10 Hacks Every Apple Vision Pro User Should Know

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This Apple Vision Pro It is animal of a machine. By putting the M5 chip under the hood—a 3-nanometer processor with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 16-core neural engine—Apple leapfrogged the M3 and M4 completely, putting more raw power in your face than most people have on their desks. But like any high-performance machine, you have to tune it and run it properly to get the most out of what’s under the hood. Whether you’ve owned or unboxed it since launch, these ten hacks will help you get more out of your Apple Vision Pro. Some are simple adjustments, some are deep dives, but they’re all worth your time.

Access the “hidden” settings of Vision Pro

Apple is going for a certain aesthetic with the Vision Pro UI, so there aren’t as many things to customize in the “Settings” menu as you might like, but there are plenty of useful adjustments buried in the Accessibility menu. These settings are designed for users with dexterity, visual or hearing impairments, but anyone can adjust the zoom feature or click speed of the Digital Crown.

Here’s what I changed in my Vision Pro through the accessibility menu:

You may be interested in similar settings or others presented here, so take a peek at the accessibility menu to see what works for you. Pro tip: You can triple-click the Digital Crown to instantly turn accessibility features on and off.

The latest update to VisionOS added spatial widgets so you can pin information to the places where it makes the most sense—eg. Put a timer next to your stove for cooking or the weather and news by the front door. But if you have any Matter-compatible Smart home devices, you can take widgets to the next level with Apple Home. The app lets you pin controls for things like your air conditioner and lighting anywhere you want, so you can stick a “night mode” button above your bed and turn everything off with one click when the day is done. If you want to take it further, download Widgetsmith and customize the appearance of smart home controls. Once you pin a widget, it stays there until you move or delete it, even after you restart.

Use “Connect to Server” for unlimited storage

With visionOS, you can Connect to a local server on your networksuch as your PC or Mac, or cloud storage providers, and access files without saving them to your headset. It’s a great way to work with large files without filling up your Vision Pro’s storage—especially if you’ve opted for the base 256GB. To set it up, you need to allow sharing on the remote computer, then go to “Files” inside Vision Pro, enter the host name or network address of your server, then select “Connect”. Depending on the server, you can connect as a guest, or you can enter your username and password, and you’re good to go.

Use settings and mirroring to securely share the Vision Pro experience

One of the biggest downsides of AR and VR is the “take a look at this!” There is an inability to tell. And show your friend. The Apple Vision Pro’s guest user mode isn’t quite as much, but it’s at least an easy and quick way to get your hands around your headset. Here’s how it works:

• Go to control center.

• Pinch “Guest User.”

• Hand over your headset and Vision Pro will run a quick set-up and calibration, then open up on what you’re looking at while protecting your private data.

• When you turn the headset back on, your original calibration will return.

If you don’t want to share your headset entirely, you can still share your view. AirPlay mirroring lets other people see what you’re watching on their phones or other devices. You can beam your view to any nearby iPad, Mac, or AirPlay-compatible TV that shares a WiFi network with your Vision Pro. Here’s how it works:

• On your headset, go to Control Center and select the “Mirror My View” icon (it looks like two overlapping squares).

• You should see a list of any compatible devices on your network. Select the one you want to stream.

• If you don’t see a device, you may need to turn on the AirPlay receiver (found in System Settings > General > AirDrop & Handoff on and within macOS Apple Vision Pro application on iOS).

Use a “Gaussian Splat” to create a 3D virtual space that you can walk around

One of the unique features of the Vision Pro is the device’s ability to instantly upscale and transform existing 2D photos into spatial 3D images. You just open a photo gallery, select a picture and click the “spatial” and/or immersion icons and it instantly adds depth to your pictures. But that’s the first level of 3D you can achieve.

Third-party applications such as Spatial Media Toolkit And Spatial Video Studio Let you control parameters such as depth of field, cropping for the best 3D effect, and saving in a format that can be viewed outside of Vision Pro. It includes anaglyph, so you can view pictures with those old 3D glasses; side-by-side 3D, so you can watch it on VR headsets or 3D TVs; and “wiggle” videos that can be viewed by anyone by moving their device slightly, such as:

But if you want to go deeper, Apple Vision Pro is a fantastic tool for viewing and creating Gaussian splotches. This sophisticated tech creates 3D models by stretching, rotating and positioning millions of tiny, colored and transparent 3D “blobs” (Gaussians). While spatial photos add AI-assisted depth, “splats” let you capture 3D versions of real objects, save them, and move around them. You can also scan 3D space and Walk inside it.

Gaussian splats capture lighting really well, but add a weird, surreal “blobbiness” to physical objects (the tech isn’t quite in place). But the lighting and reflections are exciting in a way that is hard to describe. Gaussian splats of familiar places seem like walking down dim memories. If your parents have these, you can hang out in a digital replica of your childhood bedroom. If you scan your own children with this, you’ll have a weird, blobby digital baby that will never grow up. It’s not super hard to do either. You can use apps like Scaniverse Or Polychem On your phone to scan a room or object differently, you can then export it to your Vision Pro and experience it in 3D through the same app on your Vision Pro. Bonus: Polycam lets you explore captures from users around the world, including large-scale scans of things like cathedrals.

Use your Vision Pro as a gaming device

The Vision Pro’s focus has never been gaming– Shame, because it’s a powerful machine – but that seems to be changing. The latest update for visionOS 26.4 NVIDIA CloudXR 6.0 introducedA native streaming framework that allows the headset to function more as a monitor, while another computer handles the number crunching.

These are the first high-profile games playable through the new framework iRacing And X-Plane 12. I don’t have a PC, so I wasn’t able to test this, but here it is Instructions from NVIDIA On how to turn it on.

If you’re a Mac user, you’re not completely locked out of high-end gaming. visionOS is now supported NVIDIA GeForce Now So you can stream games directly from NVIDIA’s data centers. The bad news: It’s going to cost you a subscription fee for the best content. Here’s how it works:

• Pair a Bluetooth game controller with your Apple Vision Pro.

• Open Safari on your Vision Pro and go to play.geforcenow.com.

• You should be able to play any games you own on Steam that are also on NVIDIA’s platform.

• A free subscription gives you hours of playtime after waiting in a queue. If you spring for “Ultimate level subscription” For $19.99 a month, you’ll get to the front of the line, and you’ll unlock the Vision Pro’s 4K/90 FPS cloud mode, which gives you better performance than most consoles without a single wire.

it is Officer Gaming options. If you want to be a hacker and wander outside Apple’s cultivated garden, you can play OpenVR games streamed from your gaming computer to your Vision Pro. ALVR. But it is not for the faint of heart. Running ALVR requires specific network and software configurations and a measure of technical knowledge. If you want to give it a shot, Here are the official instructions To set up the application on your PC.

Keep Vision Pro aware with a post-it note

This hack doesn’t take any technical ability, and it’s adorably junky. The Apple Vision Pro is designed to go into sleep mode the moment you take it off, but if for some reason you prefer to keep the display on, you can defeat the auto-sleep sensor with a simple post-it note. Slide the headset over your eye when it’s off, then you can keep your headset on when you’re supposed to be sleeping, like:

This actually has some uses. VisionOS often pauses active tasks like file transfers while it sleeps, so if you’re transferring a large file, this can keep it going when you’re headset-less. Also: if you’re running something with a fragile connection like the ALVR mentioned above, this theoretically makes you more likely to keep your connection.

If your Vision Pro is unresponsive, use the physical buttons to force quit

If the Vision Pro application becomes unresponsive, you can force exit with the physical buttons. Unlike clicking “X” to close an application, force exit kills the running process completely. Here’s how it works:

• Press and hold both the Digital Crown and the Top button.

• Wait until the Open Apps menu appears.

• Click on the app you want to kill.

Create an ultrawide virtual display for your MacBook

You can turn your MacBook into a workstation with infinite screen real estate, and it’s very easy:

• Make sure both your computer and the Vision Pro are on the same network and both have Bluetooth and Keychain enabled.

• Then just look at your open MacBook while wearing the headset. A “Connect” button will float above the screen.

• Pinch it, and you’ll have a virtual screen that can be huge. You can expand to a 32:9 panoramic display that wraps around you. You get two 5K monitors side-by-side at a coffee shop or while sitting on a plane. So cool.

Discover Easter eggs hidden in the Vision Pro environment

Vision Pro’s environments are more than static backdrops. They are highly detailed, animated visions and soundscapes full of small details and, supposedly, mysterious rare encounters. There is a kind of myth about some of these events, because they are difficult to capture, so anyone can say they saw or heard anything—like the Roadrunner or Gunshot at White Sands or Bigfoot at Mount Hood. It’s doubtful, but there are some confirmed, or at least plausible, environmental Easter eggs that suggest you might find something:

• House of the Sun: If you shout loudly in this environment, you can hear an echo. This one is confirmed.

• Mount Hood (dynamic weather): If it is raining in your actual physical location, the Mount Hood atmosphere will often reflect those conditions. Users have reported seeing microscopic raindrops hitting the “glass” of their open app windows.

• The Hidden Environment of Keynote: If you open the “Keynote” app in your Vision Pro and open a presentation, one of your options will be “Rehearsal”. You will have two options, a boardroom and a theater. The theater is an exact replica of the Steve Jobs Theater. This is also confirmed.