The hardware itself on the Nreal Air is pretty great and while I do think that better resolution and other additions can be made I would not say that the current hardware keeps the glasses from being great.
The biggest problem so far is the lack of software in multiple directions.
This is a critique but also suggestions for what to improve for Nreal and I think it would be great if we collect suggestions.
Let us calibrate/change the display settings. The image is oversaturated on the Nreal Air. It makes color pop more and stand out which makes for a good wow factor and it makes the picture stand out against bright, daylight environments which is good. But when using the Nreal Air to consume content in a darker room or with the shade on the colors do not look too good. Sure it is a huge, bright image but even the most basic tv has better color accuracy. Allowing us to change the display settings for Color, Saturation, and so on would make the Air better. Perhaps a few profiles to customize would be nice for quick swapping.
A feature to rotate and resize windows in AR Space. Moving the windows around currently is linked to the orientation of the head which is fine for moving itself but the windows auto-rotate which makes it impossible to align and set up multiple windows in some situations. This is especially bad when laying down or leaning back in a chair.
As for resizing, I mean the aspect ratio of the window. A lot of content is not produced for the 16:9 aspect ratio and custom ratios would make using multiple windows much better e.g. having the main window in front and a thinner, upright, portrait-style window on the site for a chat.
The browser in AR Space is lacking many features even for normal day-to-day use. There is no way to delete data, cookies, or history. Copy and paste are a must-have to use any device nowadays. There is no feature to open a link in a new tab which is a real pain depending on what website you want to use.
Alternatively or even better would be to be able to use any browser in the AR Space like Firefox or Chrome which already have all the features
Allow full customization of the AR space menu. I know it is possible to move around icons but half of the stuff on there are just links to apps as advertisements. The menu would be usable if I can put links to apps there, link to settings, and remove all the useless stuff.
Implement a way to use any app in AR space. I know this might not be possible or very hard to accomplish but I want to use any app of the apps on my phone in the AR space, not just a browser and a few gimmick apps.
Add Windows, Linux, and macOS support for full AR space. This is the biggest improvement for the Nreal Air in general. The market for PC users is huge and it would move the glasses away from being a niche product to a useful peripheral for everybody. I know a macOS version is in the works but Windows should be the goal.
Make it easier to get the Nebula app. I know that only the phones tested by Nreal themselves get whitelisted to use the app even when there are different versions of the same model. E.g. most phones are released in China as one version and in Europe as another. The hardware is nearly identical and thus both versions can run the Nebula app just fine but Nreal only tested the Chinese version and thus every European customer is locked out. This gives the illusion that no phones support the Nreal Air. Furthermore, this will become more and more of a problem with most future phones being able to run the Nreal Air but Nreal first has to test every device and every international version of it. This restricts the market immensely. I know Nreal wants to make sure the Nreal Air works and people donât buy it when it wonât ever work for them but then they should maybe have two categories âverified to workâ and âshould work but not verified by Nrealâ or step up the verification game and test every smartphone. (For anybody curious, you can get the nebula app as APK here on the Nreal community forum New Version of Nebula(V3.1.1) for Non-GP Developers! you might have to look for newer versions if you read this later)
Hi, thanks for your great suggestions. And about several of them, I want to add my own perspectives:
About the AR browser, the current one allows users to use âPrivate modeâ to open new windows, it is similar to the mode of Chrome, with no cookies or history.
Windows Nebula is always on our timeline, we will try to release it ASAP;
Nebula app, thanks for your suggestion, but we must do rigorous tests for every possible model and reserve the compatible one. And as you know, the models are different in hardware or software in different regions, so the test work takes a lot of time and labor. And you provided a good idea to improve the current situation, very appreciated of it.
Any thoughts on enabling all apps in AR Space? Or at the minimum, a screen mirroring app in AR? The AR is the reason I bought the air, to use in place of a mutil-monitor setup, and it looks great but I canât work with the limited apps. Or can head-tracking be added to the Air Casting mode?
Hi, really sorry that the 2D apps cannot be shown in AR Space, because phone manufacturers determine it, we donât have permission to do that. And for the request of pinning window under Air Casting mode, we are trying to find a solution.
Hi dev. Thanks for the reply! Have you considered bringing a screen mirroring app like Air Casting mode, into AR Space? If we could open your web browser apps and pin them alongside an instance of screen mirroring, we could use whatever app we wanted and you would not run into the manufacturer issues, as youâre still just mirroring. Then we would have head tracking, our pick of apps, and combined with your youtube or other web apps, weâd have a pretty good multi-monitor setup
I am trying to use the nebula app to do some cloud programming but the browser doesnât have enough horizontal space so the programming web page is too cramped and canât show everything that I need to do the programming I need to do. Please allow the web pages to have more horizontal space. You have the waterfall mode for vertical scrolling but you need a way to make the page wider so that a normal view you would have on a physical monitor is possible also in nebula. Everyone is searching for an AR environment that they can actually do work in and you guys âalmostâ have it but not quite. All you need is the make the webpages show more horizontally!
Windows support for the nebula app AS IT IS on android would be superb⌠I like the triple monitor solution in Mac OS, but I think AR space is way more interesting.
I am definitely interested in the resizing and rotating of windows in Nebula AR space, itâs such a wonderful environment, but placing portrait orientation pictures becomes annoying due to the edges of each window.
I would also appreciate it a lot if we could zoom in on pictures without having to increase the window size, just so I can have a ton of images open at the same time everywhere, but this is just for convenienceâs sake.
Another thing I would love to see is if we had the ability to recenter windows to face directly at the glasses with the press of a button, thatâd be cool.
Ah yeah, the ability to âsaveâ rooms that FarePlay has is really cool, but that app doesnât support any image formats other than .jpg so I canât really use it⌠unless I export every reference pic to that format, I guess⌠So having at least something akin to it would be nice, like a âlast opened windowsâ button
You could even change the names of windows to something fancy like âportalsâ idk xD
And lastly, I think I noticed a âbugâ where my cursor laser keeps drifting and drifting away from me and I have to recenter it waaaay too constantly.
Everyone need time, why not concentrate on making core library/SDK/API/ABI ,
let communities to help to make applications !
I used to get some Chinese electronicsďź they have better hardware specs but worse software
make the product useless for the users.
Like some Chinese made handheld PC are more powerful than Steam Deck in hardware ,
but none of them made something like SteamOS.
I mean I hope nreal not become another such failed electronics product.
first things first, make the 3840x1080 stable,
app like nebula and steamVR device driver can be build upon it.
Also can you make your cable compatible with thunderbolt 3/4 spec?