Object distance and combining AR + VR

Hello! Long time no seen...

Got interested in AR with Unity so decided to try it out even though it was ages I used Unity. Got a project with AR Foundation to work. Great! But there are some slight preferences I would like to bring up.

1. I place an object but even though it might be placed further away, it seems to be super close. Let me explain: I can walk to it and everything looks to be working fine. But I put my hand in front of the camera, and no matter how, there does not seem to be a "real" distance. You are welcome to slap your forehead now, but I have actually seen apps which "kinda" measures distance. Maybe I got it all wrong.

2. I was thinking about buying one of these cheap VR headsets. Simply what I want to do is to see my model in AR, but I want to have it side-by-side, so I dont have to hold my phone, if that is possible? Tried Cardboard VR alongside AR Foundation but I guess it messed up the AR tracking. Not sure if that is possible either.

I have done my best to search on Google without any result so far, so anybody knows if I can do it?

Thanks.