This is a frequently derided feature of the Apple Vision Pro but on the plus side for once we’re not spending a ton of money on an apple device only to have it tied to a failing battery that can only be replaced by apple.
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External battery pack… a good thing
- Thread starter Rychiar
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It doesn't use a standard connector. For all we know, the battery pack might only be available for purchase from Apple.
What makes you say that? Any indication the current pack is at or around the 100WHr plane limit?
I don't doubt for one moment that the capacity of the supplied battery pack is explicitly designed to come just under that limit.
Just do the maths on the stated runtime provided by the battery, and have a think as to whether the implied power consumption for a device running on an M2 chip plus two 4K displays, all the cameras and sensors and other gubbins seems realistic or not.
I'd be delighted to be proven wrong though.
/edit
Ok so perhaps I might need to revise that thought. Just doing some comparisons, and am M2 MBA provides 18 hours of video playback off just a 52.6 WH battery, That works out to 2.9 W per hour of video. I guess it's rather hard to believe that the AVP would need almost 14x as much power per hour of video.
Interestingly though, another way to look at this is that the iPhone 15 Pro has a 12.7WH battery. The AVP battery looks to be about the same size as the phone? If you assume 3x density because it's all battery, then you'd be looking at around 40WH. But even that would imply the AVP has more than 5x the power requirements of an M2 MBA to show a video.
Something doesn't add up here. Apologies if this has all been discussed before (I'm sure it has!). I guess we will learn the real specs on Friday.
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5x the power doesn’t sound that extreme to me. Playing downloaded video on a flat screen device is one of the easiest things for it to do. The Vision Pro has to draw two 3D images partially made from stitching several cameras together 90-100 times per second all while keeping your “persona” eyes up to date, looking for your gestures, and looking for other people in the room. It also apparently simulates casting light around the room if you aren’t in immersive mode. The battery estimates don’t seem to vary much between workloads which makes me assume most of the problem is with processing the OS itself.
I think the battery is smaller than it could be purely to fit in pockets comfortably. They might have miscalculated a bit with the precise size they settled on.
edit: I’m amused by this because now that I’ve typed it out this reminds me a lot of the original Macintosh, it was also a device made of very expensive parts practically brought to its knees trying to run an OS that technology wasn’t quite ready for.
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Is there anything stopping us from plugging an external battery into the USB C port of the Vision Pro battery to keep it charged up instead of having to turn off the device, swap to a new apple battery and turn back on? That's probably going to me by way of doing it on longer sessions when i am away from the house.
The battery being external is arguably the best decision Apple made for the Vision headsets, and I see other HMDs adopting this design as well. It just makes so much sense. Greatly reduces weight on the headset, easy to swap if it breaks (for comparison, Quest headset batteries are near impossible to swap) don't need as much cooling for said battery, it's just smart design.
Bet $5 the Meta Quest 4 will use an external battery.
Bet $5 the Meta Quest 4 will use an external battery.
I know the statement regarding indefinite use was removed from product advertising, but is plugged-in use not available while at home?
Agreed that battery will be nice to have, however I can't imagine moving around much once it's in my pocket or waistband as shown in Apple's product videos.
Agreed that battery will be nice to have, however I can't imagine moving around much once it's in my pocket or waistband as shown in Apple's product videos.
The only down side is workouts which is 90% of what i use my quest 2 for
Skill issue. Just put the cable out of the way and the battery in your pocket. EZ
You're talking to someone who uses their Quest 2 exclusively plugged into their PC via the Link Cable (or I did until I started the year long Linux Challenge)