XR Office | Devpost

Inspiration

XR Office was inspired by the productivity paradox: knowledge workers face 270+ daily notifications, causing 40% productivity loss from context-switching and burnout, yet can't ignore them entirely. We wanted a third path between “always on” and “totally unplugged.” We envisioned a spatial app using XR passthrough to place subtle 3D metaphors on your desk—non-intrusive cues for flow states in creative work.

What it does

XR Office transforms digital clutter into ambient physical objects in your real workspace via Meta Quest 3 passthrough. Calendars appear as open books, messages as flickering candles (growing with urgency), and tasks as stacking tablets—all in peripheral vision for glanceable awareness without breaking focus.

Calendar → Bookshelf: Each book is a meeting, thickness defining how long the meeting is. Open space is free time. Slack/Teams → Candle clusters: More Slack DMs mean more candles. Glance up and see the clusters an smoke, is this something you can ignore or a real fire to put out? Tasks → Stacking tablets: Trello tasks appear as physical objects you can grab and sort through at your leisure.

How we built it

We prototyped in Unity with Meta Quest 3 SDK for fast iteration, importing 3D assets for metaphors (books, candles, papers) and integrating Freesound effects for subtle audio cues. Real-time notification pulls from calendar APIs and mock Slack/Teams feeds render as dynamic passthrough overlays, optimized for Quest's high-quality color passthrough.

Challenges we ran into

We initially wanted this to be Apple Vision Pro to take advantage of it's high resolution. But building from Unity to Apple Vision Pro took literal hours, so we would not be able to iterate fast enough for a hackathon. We had to pivot to focus on a more reliable easier to hack with hardware device - the Meta Quest 3.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Deployed a fully functional Quest 3 prototype in a weekend, with smooth 90Hz passthrough metaphors that demo real-time notification syncing. Nailed the "ambient" feel—users report entering flow states faster without notification anxiety. We used a mix of custom modeled assets just for us (books, tablets, shelving) and open source assets (bowl, gem, music, etc). We were able to figure out what is super important and needs to be custom and where we could cut corners to accomplish the hackathon deadline.

What we learned

Quest 3 excels for rapid XR prototyping thanks to standalone hardware, superior passthrough, and simpler Unity builds vs. Vision Pro's complex PolySpatial setup. Peripheral metaphors outperform push notifications for creative pros

What's next for XR Office

We'll expand to AR glasses like Raven that are ideal for mobile creatives needing hands-free, stylish passthrough without bulk. Apple Vision Pro follows for pro workspaces, leveraging 4K displays, eye/hand tracking, and spatial Office apps (e.g., 3D Excel/Teams) for unmatched fidelity in enterprise productivity.