Connecting a Vision Pro

Pair a headset with your Mac in three taps. Once connected, every save crosses the room in under a second — in both directions.

Before you pair

Pairing uses Bonjour, Apple's zero-configuration discovery, so there is nothing to type: no IP addresses, no pairing codes. You just need:

A Mac running Chapter Studio with a project open.
A Vision Pro running Chapter Vision.
Both devices on the same Wi-Fi network, with local network permission granted to each app.

Pair the headset

Check the Live menu on the Mac. With a project open, Chapter Studio's status bar shows a Live menu with a green dot when the built-in server is running. Click it to see the service name, Chapter Vision on <your Mac's name>, along with the port and the current subscriber count. Green dot means you're discoverable.
Open the session rail in Chapter Vision. On the headset, Chapter Vision's left-hand session rail lists every Mac on the network that's currently serving a project. Your Mac appears by its service name.
Select the Mac and connect. Tap it, and the session begins.

What happens when you connect

The first moments of a session do three things:

Document fetch. Chapter Vision downloads the current chapter document, the same chapter.json Chapter Studio has open.
Asset prefetch. The headset pulls the media the chapter references, using the chapter's checksummed asset manifest so it never re-downloads files it already has, and never keeps a stale copy of one that changed. Large videos stream on demand from the Mac.
Live subscription. Chapter Vision opens a persistent update channel to Chapter Studio. From here on, every ⌘S on the Mac pushes the new document to the headset in under a second, and playback re-applies in place. You keep standing exactly where you were in the scene while the content updates around you.

Edits flow both ways

A live session is not a one-way broadcast. Changes you make in Chapter Vision (nudging an entity, retiming a clip, setting a keyframe, importing a photo) are sent back to the Mac and applied to the Chapter Studio document immediately, then rebroadcast to any other connected headset. Each batch of remote edits lands as a single undo entry in Chapter Studio, so if a change from the headset isn't right, one ⌘Z at the Mac takes back the whole batch cleanly.

Tip. This makes a great two-person rhythm: one author at the Mac timing beats on the timeline, one in the headset placing and scaling set pieces at true scale. Both see the other's work land in real time.

Note. Media imported on the headset from Photos or Files is usable in the scene instantly and uploads to the Mac's project bundle in the background, so your flow never waits on the transfer.

If the Mac doesn't appear

Discovery problems are almost always network problems. Run down this list:

Same network, really? Check that both devices are on the same Wi-Fi name. A Mac on Ethernet and a headset on a guest network won't see each other on many routers.
Is the green dot on? Chapter Studio's Live menu must show a running server; it starts when a project is open.
Local network permission. On the Mac, check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network; on the headset, Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network. Both apps need it granted.
Network isolation. Corporate, campus, and hotel Wi-Fi often block device-to-device discovery entirely. A personal hotspot or a small travel router that both devices join is the reliable workaround.
Nudge it. Toggling Wi-Fi on the headset, or closing and reopening the project on the Mac, restarts discovery on both ends.

For deeper connection and sync diagnostics, see Troubleshooting. For a full explanation of what travels over the wire and when, see Live sync.

Working without a Mac

A connection is optional. Chapter Vision can open, edit, and save .chapterscript bundles entirely on the headset; see solo mode. You can start solo on a flight and reconnect to your Mac later; it's the same document format everywhere.