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Don't worry, you're not alone. During the pandemic, one of my clients got about 20 Quest 2s for employees to have at home in an effort to make people feel more

Don't worry, you're not alone. During the pandemic, one of my clients got about 20 Quest 2s for employees to have at home in an effort to make people feel more in touch and experiment with VR meetings & workspaces. After the novelty wore off, usage dropped to basically zero and I don't know anyone who uses theirs now for anything besides games. For me, Quest 2 is very obviously a "not there yet" product that seems to mostly appeal to kids and people who don't actually care about graphics or comfort. It's hot, battery life is bad, strapping over a pound on your face for hours at a time is not fun, and the graphics are visibly bad - even just sitting still the edges are horribly aliased and the screen door effect is massively apparent. Plus the nausea for many people, and the complete lack of spatial awareness. I will say that untethered is massively better than tethered, though, even with the graphics penalty. Quest 4 (I don't think v3 will be a big enough improvement) or whatever Apple eventually releases might actually be appealing, though.

encryptluks2 4y ago
The biggest challenge I've found is that most items in the Quest marketplace look gimmicky. As soon as you use AirLink and connect it to a PC, it is honestly pretty good. I admit it has a few meh moments, like the gap by the nose and doesn't seem wide enough to cover full peripheral vision, but for wireless VR it is great for the price.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
In the niche area of VR fitness, I think the Quest 2, or the Quest 1 for that matter, was already there. It is the killer app...but maybe the only one for those who use the Quest that way: this morning I did 45 minutes in FitXR and another 25 minutes in BeatSaber, I have a few other fitness apps I use sometimes but I've never even explored the gaming aspect of the system. I don't want to go back to the way it was before the Quest 1 came out, gyms aren't that convenient for me anymore and everything else I could think of to do at home wasn't cutting it. DDR was as really great fitness app back in the late 90s, early 00s, similar experience, but it required insanely expensive hardware if you wanted to do it at home at any decent quality (rather than just a novelty for a few parties). The Quest has none of that problem (though most of your work is in your arms rather than your legs). It is also too bad Microsoft didn't go the fitness route for Kinect, that worked fairly well also in getting sore at least.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
  You can buy a top quality DDR pad for €200, and could back then too. A Quest 2 costs £299. Since £299 > €200, the Quest 2 is also "insanely expensive", and so most definitely has all of that problem.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    Those still aren't that great. What I really want is a hard pad that detects via air pressure (like the arcade ones), resistive pads feel flimsy and stop working fairly quickly after heavy use. An air pressure hard pad...well...you have to buy a DDR arcade unit. Those are going for $10k+ last time I looked. Then you have to find a place to put it....
    - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
      The great thing about resistive pads is their mechanical simplicity. You can make any part in them yourself with supplies available at a hardware store, and conduct most repairs with basic hand tools. What sort of "heavy use" breaks these pads quickly? Are you playing with a sledgehammer? There's videos of people passing ITG14s on Cobalt Fluxes posted to YouTube this year. Cobalt Flux went out of business in 2011, so those pads are over a decade old, and you don't get good enough to pass 14s playing casually. And if your definition of 'flimsy' is 'requires some maintenance every decade', note that the product we're comparing it to, the Oculus, has a lithium ion battery in it that's e-waste after less than half that time, and good luck getting spares in a market that discontinues its products every couple of years.
  - esyir 4y ago
    I'd like to see these, because when I went looking, they were a hell lot more expensive than that. DDR is in this awkward space where it's either cheap and garbage, or expensive as all hell. The DDRGAME stuff, from what I've heard is somewhat pricy AND garbage.
    - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago

encryptluks2 4y ago

The biggest challenge I've found is that most items in the Quest marketplace look gimmicky. As soon as you use AirLink and connect it to a PC, it is honestly pretty good. I admit it has a few meh moments, like the gap by the nose and doesn't seem wide enough to cover full peripheral vision, but for wireless VR it is great for the price.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

In the niche area of VR fitness, I think the Quest 2, or the Quest 1 for that matter, was already there. It is the killer app...but maybe the only one for those who use the Quest that way: this morning I did 45 minutes in FitXR and another 25 minutes in BeatSaber, I have a few other fitness apps I use sometimes but I've never even explored the gaming aspect of the system. I don't want to go back to the way it was before the Quest 1 came out, gyms aren't that convenient for me anymore and everything else I could think of to do at home wasn't cutting it. DDR was as really great fitness app back in the late 90s, early 00s, similar experience, but it required insanely expensive hardware if you wanted to do it at home at any decent quality (rather than just a novelty for a few parties). The Quest has none of that problem (though most of your work is in your arms rather than your legs). It is also too bad Microsoft didn't go the fitness route for Kinect, that worked fairly well also in getting sore at least.

YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
You can buy a top quality DDR pad for €200, and could back then too. A Quest 2 costs £299. Since £299 > €200, the Quest 2 is also "insanely expensive", and so most definitely has all of that problem.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Those still aren't that great. What I really want is a hard pad that detects via air pressure (like the arcade ones), resistive pads feel flimsy and stop working fairly quickly after heavy use. An air pressure hard pad...well...you have to buy a DDR arcade unit. Those are going for $10k+ last time I looked. Then you have to find a place to put it....
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    The great thing about resistive pads is their mechanical simplicity. You can make any part in them yourself with supplies available at a hardware store, and conduct most repairs with basic hand tools. What sort of "heavy use" breaks these pads quickly? Are you playing with a sledgehammer? There's videos of people passing ITG14s on Cobalt Fluxes posted to YouTube this year. Cobalt Flux went out of business in 2011, so those pads are over a decade old, and you don't get good enough to pass 14s playing casually. And if your definition of 'flimsy' is 'requires some maintenance every decade', note that the product we're comparing it to, the Oculus, has a lithium ion battery in it that's e-waste after less than half that time, and good luck getting spares in a market that discontinues its products every couple of years.
- esyir 4y ago
  I'd like to see these, because when I went looking, they were a hell lot more expensive than that. DDR is in this awkward space where it's either cheap and garbage, or expensive as all hell. The DDRGAME stuff, from what I've heard is somewhat pricy AND garbage.
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago