make the maneuver just to see what happens.

You can check out the video below. I cut most of the dead time out and only did a very short drive, but you can get a sense for its pretty quickly. Key note here. I have a sub 10k vin model 3. So its running on the older camera configuration (I think) so that may or may not play into performance.

Whatev’s

So the Good. They look good. This is extremely important. As I have stated quite a few times in my past posts, anything that you put on your head must look good. Cannot get around this. And they do. The Image capture quality is very good as well. I took a picture in low light and the image was corrected once it got to the app on my phone. Nice.

Call quality was good as well. Not great, but very good. The person I was talking to on the other end could not tell the difference between this and normal headphones. I took a few calls on it and really liked it. In fact, I like it more then putting in and taking out ear buds if for no other reason then its easier.

The Bad. Sound quality for other the voice calls was NOT so good. Perhaps this is not intended for listening to music. I tried two tracks, a chillhop where I listen for clarity, and something a bit more bass heavy. The chillhop middles and highs were ok, but really could not feel the bottom. When I hit the bass heavy track, not only was there no bottom, it started to get noisy as I tried to turn it up. This was a BIG disappointment given how great the Bose Glasses sound.

So this is a bit of a short review, and I may add to it later, but basically, if you are into take lots of casual photos and short videos, these are pretty good. As long as its not of yourself. If you are into music, like I am, give it a miss.

Well, seems the deal went through! Right now, its still a rumor, but let say the ByteDance Pico deal goes through. What does that mean for the AR / VR space?

Currently the consumer VR space is pretty much dominated by Facebook with the Oculus Quest. A very good device, lots of content, very affordable price. With the release of Workrooms, we are seeing a slide into the soft enterprise space. (more on Workrooms later). Ok, so why is TikTok and Pico so interesting?

TikTok has followed both FB and Snap by offering an AR development platform. Snap has already released a dev version of AR glasses that can take advantage of their AR platform. And remember, they bought WaveOptics as well, so clearly they are committed to creating an AR device in the near term. What is interesting is that they are positioned to be the first AR glasses company to sell in large numbers give Snaps reach. Although I’m certain FB will come out with consumer level AR glasses very soon, they do not have the same penetration that Snap has for user AR content creation. Given TikToks current reach on in the user creative space, it would not be hard to imagine ByteDance is looking to compete directly with Snap. And the two of them need to move fast to buffer FB’s AR ambitions.

So how does Pico play into this? ByteDance recently bought a gaming studio to help bolster their content pool, but I think this will mostly be for the Chinese market, VR is pretty much owned by FB right now. However, if ByteDance wanted to create AR light glasses somewhat like Snap, Nreal, and Lenovo, this would be a step in the right direction. I would not be surprised to see a follow up acquisition of Nreal, or failing that, MadGaze.

This gives ByteDance quite a bit power in the Chinese market.

• Continue to expand the VR Consumer space in China perhaps with more gaming studio acquisitions.
• Support AR pass-through and copy FB Workrooms to create a Chinese version. Remember Pico using the same X2 chip Quest uses, so its doable.
• Create a set of AR glasses, either through acquisition or other work that Pico has been doing that we do not know about.
• Leverage TikTok popularity to compete with Snap and soon FB in the western market for consumer AR.

So what is missing?

Right now, both Snap and perhaps ByteDance still have a content issue. Yes, AR filters are very popular, but that will not be enough to sustain interest. To succeed they need access to the consumers phone which offers FAR more content than any one walled garden can ever create. To do this they need to figure out how to take mobile 2D content and display and interact with it on the XR device. This is why I wrote about Samsung Dex for AR-lite in the past. But guess who else has a Dex like experience? Huawei.

I’m calling this now. Watch for a future agreement between ByteDance and Huawie for a mobile based desktop experience that works in both VR and AR.

Also watch for further moves by ByteDance to implement AR glasses. Its getting closer … perhaps 2023 is when we will see the first major plays into consumer AR.

Recently Snap dropped on us their new dev version of AR glasses. There was not much on specs, save 2000 nits (1000 per eye I guess) waveguide displays. Since its tethered I would guess its pretty much following most of the other AR glasses I have seen pop up based on the QC chip.
However, what was really interesting to me what the announcement from Snap the following day. $500M purchase of WaveOptics. This was a signal to me.

Typically announcements like the Snap DK glasses, or Lenovo, or even the Niantic announcement always feel like a soft foot in. Basically trying to gauge interest while at the same time work with developers to create content, but more importantly, shake out the bugs in the wearable as well as eco system for an AR experience be it a hardware, software, or eco system play.

M&A, however, always catches my attention. Yes companies like Apple and Facebook are buying companies left and right, however, when those companies that are not quite as washed in cash start spending, that tells me something.

I have been around for a while, seen the first great transformations, and thus VR bubbles, in the late nineties, and again back around 2016’ish. And after both great leaps in XR capability, it always seem to follow a hype that XR will explode on the market.

ABI Research Reports $2 Billion+ in Funding and M&A for AR/VR

Although I do not believe we will see growth like this prediction above, something I do believe is the market will grow, and in 2025’ish we will see a 3rd revolution in XR systems. I’m not the only one who sees this, in fact, its somewhat expected 2025 will be when we really see AR glasses. Eco systems are already being built and developers being invited in. Its 2025 and after that I think we will see a change in consumer habits and substantial market opportunities.

So returning to why I think Snaps purchase of WaveOptics is so interesting. To compete in the new AR market, you need 3 things: Experience delivery. In this case, light weight attractive glasses. Content. Simply having a few cool apps is not going to do it. You need just as much content as we have on our phones today. Finally, users. Does not matter how good your system is, if you do not have a user base ready to consume it.

The last two takes quite a bit of investment unless you already have access to the phone (be it Apple, Google, or a major platform player like Microsoft, or a major phone manufacture). So hardware is the 3rd part where you can make a play to create content for your eco system and hopefully build a user base. Snap has already tried this with their first foray in to camera only glasses. Didn’t work out all that well. But the concept is still sound. If you own the hardware for display and/or input, you have at least some control over the content created for AR consumption, be it wearable or currently, phone based. Thus the investment in WaveOptics.

Snap has a very good customer base. Its apps are popular. So if they can also create a good set of glasses that enhance the particular content that its use base already enjoys, it can find itself well positioned to insure its apps are part of any AR eco system in the future. And that is the key here. The future play. As we move into a new eco system that is part phone and AR glasses based, how do you insure relevancy?

$500M is no small M&A. Snap is betting that they can get enough glasses out there to insure content for their eco system is sustained. This current device is clearly a DK, but you do not drop .5B on a company unless you plan to build future devices.

In the future, near future, there will be an interesting battle of eco systems. Open system and closed. Apple will create a closed system as we can already guess. Niantic is creating a metaverse, as is Nvidia for engineers, as is Epic which just raised $1B for this effort. However, if AR Glasses can talk to phones like Bluetooth devices can, then the question will be, how do these glasses consume content and access these various metaverses? If for example, Google creates a protocol to allow any wearable AR device to access and display phone content, then those apps that are already matured for the AR wearable market will have a substantial advantage over other apps, and in fact, will find they can grow and capture new users with features that other apps that are not already matured may find themselves displaced. Those apps in turn, can decide which metaverse(s) to support.

This I can see being worth a .5B investment.

I’m going to start this post with this statement: With consumer AR; function follows form. Now for most of you, you might remember the old design mantra; ‘Form follows function.’ For those that are unfamiliar, it basically implies design what you need first, then the form will follow. As a past Berkeley Architecture student this was drilled in my head. In consumer AR however, I think this is flipped. When you wear something, especially on your head, design matters. Given two products, a less attractive but more capable product vs a more attract but less capable one, people will tend to the more attractive product. Function follows form.

UPDATE: There has been an update to Android so now Dex no longer launches when connected. Sad Panda.

Cue the Nreal AR glasses. They look like ODG glasses, but smaller, and this makes a big difference. I really like the looks of the ODG, but just to bulky, heavy, and hot. Nreal removed all the compute of the head to slim it down. Yes, you lose some performance by moving CV to the phone, and yes there is now a chord hanging down the back, but given the value provided, this is minor.

In consumer AR, function follows form. Lets look a the Hololens/Magic Leap vs the Nreal. Now, they are completely different devices as far as I’m concerned. The Hololens is STILL the best AR device you can buy, but its big and expensive. The Nreal is small, light and only $500. However, what is really important here is; I can be at a cafe with the Nreal and feel OK, where I would not with the Hololens or any other capable AR device on the market. Why? Because the Nreal looks almost like a normal pair of sunglasses, yes it is far less powerful the other AR headsets, but it still supports most of my AR use cases. As such, I argue you need two things for a successful consumer AR device; a very light attractive device and access to lots of content. Combine the Nreal with a phone (better with a desktop like DeX) and you have it.

ROI: When I first got the GearVR I loved it. I was traveling a bit back then and I LOVED the fact I could put these on my head and I’m watching videos and playing games. The device only cost me just over $100 bucks and I already had the phone. The ROI was easy. I got more value out of the device than what I put into it. I also got the Vive. After a few weeks I felt done with it. It was far too troublesome to set it up. Yes the Vive is better, and could do more, but I could throw the Gear is a bag and take it anywhere. Thus I used the Gear FAR more often than the Vive.

Which brings to the main point of this post.

Consumer AR use cases will have the same ROI question. How often will you REALLY use it, and given those occasions, was it worth the money/trouble? I have read so many articles talking about all these great consumer AR use cases, virtual shopping, fitting new furniture in you place, even playing a virtual piano. How often do you really think you will use it? Most likely you will use it often if three conditions are true: 1) Easy to use/access, 2) satisfies a frequent use case, and 3) if in public, easy to carry and looks good.

Use case examples:

Before I go into these use cases, keep in mind they are not definitive or exhaustive, but instead illustrative to support the point that use cases that will support frequent use, does not need an expensive AR device to derive value from the product, in fact, less is more.

Short media consumption on the go: I define this as short sessions (say 10-20 min), alerts, short video, etc. Anything that is a quick bit of information consumption and interaction but longer than something you can see on your watch. For example; reading emails or socMed posts, viewing videos or photos. Yes you can do this on the phone, but if I have easy access to my glasses, I can enjoy a larger screen, better sound, and not keep looking down. I’ll also include HUD here as well. Walking or biking where you can get alerts and/or navigation or point of interests.

Information Augmentation. This can be language translations, getting more information on a store product, bar or QR codes, object recognition, etc.. Anything where one bit of information can be modified or expanded upon. In this case the phone would be the primary camera for capturing information allowing greater flexibility when trying to capture.

Augmented Desktop: Right now this is limited to Samsung phones as far as I know. When I connect the Nreal glasses to a Samsung phone, I get a DeX desktop. This is a big use case for me and something I can use right now when I’m away from my desk or traveling. When I plug the usbc cable into the phone, I get a 1k Desktop. Add bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and I’m set. Bonus points, as long as you are not trying to use the same app, you can run desktop on the glasses and some other app on the phone. (still need to test this more) BTW, you can use the phone as a mouse and keyboard as well. The only downside is its headlocked. I’m hoping this can be addressed.

Side bar on Travel: I used to travel quite a bit, for fun and business, and like to travel light. My current set up is to use a Samsung Fold, folding keyboard, and flat mouse. Well now with the Nreal, I will be adding one more device to my mobile war set. I have the Samsung Fold which is already a big screen, but now with the glasses, any phone should be fine. Again, we still have the issue that DeX is head locked. Side note, I still need to see if I can power the phone and keep the glasses connected at the same time. Another post for another day.

So, we just looked at 4 use cases that the current Nreal glasses and a high end phone can support. What about the chord? I got used to that really fast. For years we have been listening to our music using wire headphones and ear buds and no one has batted an eye. I have the same feeling with a chord coming from the glasses. It does not feel awkward and does not get in my way having used wired headphones for most of my life. BTW, works with a USBC extension.

Each use case has the same thing in common; they are things you would do often. They do not require too much compute power nor sensing technology. They do, however, require that you feel comfortable using them in public.

Now, I do not want to give the impression the Nreal is perfect. Far from it. It does not fit me well, (Nreal: Day 0). When I use DeX, the display is head locked. There is no easy on/off for the glasses while connected to the phone. and a few more small issues. But the main point is this. The Nreal is the first AR-lite glasses I have seen (pun intended) that sets the bar for all other AR-lite headsets to follow in the near term. Sure sometime this decade we will have wireless glasses with higher resolution and detail hand tracking and a bunch of other stuff.

But I do not want to wait that long.