The world’s first augmented reality laptop was used by me

Using Spacetop to Test my Space-Top with a Magnetically Attached Lens and an Optical Viewer for High-Resolution Spectroscopy

You can get the glasses at no extra cost if you have invitation-only access. Your Spacetop will then ship with a pair of custom-ground lenses magnetically attached. I wore the headset on top of my glasses to be able to test it with my prescription, but was relieved to be able to use it with my normal glasses.

The glasses went through multiple adjustments to make them comfortable to wear for long periods, without leaving any marks on your face, hair or makeup. The headset has also been optimized for viewing content up close, such as reading text. The display brightness is controlled via a physical button on the right arm.

Sightful: Exploring a Multimonitor Setup with an AR Glass and a Pencil at a Coffee Store

If you weren’t required to crouch over a dark, tiny laptop screen in the coffee store, what would you do? You can use a multi-monitor setup with a pair of augmented reality glasses and a keyboard. Sightful is a new company that was founded by former executives of Magic Leap. As the world’s first AR laptop, it delivers the convenience of a virtual 100-inch screen with the ability to display as many windows and apps as you need to get work done from wherever you are.

Once the lenses are sorted, the best way to describe the experience of using the Spacetop, which runs a custom operating system called Spacetop OS, is that it’s as if a giant projector were shooting your computer screen into the air in front of you. That projection remains pinned in place — it doesn’t come with you if you walk away — and you’ll see different parts as you move your head around thanks to a camera tracking your head movements. When you move forward the screen zooms out, like if you were zooming out on your Windows desktop. You can see a number of tabs and apps at the same time, their contents so tiny that they cannot be read. It’s different from a projector, of course, in that you’re the only one who can see what’s being projected.

the concept of working from home has been utterly redefined in the past few years. As long as there’s Wi-Fi and a computer, many people can technically work from anywhere. But for those who have gotten used to clicking through multiple monitors or walking at a standing desk, working away from the house requires schlepping around a bunch of peripherals in order to be productive.

The Spacetop’s Performance, Performance, and Battery Life on a Hypermobile PC (the Spacetop is not a Mobile Device)

It can be bought through an invitation-only early access program for $2,000. The delivery will start in July. Anyone can apply, but Sightful says it’s specifically looking for “enthusiastic early adopters” who will provide feedback the company can use to refine the experience.

There is a new update on May 18. The earlier version of this article stated that the Space top has a processor. It’s powered by a mobile device. The story has been changed to reflect this.

But even among the “web-forward” audience, the Spacetop, in its current iteration, is not ready to fulfill its own mission. It sells itself on the screen space it provides to display an endless number of web pages, but its processor can not handle a lot of them. It sells itself on multitasking and is powered by a well-known chip, which is the best for running a few tabs at a time. It sells itself on combining the advantages of a big-screen laptop with an ultraportable form factor, but it also brings the downsides of that ultraportable form. The battery life is estimated at “5+ hours,” which is not great — especially for the hypermobile “work from anywhere” consumer that Sightful is explicitly targeting. The touchpad is a bit thin. The port selection is a grand total of two USB-C, one of which will be occupied by the charger a large portion of the time. (When I told Berliner that customers might hope for a more diverse port selection, he blinked and asked, “What’s the use case?”)

This isn’t all that surprising; the product is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, and Sightful’s representatives were trying to run more tabs than I’d ever recommend running on that chip. Berliner said that the first few units would only be given to people whose workload is web-forward. Video editors and gamblers need not apply. Berliner says that they will not include them if they don’t think this can solve the main pain point of their experience.

Performance was a bit choppy. The laptop crashed early in my demo session and had to be rebooted. Things like scrolling and resizing windows were slow. The browser stopped working when I tried to play a video. There were many times throughout the experience when it seemed like things were just barely crawling along.

The Spacetop does not have a screen. In total, it is a screen-less keyboard deck with a pair of AR glasses (which are customized Nreal glasses) hardwired to it. Put those on, and you will see your desktop projected into the air before you. You operate it — move windows, play videos, type messages, etc. — with the keys and touchpad, as you would a physical screen. The Space top is thought to be a 100-inch laptop. It’s getting that from the fact that if you were to treat the image the user sees as a projection on a surface in front of them, that projection would have a 100-inch diagonal. I suppose that’s one way to look at it (though, by that logic, a projector can also be called a 120-inch TV or whatever).

The actual field of view is small enough that you usually can’t see the full 100-inch space at a time. You need to move your head to see the areas you want to see, as the size of the window is not on the spec sheet. I had a couple scenarios where I lost the t-ball somewhere off to the side and not be able to find it or where I put a tab was not where I wanted it.

Exploring the Future of AR Glasses: Tamir Berliner’s Spacetop Demonstration at the Sightful Research Lab

I enjoyed using the device, and it’s cool to feel like you’re moving your windows in open air. I can imagine myself working it in a way that is efficient, and on a buttoned up version.

It really is impressive technology. You can see your desktop but you can also see what’s behind it and how I used the device, so I could walk around while using the device. Audio comes through the glasses as well, and it is quiet but also not audible to those around you. Resolution (1080p per eye) was sharp. If you’re sitting in Starbucks, you can be sure that nobody else will see what you’re working on (though you’ll likely get looks for using such an odd-looking machine). There are not fancy gesture controls to pick up on. You can get used to it if you use a Windows laptop.

Nevertheless, there are few things worse than having to wear AR glasses over one’s own glasses, so I was thrilled that Sightful, like Magic Leap, offers prescription inserts. (Berliner is a Magic Leap alum.) If I was actually a real customer, I would have ordered my prescription from the company, despite being forced to cram my glasses under the goggles.

This is the future of computing according to Sightful CEO Tamir Berliner. There will come a time when all electronic tasks, from web design to AAA gaming, are done while squinting through AR glasses. “We are looking forward to the day when we forget about the laptops we have today,” Berliner told me, mirroring predictions that Mark Zuckerberg has been making for years.

I was not very pleased when I sat down with the company Sightful to demo the Spacetop. Rather, it’s not shaped, decorated, or themed like a spaceship.