Apple Vision Pro Straps from ResMed (Yes, the CPAP Company) and ANNAPRO
Photo for illustrative purposes only. You CANNOT use both the ANNAPRO and ResMed Kontor straps together.
ResMed makes excellent CPAP machines to help people with sleep apnea breathe properly through the night. CPAP machines have headgear (masks) and that comes with straps. I imagine a scenario where someone at ResMed was in a product design meeting and said, "you know what else needs straps? VR headsets. While this seems like a stretch, someone at ResMed approved the idea, and so we have a medical device company making consumer electronics accessories. ResMed is now making the Kontor Head Strap for Apple Vision Pro. This is a real product that is being sold at Apple Stores for $120, and ResMed sent me a review unit to test.
The Knotor is not the only third-party strap for Apple Vision Pro; various 3D print clips for doubling up the Dual Loop band are available, and Chinese accessory maker ANNAPRO beat ResMed to market and is up to its second iteration.
All this is necessary because Apple’s first party straps are a genuine pain point – both metaphorically and literally. Apple moved the battery off the headset and into your pocket (Belkin also sells a sling case I have not tested), but the ski mask design puts a tremendous amount of pressure on your face if you use the Solo Knit. Apple also includes the Dual Loop band, which is slightly more comfortable, but ends up putting a lot of pressure on your temples. The Apple Vision Pro provides the best technical spatial computing experience available, but I find it literally painful to use, and I found myself reaching for it more once I switched to the original ANNAPRO strap.
I purchased the ANNAPRO for Techsponential after seeing tech reviewers talking about it on social media (at the time it was $50; it is currently on sale for $36). The ANNAPRO takes the weight off of your temples and places it on your forehead instead, with the headset sort of floating over your face rather than resting on your temples. After seeing my own posts about its strap on social media, ANNAPRO reached out and offered to send me a prototype ANNAPRO A2 strap, which costs a bit more ($60; now generally available and on sale for $50) and has a slightly more advanced design with multiple foam options. Both ANNAPRO straps consist of a padded hard plastic arc that slides over the sides of the Apple Vision Pro’s connector/speaker area; it is used along with Apple’s Solo Knit band. ANNAPRO provides speaker cutouts in its strap but there is a reduction in the spatial audio effect with the original, and less so with the A2, which improved the cutout design.
One major drawback to the ANNAPRO straps is that the rigid plastic sticks up and prevents the use of standard Apple Vision Pro cases from Apple or third parties. ANNAPRO has recognized this problem and is selling a $50 B1 storage case that is large enough to accommodate the headset along with its strap. I haven’t tested this case yet.
ResMed’s Kontor Apple Vision Pro strap looks and feels much like high-end CPAP headgear. All the materials are soft yet strong, it's well constructed, and the hook-and-loop straps are simultaneously easy to adjust and secure once fastened. If you didn't have an Apple Vision Pro hanging off the front, it would be quite comfortable. The ResMed Kontor spreads the weight of the Apple Vision Pro out over your head more than Apple’s own Dual Loop Band or the ANNAPRO (which is forehead focused) but the improvement is minor compared to the Dual Loop Band unless you add ResMed’s included counterweights. ResMed includes six white contoured weights that attach around the strap with velcro. With three or, better yet, five weights attached, the front-heavy Apple Vision Pro becomes heavy all over. This is an improvement! In my case, there is still a fair amount of pressure on my temples. Of course, as you might expect, the trade off is that the combined headset and weighted strap is heavy enough to cause neck pain if you move your head around much.
Conclusion
I wrote this review in the Apple Vision Pro in Microsoft Word switching between straps, but had to take frequent breaks. Either strap is better than the stock Apple Vision Pro options. The $120 ResMed Kontor would be hard to justify on a less expensive headset, but its premium construction and easy counterweight customization make it a reasonable choice to get more out of a $4000 face computer. Its design also leaves spatial audio entirely unaffected and the Kontor fits in Apple’s marshmallow case or any cheap $25 Quest 3 case you find on Amazon. However, in my case, my cheekbones and temples are sensitive to weight – even if its less pressure than before — and adding even more overall weight makes it more comfortable until it isn’t. For my face shape, the less expensive ANNAPRO A2 is better as it puts most of the weight and pressure onto the forehead. That’s not perfect, either, but at least you can buy ANNAPRO’s strap and its case for less than the ResMed Kontor alone.
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