I Wore the Apple Vision Pro for a Week. My Eyes Still Hurt.

Apple Vision Pro costs $3,500. I borrowed one for a week. By day three, I had a headache that lasted 18 hours.

Spatial computing is real. It’s also exhausting.

The tech is genuinely impressive. Pass-through video quality is surreal—better than Meta’s Quest 3, sharper than any VR headset I’ve tried. Hand tracking mostly works. Eye tracking is black magic. You look at a button and tap your fingers together. It clicks. No controllers needed.

For about 45 minutes, it’s the future. Then reality sets in.

The weight. Oh god, the weight. Apple says 600-650 grams depending on configuration. Doesn’t sound like much until it’s strapped to your face for two hours. My neck hurt. My temples ached. The foam padding left marks on my forehead that lasted all week.

Apple’s solution: buy the $200 premium head strap. I tried it. Still hurt, just differently.

But let’s talk about the good stuff first, because there’s real innovation here.

Watching movies in Vision Pro is legitimately better than a TV. The virtual screen is enormous. You can lie down. The video quality is pristine. I watched Dune Part 2 and honestly forgot I was wearing a headset until I tried to grab my drink.

The spatial photos and videos feature is creepy and amazing. I recorded my niece’s birthday party. Watching it back feels like being there again. The depth is so convincing my brain interpreted it as memory, not video. Apple’s betting big on this being the killer feature. They might be right.

Work productivity? The marketing showed people using Vision Pro for multi-monitor setups. Reality: text is readable but not great for extended periods. After an hour of coding, my eyes felt dry and strained. I lasted maybe 90 minutes before switching back to my MacBook.

A designer I know bought one for 3D modeling. He returned it after two weeks. “The precision is there, but I can’t wear it long enough to finish a project.”

The app ecosystem is sparse. Apple’s first-party apps are polished. Third-party? Mostly iPad apps running in compatibility mode. Disney+ works great. Most things are obviously not built for spatial computing.

Gaming could be huge, but developers aren’t investing yet. Not at $3,500 price point with maybe 200,000 units sold worldwide. It’s a chicken-egg problem. No users means no apps. No apps means no users.

I tried using Vision Pro on a flight. Terrible idea. TSA made me take it off twice. Flight attendants kept interrupting me. The guy next to me thought I was filming him and complained. By the time I settled in, we’d landed.

Battery life is two hours. Apple ships an external battery pack you plug into the headset. It’s awkward and weird. The cable gets tangled. You can’t really move around without carefully managing this tethered power brick.

Apple’s isolation approach is interesting. Unlike Meta’s Quest, which is about social VR and gaming, Vision Pro is about personal computing in space. You’re alone in there, even in a crowded room.

Maybe that’s the point. But it’s also the problem. Technology that isolates you from the people around you is a hard sell, no matter how advanced.

The embarrassment factor is real. I wore Vision Pro to a coffee shop to test working in public. People stared. One person took a photo of me. I felt ridiculous and left after 20 minutes.

Apple’s banking on this getting normal. Remember when AirPods looked silly? Now everyone wears them. Vision Pro’s trajectory might be similar. Or it might be Google Glass 2.0—impressive tech nobody actually wants on their face in public.

The developer story is crucial. If Apple can convince developers to build native spatial apps, this could be transformative. If it stays mostly iPad apps in space, it’s a very expensive novelty.

Right now, I’m skeptical. Not because the tech is bad—it’s the best spatial computing device available. But $3,500 for something I can only use 45 minutes at a time before discomfort sets in? That’s not a mass-market product.

It’s a developer kit disguised as a consumer product. Apple’s testing the waters, gathering feedback, figuring out what works. Version 2 will be better. Version 3 might actually be good.

For now? Impressive technology in search of a problem most people don’t have. I returned the Vision Pro after a week. My eyes thanked me.