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VR goggles are going to continue getting lighter, smaller, and more comfortable to wear. Soon enough they will be more comparable to glasses than goggles and p

VR goggles are going to continue getting lighter, smaller, and more comfortable to wear. Soon enough they will be more comparable to glasses than goggles and plenty of people wear glasses for 12-16 hours a day.

alpha_squared 4y ago
Maybe I'm in a bubble, but most people I know who wear glasses don't actually enjoy doing so and would really rather not if they can avoid it. VR would have to be demonstrably superior to any alternative to justify wearing it for that long even if it was as light as a feather.
- djur 4y ago
  I've worn glasses since I was a small child and that's not my experience at all. It's comparable to wearing clothes, except they cost me less and are quicker and easier to clean and maintain. I've occasionally had uncomfortable glasses with materials that my skin reacted to, but that's easy to resolve. And I've occasionally lost or damaged a pair of glasses, and that's a hassle, but not as much as losing your wallet or keys. On any given day I don't consciously think about my glasses at all.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Maybe I'm in a bubble, but most people I know who wear glasses don't actually enjoy doing so and would really rather not if they can avoid it. I think you're in a bubble. We have a way of avoiding glasses: contacts. But people choose glasses instead. I wear contacts, not glasses, but every time I ever talk to a glasses-wearer about why they wear glasses instead, they usually can't imagine wearing contacts and think glasses are just fine. I've never heard anyone complain about them. And just looking around me, most men wear glasses; it's usually women that wear contacts.
  - oldsecondhand 4y ago
    Glasses need less maintenance than contacts, and aren't as weird to put them on, so it's an easy sell.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Contacts don't need any more maintenance, probably less. You just clean them quickly after you take them out for the night, or in the morning just before you put them in. Glasses need to be cleaned regularly. Plus you throw the contacts away after a while (daily, biweekly, or monthly usually) and use new ones. Putting contacts in takes a few seconds if you're used to it. What's weird is walking around with heavy metal contraptions on your head and ears.
deltarholamda 4y ago
My Apple headphones weigh nothing. Very comfortable. I don't like having to take them out, or put them in, when I change tasks to where I don't need or want them in my ears. VR is for immersive experiences. There is a place for that. It will not be in mainstream constant use, unless "mainstream" means to plug in and be fed a false reality for somebody's profit.
djur 4y ago
I see this a lot, and I'm not sure why people are so confident about it. Lighter, thinner, more durable materials are a huge upsell and focus of ongoing product development in eyeglasses, and that's to save 10 or 20 grams. The lightest VR headsets are still an order of magnitude heavier than eyeglasses. Closing that gap while also addressing the resolution and battery life issues with existing headsets is going to require breakthroughs.
- whakim 4y ago
  I think it's inevitable in the long run, the question is just whether those breakthroughs come too late for Meta (my guess is they will). The salient point is that given enough time, hardware limitations won't be an obstacle to a metaverse-like something.
  - otabdeveloper4 4y ago
    I'll just leave a comment here about flying (and self-driving) cars. Some things aren't waiting for technological innovation.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      Flying cars aren't a thing not because we can't practically do it, but because it is an absolutely horrifying idea to turn the average driver into a pilot with an aircraft that they are in charge of maintaining. (Or was that your point?)

alpha_squared 4y ago

Maybe I'm in a bubble, but most people I know who wear glasses don't actually enjoy doing so and would really rather not if they can avoid it. VR would have to be demonstrably superior to any alternative to justify wearing it for that long even if it was as light as a feather.

djur 4y ago
I've worn glasses since I was a small child and that's not my experience at all. It's comparable to wearing clothes, except they cost me less and are quicker and easier to clean and maintain. I've occasionally had uncomfortable glasses with materials that my skin reacted to, but that's easy to resolve. And I've occasionally lost or damaged a pair of glasses, and that's a hassle, but not as much as losing your wallet or keys. On any given day I don't consciously think about my glasses at all.
midoridensha 4y ago
>Maybe I'm in a bubble, but most people I know who wear glasses don't actually enjoy doing so and would really rather not if they can avoid it. I think you're in a bubble. We have a way of avoiding glasses: contacts. But people choose glasses instead. I wear contacts, not glasses, but every time I ever talk to a glasses-wearer about why they wear glasses instead, they usually can't imagine wearing contacts and think glasses are just fine. I've never heard anyone complain about them. And just looking around me, most men wear glasses; it's usually women that wear contacts.
- oldsecondhand 4y ago
  Glasses need less maintenance than contacts, and aren't as weird to put them on, so it's an easy sell.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Contacts don't need any more maintenance, probably less. You just clean them quickly after you take them out for the night, or in the morning just before you put them in. Glasses need to be cleaned regularly. Plus you throw the contacts away after a while (daily, biweekly, or monthly usually) and use new ones. Putting contacts in takes a few seconds if you're used to it. What's weird is walking around with heavy metal contraptions on your head and ears.

deltarholamda 4y ago

My Apple headphones weigh nothing. Very comfortable. I don't like having to take them out, or put them in, when I change tasks to where I don't need or want them in my ears. VR is for immersive experiences. There is a place for that. It will not be in mainstream constant use, unless "mainstream" means to plug in and be fed a false reality for somebody's profit.

djur 4y ago

I see this a lot, and I'm not sure why people are so confident about it. Lighter, thinner, more durable materials are a huge upsell and focus of ongoing product development in eyeglasses, and that's to save 10 or 20 grams. The lightest VR headsets are still an order of magnitude heavier than eyeglasses. Closing that gap while also addressing the resolution and battery life issues with existing headsets is going to require breakthroughs.

whakim 4y ago
I think it's inevitable in the long run, the question is just whether those breakthroughs come too late for Meta (my guess is they will). The salient point is that given enough time, hardware limitations won't be an obstacle to a metaverse-like something.
- otabdeveloper4 4y ago
  I'll just leave a comment here about flying (and self-driving) cars. Some things aren't waiting for technological innovation.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    Flying cars aren't a thing not because we can't practically do it, but because it is an absolutely horrifying idea to turn the average driver into a pilot with an aircraft that they are in charge of maintaining. (Or was that your point?)