As I was flying to cover Google I/O early in May, I vowed to do some work on the plane. I pulled out my MacBook while in my economy window-seat. As a 6’4″ guy, things were already cramped for my legs; I couldn’t put the 16-inch machine on the tray table, so it sat on my lap. I had no room to push the screen out properly, and when the person in front of me inevitably reclined, my laptop now was at a 45-degree angle and I was typing a word per minute while struggling to see the screen. I gave up and watched American Fiction instead.
Had I used Sightful’s Spacetop G1, none of this would have been a problem. This is an augmented reality laptop, and by that I mean it’s a pair of customized AR glasses from XREAL connected to what looks like the bottom section of a laptop with a keyboard and trackpad. There’s no physical display—just a 100-inch virtual screen you can see through the glasses, floating over the real world.
If this sounds familiar, that might be because the company came out of stealth mode almost exactly a year ago and launched the Spacetop as an early-access product. Those interested could apply for a unit and beta test the machine as the Israeli startup tweaked and improved the hardware and software.
Now, a year later, it can be preordered today for $1,900. The Spacetop G1 has a more polished design, new software features, and will ship in October. I got a chance to try out the revamped version at a demo in New York City.
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Face Computer
I encourage you to read Brenda Stolyar’s initial experience with the early access version of the Spacetop from last year. The concept is still very much the same, but there are several quality-of-life upgrades to the hardware and software of this AR laptop.
First off, it’s much slimmer than the original. Tamir Berliner, cofounder and CEO of Sightful, tells me that the first version couldn’t fit in every backpack, but the G1 shouldn’t have issues because the keyboard chassis is thinner. I’m still skeptical because of the … big bump on the machine, which is where the glasses are stored. It looks like an abscess ready to pop. Sorry.
Berliner encouraged me to try storing it in my bag, but I was carrying a messenger bag (it fit fine). However, as someone who covers big conventions with a tightly packed backpack, I’d be amazed if the G1 manages to fit into the laptop sleeve of my camera bag as easily as my “normal” laptop.
Battle of the bulge: the Spacetop G1 stores its AR glasses under the lid.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
The next most obvious change is how you store the glasses. In the original model, which I also got a chance to revisit before my demo with the G1, I instinctively went to fold the glasses and store them in the cradle in front of the keyboard. Berliner noticed this and said that’s how it should have been designed in the first place. Instead, the original forced you to keep the glasses unfolded and bring the cover over as it sits in the cradle. It was awkward.
That’s no longer the case on the G1. Now, you can fold the glasses, stow them in the dedicated cave baked into the lid, and bring the lid down. Much more intuitive. There’s no neat way to store the cable, but the company insists it’s intended to sit messily above the keyboard—there’s a curve in the lid to accommodate the cable, ensuring it’s not pressing any keys when the Spacetop is closed.
The glasses are a newer version from XREAL, but these are still customized for the Spacetop’s needs. Namely, the cameras that shoot out into the real world for augmented-reality sensing are specifically pointed slightly downward to detect the Spacetop. This helps with a handful of new software features (see below). More importantly, moving from the early access model to the G1, I immediately noticed the improved comfort, lighter weight, and overall better wearability of the newer model. You’ll be able to get a prescription insert so you can take your glasses off and don the G1 without worry.
Boot up SpaceOS and the 100-inch virtual screen, and everything immediately feels smoother. The dual OLED displays (1,920 X 1,080-pixel resolution per eye, with a 50-degree field of view) now support a 90-Hz screen refresh rate, which helps make the content appear more fluid as you move around the operating system. Things look pretty sharp, too, though bring text super close and it’ll look a bit fuzzy.
It also helps to have an upgraded processor. The Spacetop G1 is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon QCS8550, a sizeable jump from the Snapdragon 865 in the original (Sightful claims a 70 percent boost in performance). There’s even a neural processing unit to handle machine learning tasks; more on that later. It packs 16 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, and a 60-watt battery that supposedly lasts around eight hours, another bump over the five hours Sightful claimed on the early access model.
“AR spreadsheets, engage!”: I demoed the Spacetop G1 in New York City.
Photograph: Gina Gacad
The screen itself is brighter, but this is aided by the ability to dim the glasses via the push of a button. Like Transition lenses on sunglasses, you can dim the G1’s glasses to two different levels, and this was impressive. I stared out the window on a sunny day in New York City and had trouble seeing the augmented virtual screen. However, after dimming the glasses, the world around mostly faded to black and the screens were perfectly legible. Berliner even shone his phone’s flashlight at my eyes and I barely noticed the white dot. Safe to say, it feels like you can use the G1 in nearly any lighting condition.
Many of the other features are the same as the original. The keyboard and trackpad feel nice; there’s still a tiny display built into the keyboard to show additional information (though I didn’t get to see this in action). The machine has two USB-C ports and a built-in webcam at the top center of the lid. While the headphone jack didn’t make the cut, other internals now match the latest standards, such as support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, and 5G via the SIM slot. The speakers also got a boost, and they sounded OK in my limited time watching a YouTube video.
Smarter Space
SpaceOS is built on Chromium, Google’s open source web browser project. Anything you do on the web, you can do on the Spacetop G1 in SpaceOS. It’s more or less like a Chromebook minus the Android apps. And it’s important to remember that while there’s a more powerful processor in the G1, this is still not going to be a machine designed for intensive workflows like video editing. Again, think Chromebook.
When I was in SpaceOS, there were more than five browser windows open and laid out around me. You can set this up however you’d like, and SpaceOS will always remember it. The field of view on the G1 can feel a bit small, but several software improvements make interfacing with the OS feel intuitive.
First off, you will never “lose” your mouse’s pointer. Trained on some machine learning algorithms, the system now knows to move the cursor where you want it immediately. Even if you left it off on the far right of the virtual screen, if you look to the far left and move the mouse on the trackpad, it’ll immediately appear—no need to swipe your fingers and bring the cursor from the other side. I wish this was a feature on every computer.
The trackpad also now supports gestures. A three-finger swipe to the left will move your entire virtual screen horizontally. Unlike Apple’s Vision Pro, where you have to physically look to the left or right to see your apps placed on the sides of the virtual screen, the Spacetop G1 lets you just move everything to the center with this horizontal scroll function. Smart! Use the same gesture but move forward and back on the trackpad to push your virtual screen far out or super close, letting you get a bird’s-eye view of your screens or hone in on a specific task.
Finally, if you hit Control and use the three-finger gesture to swipe forward on the trackpad, you can move the virtual screen upward. This lets you lie down in bed and move the screen accordingly so you can continue working. It all feels quite seamless.
Sightful’s gesture control on the Spacetop G1 is first rate, so much so that Apple could learn a thing or two.
Photograph: Courtesy of Sightful
Then there’s Travel mode. Berliner was keen to highlight this feature and says it utilizes the cameras on the glasses and the company’s artificial intelligence models to remember where the Spacetop is to make sure your virtual screens stay in place.
You see, the virtual screens are fixed in your space. When you get up from a desk, you can walk up to your screens and view them from a side. They don’t follow you around. This is problematic when you hop into an Uber or take off on a plane; your virtual screens will just fly past you. That’s why Apple’s Vision Pro has a Travel Mode that uses the device’s accelerometer to understand when you are moving and ensure your screen stays in place.
The Spacetop G1 has a similar travel mode that will let you keep using the machine when you’re moving in some type of transportation. I couldn’t leave the building with the demo unit, so Berliner hilariously steered the office chair I was sitting on around the room, and I watched as my virtual screens indeed stayed right above my keyboard. There was a good deal of jitter, but Berliner says it was due to the, you know, fact that I was being rolled around in an office chair. I’ll try it out properly on a plane or car in the fall.
It wouldn’t be a new hardware launch in 2024 without mentioning AI. Berliner says there will be an AI button on the keyboard in the final version, and it’ll be able to offer context based on what’s on your virtual screens or what’s happening in the physical space around you. He didn’t say much more about it, but expect a few announcements around AI over the coming months.
The AR Laptop
When I think of augmented reality computing, I think of sleek glasses and … nothing else. With the Spacetop G1, you still have to carry a laptop-sized machine—one that weighs a little over 3 pounds (1.4 kg), with a wire coming out the center of the keyboard and running up behind your ear. It’s not quite the lightweight computing future I was thinking of.
That said, when I used the Apple Vision Pro, one of my favorite features was using it for work, especially while traveling. Being able to sit in a cramped airplane seat and recreate the effect of multiple screens around me made me super productive, and I wrote a 2,000-word story in the air. There’s no screen forced to bend to the will of the reclining chair in front of you.
I prefer having the custom keyboard and trackpad solution here over the afterthought that is Apple’s input system (a Magic Keyboard and a Magic Trackpad), though I do wish it was all wireless. The G1’s glasses are also much lighter than the Vision Pro, which was tiring after several hours of wear.
However, I’m not sure if most people are ready or even interested in wearing a computer on their faces. Apple’s Vision Pro had a lackluster launch and it’s barely a point of conversation anymore, mere months after its release. It doesn’t help that the Vision Pro was $3,499, but the Spacetop G1 isn’t cheap. It starts at $1,900—you can buy a more powerful laptop for that kind of money.
Sightful is venture capital-funded, having raised around $61 million to date, and it’s founded by ex-Magic Leap executives, which was far from a consumer commercial success—the company pivoted to servicing the enterprise sector, which is not something I’d rule out for Sightful.
While the Spacetop G1 very much seems like the kind of product you’d see me using at a tradeshow like CES, the reality here is that it might take a few more generations before it starts to appeal to most people.
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