Imagine working on a laptop without having a screen to see… won’t that be a sight to behold, not for you alone but also the many people roaming around you?
Visualize yourself sitting at an airport with your fingers tapping on a keyboard while no screen exists before you, and yet your work gets done.
That may sound quite fancy, but is quite a reality today. Sightful has launched Spacetop – a trailblazing laptop that has no screen. Yes, you read that right! No screen! Instead, what Spacetop does is to offer you an augmented reality (AR) screen, creating a 100-inch virtual display suspended in air right before your eyes as you view it wearing an AR headset. Even though people may related spatial computing with Apple’s Vision Pro headset, yet Sightful’s Spacetop is a pioneer in screenless laptop segment.
What does the screenless wizard have to offer?
Spacetop requires you to simply wear the AR glasses to get teleported into a world of mind-blowing reality. The moment you put your glasses on, you will witness large augmented displays in the form of a massive curved monitor stretching above, below and to the sides. The windowed apps will appear before you as if floating in thin air and you will be able to pin and resize your favorite windows. Not to forget, the performance of the device is optimized for business professionals, as there is hardly any lag in switching between the windows and in rendering of the augmented screen. Powered by an ARM processor, Android Open Source Project (AOSP) operation system and a custom headset, this is the workstation straight from the future. The AR glasses are much lighter than what Meta had to offer for its virtual office project. And the text on the augmented screen will also stay legible throughout the course of your work.
With the 3.3 pound chassis 10.47 inches wide and 9.8 inch deep, it looks similar to the chassis of a conventional laptop. Charged with Snapdragon 8 Gen2 processor, it comes with 256GB storage and 8GB RAM, along with 10Gbps USB-C ports and a 2560×1920 webcam. The headset delivers a resolution of 1080p per eye at 72Hz and weighs only 106 grams. Remember, Microsoft Hololens was four times heavier than Spacetop’s headset.
Why is screenless laptop the future of work?
Simply because none of us want people to peer into our laptop screens while we work in office, restaurant, airport and hordes of other places remotely. It is common to find some random stranger displaying unnecessary interest in what’s going on in our screen, as if they have been appointed as sentries in that location of work. Having no screen simply eliminates this concern. Whether you fly in business class, or sit in a lounge sipping your favorite Starbucks Mocha, you can simply don your AR glasses and voila! Your virtual workspace will be right before your eyes for you to work in an immersive and interactive fashion.
Another unique point is the massive size of the virtual screen which is far larger than the limited space our conventional laptops provide. That implies you can turn your head around, look at different windows of your user interface and go around working with far more ease than you can do on a traditional laptop.
What next?
Well, Sightful’s device is selling at $2000, which is a bit on expensive side of things, yet quite reasonable for a gadget that has landed right from the future. The future of work is going to screenless and hence, more seamless for sure.
That’s the power of augmented reality translated into a meaningful product!
