Apple Vision Pro Battery Isn't Hot-Swappable, Switching Requires Restart

[iPay]

"While you're swapping batteries, a short message from our sponsor/s..."
Won't take long for our reality to be augmented with unstoppable ads...

 

[masotime]

Marques Brownlee in his unboxing video also described the battery as "pretty heavy," and compared it to phones with larger capacity 5,000+ mAh batteries that feel "much lighter." We'll probably have to wait for a teardown to find out what the additional weight can be attributed to.

People need to stop measuring energy capacity in mAh. A is a unit of charge, not energy.

I was really disappointed that MKBHD made that mistake in his video.

 

[krspkbl]

they should think about putting a small capacity battery inside the headset to keep it on in a low powered state for <60 seconds so you can swap batteries out. the headset is getting criticized for being heavy so i get why they didn't do that but once they can slim this brick down then go for it. another reason not to buy 1st gen product.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

The least Apple could do to solve that is giving that $3,499 device two sockets for connecting batteries. Then you could connect the full battery and then disconnect the almost empty one.

 

[krspkbl]

The least Apple could do to solve that is giving that $3,499 device two sockets for connecting batteries. Then you could connect the full battery and then disconnect the almost empty one.

maybe on the 2nd gen headset.

 

[Kylo83]

Just get the quest 3

 

[TooMuchPhone]

Article should mention if you can attach an external battery to the VP battery instead of using a wall outlet.

 

[guzhogi]

Apple says the Vision Pro provides up to two hours of battery life overall, and up to 2.5 hours for 2D video playback specifically. However, several reviewers claim to have gotten up to three hours out of a single charge in general use, with one reviewer saying they were able to watch a three-hour movie on a single charge.

Out of curiosity, how long does it take to charge from empty? Just wondering how many extra batteries you'll have to get, should you want to use the headset continuously.

 

[lindijones]

You guys posted a tweet with all the information basically saying this whole article is wrong…. Hilarious

The battery outputs 13v not the same as the iPhone. The battery is much bigger than the iPhone’s battery

Exactly. Vision has 3-4 cells in a row compared to 1 in the iPhone.
Just compare the capacity in Wh.

 

[throAU]

No, I do not. My point was the cost to use ratio for me is not enough to make the purchase.

anyone who has used a vr headset will likely find 2hr life pretty reasonable. spending much more than that in vr without a break gets uncomfortable

 

[Jim Lahey]

Article should mention if you can attach an external battery to the VP battery instead of using a wall outlet.

Maybe daisy chain three together? Yo dawg we heard you like batteries so we connected a battery to your battery so you can charge your battery while you charge your battery 😃

I jest. Your question isn’t invalid. Just found the idea amusing 😉

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Out of curiosity, how long does it take to charge from empty? Just wondering how many extra batteries you'll have to get, should you want to use the headset continuously.

Brian Tong said 90 minutes.
He also said he got 0 to 37% in a half hour.

And on average, the battery lasts about a half hour longer than apples estimates

 

[ckorhonen]

What does this mean in terms of using an external battery to charge the battery pack? How many charges will I get out of a 10,000mAh Anker powerbank?

I'm also curious what the overall power draw of the Vision Pro is - with the 30W charger, will that be able to drive the headset and top up the battery at the same time? What is the lowest wattage charger I can get away with in order to power the device?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

What I don’t understand is is why is this enclosure so incredibly large versus the size of what the battery pack is in an iPhone 15 and how skinny that is and yet it’s bigger on the phone. I feel like there’s additional stuff in there or they’re not using the space very well.

You and the writer of this article seem to both not understand it 😉

The battery is nearly triple the watt-hour rating of an iPhone battery. mAh ratings are meaningless if the batteries have different voltages.

 

[bodhisattva]

Up to 2hrs battery for a $3500 product is terrible, in my opinion.

Microsoft HoloLens is 2.5 hours, Vivo pros were only 2-3 max. And neither of those had the complexity and advancement of the Vision. Not to mentioned the HoloLens (original dev model) was more expensive even years ago. I think we payed closer to $5k for each. I'm actually shocked they got this much out of the smaller battery. If anything I expected a larger battery pack. For me however, if I'm doing any long tasks I'll be in a location where I can plug in. So really a non issue for me.

 

[ric22]

Will the USB ports on planes be able to provide enough juice for this thing to tick over? I suspect the answer is usually a big NO.

 

[nfl46]

It's funny watching everyone correct the MacRumours article, and completely ignore the fact that the correction is still pretty garbage. Most people are gonna end up tethered to a power outlet, at which point you may as well just have a monitor at a desk.

Honestly, Apple should have withheld this for a couple more years and removed a lot of the limitations people are mentioning in the early reviews. No one was in desperate need of this product.

Withheld it? Apple just made 800+ million since January 19th.

You can’t expect a perfect device with version 1 because the first iPhone darn sure wasn’t perfect. Apple is in this for the long run. Maybe V1 isn’t for you, just wait until V2 or V3 and those limitations will be removed.

Everyone knows V1 will be expensive, have limitations and will get cheaper and better as time goes on. It’s like this with just about every product in the world.

 

[CharlesShaw]

You don't have any power outlets in your home?

Exactly. If a MacBook battery runs low, plug in a charger.

 

[PowerMac5500]

Deleted

 

[crsh1976]

the Vision Pro can be used 10 years from now by just buying an eventual third party battery with a cloned connector.

It may have sufficient durability to last 10 years (time will tell), but we all know in this day and age that's not the intention.

 

[scrapesleon]

apple could have made the battery better seeing its external give it at least 6 hour life

 

[Jamie0003]

Holy ****.


...and that's a magnetic connector..? 🤦‍♂️

Yeah how are Apple going to get away with this with the EU? Really hope future Vision Pros use type c on the device itself. Is there any reason why it’s yet another stupid proprietary connector?

 

[PowerMac5500]

Deleted

 

[cupcakes2000]

Not hot-swappable? That’s just a very bizarre choice. Probably couldn’t even manage a whole movie. Can you use plugged in?

 

[8KYUP]

So excited to get this. Only two more days to wait. I actually think of much smaller battery pack would be a great accessory. Something that gets you through a workout or a brief time away from an outlet. Super comfortable to carry in pocket. That would allow you to take quick trips away from an outlet without the stock battery pack. I'm sure there's lots of accessories to come 🙂