I'm fascinated by the significant promise and potential of Apple Vision Pro, but I'm waiting to see real-world feedback. They would have to be very positive for multiple product generations (at the very least, a more affordable non-Pro edition) before I would consider pulling out my own credit card. The last time I paid money for an AR experience, it was on the opposite end of the spectrum that was barely more than an old school Pepper's Ghost illusion.

This was the Star Wars: Jedi Challenges product, with a Lenovo Mirage AR headset as the main hardware component. With all hype and no substance, there was no follow-up to this now-retired product. The promised third-party software development kit never materialized. The lone app has been removed from app stores. Its main URL now redirects to Lenovo's general website, though its product support page still exists for the moment.

My first experience with an AR headset were automaker promotions with Microsoft's Hololens and I was impressed. Sometime after that, Star Wars: Jedi Challenges promotion hype machine started spinning. I was intrigued but skeptical. It cost a tiny fraction of a Microsoft Hololens so I knew there were compromises involved. It is built around a cell phone like all lackluster 3DOF VR headsets, but this headset adds a pair of onboard cameras with onboard processing hardware that sends data to the phone via a USB cable. Based on that description, it was possible there is enough hardware for a rudimentary AR experience.

The reality was disappointing. While we did have 6DoF tracking, it was restricted to the lightsaber peripheral, just barely good enough to draw a virtual lightsaber blade on the AR headset at a rate of (unscientific guess) 30fps. There was a clearly perceptible lag between our lightsaber movement and the glowing line onscreen. In addition to the lightsaber, the cameras could also track an external beacon. A squishy rubber ball with a colorful LED inside. Since it is a sphere, there was no meaningful orientation tracking as with the lightsaber, just position relative to the headset.

There was no further understanding of our environment and no tracking of the AR headset itself. Not even 3DoF tracking like in Google Cardboard. Kylo Ren is directly in front of us regardless of which way we are looking. If we are looking down, Kylo Ren is in the floor. If we look up, Kylo Ren is in the ceiling. As far as I can tell, the only reality this headset augmented was the lightsaber, drawing a lightsaber blade over a fixed and scripted experience projected Pepper's Ghost-style in front of my face. As far as an immersive experience goes, this rated even lower than what we can get from Google ARCore.

The good news was that I didn't waste too much money on this disappointment, as I had waited until these things were heavily discounted just so stores could clear them out of inventory. If I had paid full MSRP I would have definitely demanded a refund! The bad news is that, since I got them on clearance, there was no refund and no return. They sat gathering dust until recently as I decided to write up my VR/AR/XR experiences here. There's no reason to keeping taking up space with this garbage, meaning now is a good time to take it apart before disposing of it.