MobileViews 624: RayNeo Air 4 Pro AR glasses; Leveraging AI Agents; Looking for to Apple 9/9 event

About this episode

Jon Westfall and I welcomed back Sven Johannsen for episode 624 to a number of personal hardware updates. Sven shared his hands-on review of a pair of affordable RayNeo Air 4 Pro AR glasses that provide a 120-inch head-mounted virtual display but require external power and computing. Since it lacks internal batteries, the glasses relies on a connected device like an iPhone or a $100 portable "pocket TV" accessory that runs Google TV. Meanwhile, I shared my latest workaround for my beloved MacBook Neo: a bioluminescent keyboard skin that glows in the dark without drawing power, which helps make the non-backlit keys visible in low-light environments. I also whined (uh, noted) 101 hours and 2 minutes of power outages across 16 incidents this year—falling far below the "five nines" reliability standard. To lobby state legislators about local infrastructure, I’ve been using Google NotebookLM to dynamically analyze my outage spreadsheets directly from linked Google Sheets. Jon detailed how he's leveraging AI agents like Codex as a diligent "junior system administrator" to inventory his home Raspberry Pi servers, document configurations, and even run virtual disaster recovery drills. Jon has also integrated ChatGPT with his Apple Health data to analyze his jogging routine and pinpoint the cause of some recent ankle pain, and he's even using LLMs to flesh out fictional characters for creative writing. We agreed that while some dismiss AI as "social media slop," it becomes incredibly powerful once you find a highly specific use case—like Jon's colleague who used AI to condense a week-long project into just two days. Jon also shared a clever Apple Shortcuts automation that automatically toggles his iPad's Wi-Fi off when he's home to stop background VPN battery drain. We finished up with some speculation on Apple’s upcoming September 9th event, which Jon noted is on a Wednesday this year rather than a Tuesday. We’re keeping an eye out for a rumored "iPhone Ultra" with a third party folding phone case already spotted on Amazon, and Sven is planning to buy the next Apple Watch Ultra. We expressed minor frustration with Google’s Gboard "Rambler" feature, which automatically filters out verbal pauses like "ums" and "ahs" but is restricted to the new Pixel 11, leaving my Pixel 10 Pro out in the cold. Despite the minor upgrade hurdles, we agreed there is still plenty of fun in testing the boundaries of these evolving personal ecosystems.