On my lap, I have a small keyboard with a trackpad. There’s no display. You can’t see anything. To me, it looks like I have a wraparound curved workspace with many windows. I see it through a pair (with prescription inserts!) of AR glasses perched on my nose.
Spacetop was the first product I tried in Las Vegas in January. Now, the company behind it, Sightful has announced the experiment for early-access products. I’ve seen a lot of VR and AR headsets but few peripherals that work with these futuristic goggles or glasses. Spacetop’s main pitch, instead of gaming or social interactions, is to transform laptops into AR devices with endless virtual screens.
Consider that I have already experienced it. Meta’s Quest Pro was paired with my laptop so that I could extend the virtual monitors all around me. There are many apps available to achieve this. Interfaces are clunky and hardware is not mobile-friendly. Spacetop’s keyboard, which has its own Qualcomm processor, can be used as an anchor for tracking the floating displays. Tracking can be done in a moving vehicle or plane. A button on the keyboard will turn off the virtual screens for a conversation in the room.
This visualisation of Spacetop working is very similar to what it is like when you use it. The only difference is that the view is always smaller.
Sightful
Spacetop includes NReal Light AR Glasses that must be physically tethered with the keyboard in order to function. Sightful founders plan to offer wireless options in the future, but they found that the tethered solution was more reliable and consistent for tracking. The concept can also be used with future AR and mixed reality headsets.
Spacetop’s keyboard. There is no screen. Just a base. The AR glasses are held in a cradle.
Scott Stein/CNET
It would be logical, given the number of devices that are expected to arrive in the near future: Apple, Google, Qualcomm, Samsung and others. NReal’s glasses work fine but not over my glasses. Sightful, the company that makes the hardware, will provide prescription inserts for customers. Although the inserts were not perfect, they allowed me to see that the monitor resolution was sufficient. The Field of View is smaller than other VR headsets. It can display a 40″ TV screen when viewed across a table. But I need to turn my head in order to see other floating windows with other minimized browsers on the Spacetop’s Chrome interface.
Tomer Kahan (co-founder of Sightful) demoing Spacetop together with me. I also worked on it.
Scott Stein/CNET
Trackpad and keyboard are used to zoom in or out of displays. The keyboard is the interface.
Sightful has a team with experience in AR. Founders Tamir Berliner, Tomer Kahan, and Berliner founded Primesense – the depth-sensing tech that was used by Microsoft Kinect, which Apple then acquired to power its Face ID TrueDepth cameras.
Apple’s headset is imagining how mixed reality can work better with other devices, such as iPads or Apple Watches. Upcoming glasses and goggles are imagining how they will work with laptops or phones, among other future tools. New peripherals are also expected, including tracking rings, wearable trackers, and keyboards that are designed for mixed reality.
Spacetop may be a little ahead of its time. While it is designed to function as a primary PC with its own headsets, the future could belong to smart accessories which will work with other headsets. Better work tools are needed if VR and AR will ever be more than just games. Spacetop is an interesting first step in what I expect will be much more.
