Spatial Computing on a Budget

Spatial computing is in the spotlight lately, especially since the release of the Apple Vision Pro headset. But who wants to spend $3,500 or more to have this experience? Very few people, apparently, considering the tepid sales of the Vision Pro to date. This does not necessarily mean that spatial computing is a bust, of course. Before we can understand if it could be the next big thing, much more accessible spatial computing systems are needed so that the technology can be put in front of a larger audience — and also a larger group of application developers.

Ian Hamilton recognized that there was an opportunity to make this happen with the release of the Meta Quest HDMI Link. This device makes it possible to connect a Meta Quest virtual reality headset (2, 3, or Pro) to any HDMI source. Hamilton used it to connect a Raspberry Pi 400 computer-in-a-keyboard to a Meta Quest 3. With these headsets starting at about $500, and the Raspberry Pi 400 selling for around $70, it is a relatively low-cost way to give spatial computing a whirl.

When working with this setup, the user has a view of their surroundings with large floating virtual displays superimposed on top of their field of view. These screens display the output from the Raspberry Pi to enable the integration of computing tasks into one’s everyday activities. Hamilton also noted that the Raspberry Pi’s ability to boot from SD cards is a nice feature for this application. This makes it easy to swap out cards to switch between, for example, a home theater setup, gaming, or productivity tools.

There are some trade-offs with this approach, however. While the Raspberry Pi 400 is very compact, it is not built into the headset, as the Vision Pro’s computing unit is. This certainly limits how the system can be used. Furthermore, the stock system is limited to traditional keyboard and mouse inputs, so no interesting gesture-based interactions are available.

When comparing the Vision Pro to this custom setup, we are clearly not comparing apples to apples (maybe a Raspberry to an Apple?). There are very significant differences that heavily impact user experience. But given the greatly reduced cost, some people may be able to live with those differences. And who knows — after hardware hackers have been experimenting with DIY spatial computing solutions for a while, that gap may become much smaller.