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Apple Vision Pro Lacks Wi-Fi 6E Support

I wonder if this could affect performance of using it as an external display with the latest Macs that also support WiFi 6E? Especially if your WiFi network is already congested.

Also curious if it uses an ad-hoc connection to those displays or if it runs over the entire network through the router?

The only use case besides toy and entertainment that seems practical to me is using it as an external display for your Mac while traveling, since it is more compact and you can have a large display. But at just over 4K resolution, I have my doubts as to how sharp display text will be.

The thing is, a 4K display is 4K no matter how far away it is from you. Now can that be affected by your vision? Sure, but if you have glasses or contacts with a current prescription you should be able to resolve all detail from a few feet away. But this thing? Right now, sitting in front of my 27" 4K LG display, I would say it's taking up less than half of my field of view. Kinda difficult thing to measure, but it's certainly not more than half, and very likely less. Not sure how the field of view of this thing compares to actual human vision. On the Vision Pro, if I sat that same normal distance away from where the display is projected, then it would be closer to 1080p, right? Or can I have the Mac display fill my entire field of view? And will that be comfortable to use? So many unknowns.
 
heretic51 said:
am I crazy for assuming it would be one of the first apple devices to have 7?
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It would be nice, but if you look at past product launches Apple was always quite conservative with the hardware unless it was crucial on the first gen of a new category and took more risks with the software.
 
Wow, I thought about coming in here to post mock disappointment, but we seem to have real disappointment in here.

I get it. It doesn’t have M3 or WiFi 6E, but if those are the biggest compromises, AVP is in pretty solid shape. Well, the battery life is pretty lacking too, but other than those things, this looks like a perfectly good start to Apple’s “Spatial Computing” device category.

If you want a more refined version, the second or third gen will be the one for you. The first iPad Pro had tons of compromises, if we look back on it. The 9.7” version that came out six months later addressed some of those compromises.
 
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CWallace said:
The M2 supports WiFi 6E so my guess it is an antenna-related issue that prevents it from being on Vision Pro?
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The chip itself is technically irrelevant, even in the M series WiFi is through a separate controller chip not part of the SoC. Intel and M1 Macs support WiFi 6E if you connect the right adapter. I'm guessing it's either a cost issue or power consumption issue.
 
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macduke said:
Not sure how the field of view of this thing compares to actual human vision. On the Vision Pro, if I sat that same normal distance away from where the display is projected, then it would be closer to 1080p, right? Or can I have the Mac display fill my entire field of view? And will that be comfortable to use? So many unknowns.
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Even 4K resolution is limited by the quality of video streaming. Digital aritifacting in very dark and very bright scenes doesn't change with level of compression applied to these streams. You're also dealing with all the usual parameters that effect the level of details in a image. With size reduction of 2D objects, using the 4K resolution can't compensate with what level of detail the human eye perceive, as the object gets smaller and smaller those pixels are fixed in size so you loose information to its details. It's also interesting that the traditional views of distance not being able to resolve individual 4K pixels gets tossed. After all your eyes are extremely close to the 4k+ display each eye.

If the AVP was 8K each eye that would be way closer to what your eyes could perceive as well as yielding considered more details to everything you look at even if the objects appear further away (smaller). Then again there we are back to why 6E would be important if that higher resolution support was needed.
 
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An M2 chip, no Wifi 6E when 7 is on the way, 256GB at $3499. The more I learn, the less I want to preorder.

I may wait until Gen 2.

Edit: No UWB too is kinda wild... I may buy and return it in 2 weeks. I'd still like to experience it for longer than 25 minutes.
 
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Folks, it's really simple. Apple learned a very important lesson with the first HomePod. If Apple includes too much in the product, there is no clear upgrade path. By not including WiFi 6E, Apple now has a very clear upgrade path and a great feature to promote - improve WiFi speed, leading to faster, more fluid interaction.
 
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Realityck said:
I do. The older 802.11ac (wifi 5) operates only in the 5 GHz band, while 802.11ax (wifii 6) works in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. That mean you can have your oldest devices all on 2.4 Ghz (802.11n). 6E just adds the newer 6 Ghz band that is useful in dense urban settings with its reduced range/less interference.
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Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but I'm using the older Linksys Velop WiFi 5 mesh routers that operate simultaneously at 5GHz+5GHz+2.4GHz.

(PS they've got their flaws though)
 
aidler said:
At the end of last year I thought this was a no-compromise device for $3,500, but now the cracks are starting to show.
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I plan to buy it, my intention is to keep it. However, if some of the speculations, such as no multiple screens from the Mac, not comfortable to wear for a couple of hours, excessive cost of spare batteries, limited storage memory at the $3,500 price, not current generation wiFi, etc materialize, I may end up returning this. Until experienced, hard to say.
 
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Yes, that faster Wifi would have been nice, but I'm sure that we will find out that it can do everything it needs to do, just fine, with the Wifi technology that is built in to it.


We'll find out in a few weeks, but I feel confident that Apple would not release a product of this magnitude if it wasn't ready for primetime.
 
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