11 ms·

Form factor for AR is literally like nuclear fusion at the moment. I don’t know when they are going to get it looking like normal fucking glasses, but until the

Form factor for AR is literally like nuclear fusion at the moment. I don’t know when they are going to get it looking like normal fucking glasses, but until then, no one is going outside with this shit. They have to pivot this soon enough to a cheap at-home AR thingy. VR headsets are getting smaller at least: https://en.shiftall.net/products/meganex https://en.shiftall.net/products/meganex I would suspect Apple will never release something that isn’t as small as that.

zdragnar 4y ago
VR is, IMHO, a fundamentally flawed concept. To immerse yourself, you need to block out your peripheral vision and everything else. The average, casual user isn't going to do that on a regular basis. It's not something you can do with kids around if you need to keep an eye on them, unlike a book or a TV show or even a game on your phone or laptop. Fundamentally, immersion is a selling point to a very specific audience, and a major drawback to everyone else.
- jesuscript 4y ago
  The average user wont do it because there is still physical barriers. The headsets are too heavy still, and outside of the Quest2, they are usually tethered. It’s not a casual experience yet because even putting the headset on is not a casual matter. You have to fuck with the strap to get a nice aligned view, constantly adjust the visor, scratching your nose or adjusting your glasses requires fumbling around. It’s not as simple as picking up your phone, or … well, it’s not as simple as putting on glasses.
  - gernb 4y ago
    and yet people ride bikes, mountain climb, ski, surf, all things that requires equipment and setup time.
    - lmm 4y ago
      Other than casual utility cycling (which doesn't require expensive equipment or setup time), people don't do those things casually. Most people don't do them at all, or do them occasionally on a dedicated holiday for doing that. People who are really into them do them a lot, but even those people generally do them on dedicated trips.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    I'd think that's more related to a fact you need pricy gaming PC in addition to pricy headset, all to play select few games > You have to fuck with the strap to get a nice aligned view, constantly adjust the visor, scratching your nose or adjusting your glasses requires fumbling around. I doubt anyone didn't get VR for that reasons
- trzy 4y ago
  100% agree. VR immersion is fundamentally broken anyway due to the locomotion problem. You can walk freely in your play area but it's always too small compared to typical game world size. So you end up being able to look around, duck, and dodge, but if you want to take a step forward, you need to remember to twiddle a joystick instead. It's a lot of cognitive load and discomfort for very little benefit. Flat games feel quite immersive already. And others can easily be nearby and watch.
  - actinium226 4y ago
    Some games compromise on this by having the character sitting in the pilot's seat of a ship or a mech, making the interaction with the joystick make sense. I haven't tried them, but it seems like a good way to go, particularly for a game with fighter jets or something like that.
    - a4isms 4y ago
      I’m aware of several flight simulators that support VR headsets. For those who don’t get queasy using VR in a simulated aircraft, it is an excellent benefit: In real life, many tasks like flying the landing pattern or joining a busy area of lift require constantly scanning both the instrument panel and outside the plane, at various angles. If you use a standard monitor, you’re teaching your hands to push buttons that switch the direction of view. If you use VR, you teach yourself to look around with your head. If you are flying for the purpose of training yourself to fly in real life, or practising skills you’ll use in a real aircraft, the latter is -referanke, all other things being equal.
      - carbocation 4y ago
        > the latter is -referanke, all other things being equal. Based on the letters, I think "-referanke" is a typo for "preferable." Out of curiosity, do you type the 'b' key with your right hand?
        gpderetta 4y ago
- accrual 4y ago
  > To immerse yourself, you need to block out your peripheral vision and everything else. But what if that's what I want? I want VR so I can experience totally different worlds fully as if I was there. I can do that safely from my living room. I want AR so I can live the cyberpunk dream of seeing data and other extra info overlaid on top of my normal vision while out in public. I don't think either concept is flawed, they just have different purposes for different times and places.
  - abirch 4y ago
    I want VR so that I can have 8 different monitors and even more desktops. I want this at work so I can have different remote sessions up and just look right to see the current metrics, left for slack and email, vs code central...
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      I hope you know how to touch-type.
      - jupp0r 4y ago
        That's super easy to learn.
      - lm28469 4y ago
        Or write on a piece of paper without looking at it, or drink coffee without knowing where the cup is, &c.
      - acous 4y ago
        It's already possible to bring a supported keyboard into VR on the Quest.
    - arcanemachiner 4y ago
      I expressed this same desire to a friend, who warned me of the VR goggle marks left on your head when you take them off after a long session. I want the VR monitors, but I'm wary of having a permanent mark on my head from wearing them for 8 hours a day for days on end...
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > The average, casual user isn’t going to do that on a regular basis. So? Plenty of successful products aren’t for the average, casual user. HOTAS controllers aren’t for instance. So what? Not everything is universal adoption or nothing. Also, predictions about the “average, casual user” will want tend to be…unreliable. Trends driven by the kind of non-average, non-casual users that tend to be early adopters can shift this in surprising ways.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    people are expecting and wanting at least AirPod level success here. I can't think of a mainstream product that's direct to consumer that's "niche", perhaps inherently so
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > I can’t think of a mainstream product that’s direct to consumer that’s “niche” Well, yeah, that’s kind of trivially true; “mainstream” and “niche” are antonyms.
      - endisneigh 4y ago
        in a sense, yes, but something popular enough could border on mainstream despite the product category being niche, like apple watches.
  - mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
    I agree with the parent comment, VR is going to be a strictly niche thing. People, as in the vast majority of people, do not like wearing something covering their eyes for long periods of time. I think this is why Meta's big bet on Enterprise VR is going to be a flop. This doesn't mean VR won't be successful for gaming or highly technical niche things just that getting over the chasm of early adopters/niche to mainstream isn't likely to happen. There are going to be a ton of anecdotes here on HN about how people like it but people here on HN are in the early adopter/gaming niches.
- dmix 4y ago
  Yet VR is extremely fun and provides a set of experiences unmatched by traditional gaming. Especially for the Wii/casual crowd. Much like TikTok-hate on HN, it's probably another example of adult nerds who fail to grasp the value in early-adopter zoomer heavy tech (even though adult nerds have plenty to love if they actually spent time investing into trying it, just like TikTok). > It's not something you can do with kids around Whenever I played multiplayer Quest 2 games 99% of the voices were kids/young teenagers. Apparently it doesn't need parents to care, the kids in up their bedrooms is good enough. If anything the problem is that good VR isn't cheaper than it already is, to hit the market for parents to buy it for their kids. The current selection of games on Oculus store is basically glorified Android games. But PC/Steam VR games I've tried like Half Life Alyx were mind-blowing. Maybe when $2000+ PC VR setups finally mainstreams adult nerds will care. I highly doubt that's reliant on AR.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    Being a kid and having to take care of a kid are fundamentally so opposite of things that I can't believe you are confusing the two of them.
    - dmix 4y ago
      What's your point? That parents won't want to buy VR for their kids because they want to protect them a different video game interface that will ignore their surroundings slightly more than what they were doing before? If that's what you're saying it only shows you're someone who hasn't actually used VR much. Anyone who has used VR knows it isn't even a permanent replacement for hardcore day-to-day gaming. That's why I used the Wii/Casual analogy. It's amazing for small spurts of lightweight gaming. Which just happens to be very attractive to kids/young teens (and yes non-gamer adults) who aren't hardcore gamers (Nintendo/mobile shows this is a massive market).
      - Eisenstein 4y ago
        Do you understand the point the parent was making? The children's market is not what VR developers are going for. For one: COPPA kinda makes monetizing VR spaces not possible; two: some parents might let their kids have one, but right on the device it says not to let kids under 12 use it, so I doubt most will. Mainstream consumer adoption is not squeaky voiced pre-teens.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  > unlike a book or a TV show or even a game on your phone or laptop. You can’t even pick up a beer while playing a game. That’s a deal breaker.
  - tiborsaas 4y ago
    Google "beer belt" :)
  - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
    You absolutely can and people often do in VRchat.
- deltree7 4y ago
  I've been literally playing Cricket VR for 4 hours everyday since X-Mas. For someone who played college-level cricket, this is a dream come true for me and the sensation of hitting the ball in the middle of the bat is mind blowing. But, here's the kicker. In real world, If I had play 120 pitches (baseball equivalent), I'd have to wait for 4 hours. In VR it could be done in 30 minutes. I've already lost 7 pounds and feel energetic. I can't imagine how playing sports, music, concerts in the next 5 years is going to be in VR accelerating the skill-mastery process. People who diss VR is the same kind who diss AI. Mixed Reality / AI will enhance productivity of everyone leaving the luddites far behind
  - rusticpenn 4y ago
    There's a cricket VR? can you tell me more (on a dm perhaps)
    - deltree7 4y ago
      IB Cricket
    - icemelt8 4y ago
      IB Cricket is the only useful app on the Occulus and yes its very good.
  - graeme 4y ago
    They argued VR total immersion is a niche case. I’m not sure you’re rebutting them? Most people can’t exercise for four hours a day while ignoring their environment, effectively outside of their home. Whereas if you had glasses that let you do AR thing, you could do that while keeping an eye on your kids or on what you’re cooking or while doing some chores or while brushing your teeth etc What you described sounds very cool! But could you do it with young kids or a household to run?
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      I think this argument against VR stems from a misunderstanding of what VR is competing with or excelling at. VR is not your mobile phone. Repeat it with me, VR is not your mobile phone! You will not play bejewelled on the train in VR, you will not check your email while waiting for the kettle in VR, you will not doom scroll Twitter when you're lying in bed in VR. Those things, as you correctly identified, belong to the realm of AR. VR is not AR, they are two completely different types of technology, markets, use cases, etc. The V in VR is there for a reason, the virtualization of experience is the core principle. The person you are replying to is using it to virtualize Cricket. It is replacing a real Cricket game with a virtual one. This has value because, I'm guessing, they haven't been able to play Cricket for a long time due to some set of constraints in their life. VR makes this former pastime available to them again because they don't have to leave their home, they don't need to buy or rent equipment (other than the headset and game), they don't need to find a local group, they don't need to schedule their time around a set date. All they have to do is put the headset on and jump in a match. Think hard about these differences. Ask yourself, what does it remind you of? Where has this happened before?
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  If it’s your one hour of exercise a day, you can make it work. But yes, keep young kids away, especially if you’ve learned to punch or slash really hard in your VR shadow boxing or fencing experience. Immersion isn’t really the problem in that case, the experience just needs to be distracting since your primary goal is to sweat. VR fitness is the killer app.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  But there is Augmented Reality. You could be watching something while the augmented reality tracks your kids on a virtual overlay. It's not too different from having Google driving instructions. You don't immerse yourself in them. But when driving it would be nice not to move your eyes to the small phone screen but instead see it though your VR lenses while at the same time seeing the road ahead through it. Keep your eyes on the road, but also get alerts and instructions without having to let your eyes off the road.
  - TylerE 4y ago
    Real killer app will be pack of cards or smaller projector that will turn any shiny surface into an ad hoc HUD. Gets most of the value of AR without having to wear anything. Like… imagine being able to have a recipe projected right on to the counter top or stove door.
    - xrguy 4y ago
      indeed, i guess thats what humane is working on.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    I think it's important that Augmented Reality is implemented by mostly the same tech as Virtual Reality. I think AR is more useful at least to begin with, it helps us in real reality, not in some virtual reality which requires lots of people to be in the SAME virtual reality as you are to be useful. Whereas everything and everybody around you already is in your augmented reality.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  Viewing VR through the lens of entertainment is a fundamentally flawed approach IMO and the whole industry got this wrong. In the era of remote working how insane would it be if you could just carry a set of glasses and have infinite monitor space anywhere you go ? And once people are using it 8 hours a day for work - the stigma around using it for fun goes away.
- ChrisRR 4y ago
  > To immerse yourself, you need to block out your peripheral vision and everything else. You really don't. People who haven't played VR don't seem to understand how easy it is to lose yourself. Your brain quickly adjusts to the lack of peripheral vision, bad graphics, low contrast, etc. and you quickly find yourself leaning on things that aren't really there or hitting walls because you forgot that you've wandered off.
  - ubercore 4y ago
    > Your brain quickly adjusts to the lack of peripheral vision, bad graphics, low contrast, etc I'm always reminded of this when I revisit a game I remember playing as kid. The graphics and sound _never_ live up to my memory of them. Brains are great at filling in those details.
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  > To immerse yourself, you need to block out your peripheral vision and everything else. Sounds perfect for a flight.
  - detrites 4y ago
    Apart from the flailing limbs and suddenly-rotating head with apparatus. Eliminating those, are we back to just watching a movie? That said, I'd much rather watch a movie on a plane in a VR headset than off of a seat back.
    - tiborsaas 4y ago
      I mean, there are other applications for VR that might make sense for spatially limited situation like a flight is. On some planes I couldn't even open my laptop properly. With VR you might have lots of screens.
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      Watching a movie in VR on a flight beats the hell out of the crappy headrest TV. A 2 hour flight turns into a 2 hour experience in a full size movie theatre. The seats are fairly similar so it would probably add to the immersion. With good noise cancelling headphones you might even forget you're on a plane.
  - TheHappyOddish 4y ago
    I've experimented taking a rooted Quest 2 on flights before and have enjoyed it. 6DOF is a bit of a problem, but watching movies and non movement based games are great.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  VR has a lot of problems, but that’s not one of them. The only thing you’ve proven is that you have yet to use modern VR within the last three years. The main problem is that the current VR device form factor is so intimidating for most people that they won’t even bother putting it on to try it. Instead, they’ll just make a lot of bad assumptions about a product that they haven’t actually tried yet for a good amount of time
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    The intimidation aspect is interesting here. I'm old enough to remember people being intimidated by the big scary computer on the desk. People being weirded out by VR and prophesying that it's just a fad very much so reminds me of the same responses to computers.
    - chaostheory 4y ago
      I do feel that are we are now in that same era for VR where there is a huge barrier to mass adoption. I believe only Apple can move the industry ahead at this point
- major505 4y ago
  I don't have much use for VR. But augmented reality seens to be more the way of the future.
bredren 4y ago
Accounts of the work suggest ski goggle like size for the first release. But, form factor and weight are just some of the things that influence customer experience. Apple’s other efforts, such as retinal authentication and automatic, motor-driven pupil distance adjustment remove other points of friction that interfere with enjoyment. Apple identifies many rough edges in HW and SW that hold back a category. Then it makes difficult compromises, sanding down a combination of them enough to meet release consideration.
gnopgnip 4y ago
Nreal is pretty close to regular glasses for AR
- SkyPuncher 4y ago
  I've been very, very happy with mine. Really excited for _eventual_ 4k.
  - danielEM 4y ago
    I have not, used them for maybe 5hours in total, after one hour it is freakin inconvenient to have them on a nose. Lack of ipd adjustment makes it one eye to have part of the screen always blurred and last one is dumb lack of spec that would allow for full Linux support.
mc32 4y ago
Even worse is their vision of people playing complete idiots in public places --yeah, I'm just gonna do virtual fencing in the middle of a crowded street and make myself vulnerable to assailants. The park, yes, that works but a busy street, are they just out of touch with reality?
- smallnix 4y ago
  > make myself vulnerable to assailants Also be a nuisance to everyone
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    Like people walking into you while looking on their phone, which, somewhere like central London, happens 1000x per day? That used to be frowned upon and before that (90s) it was straight-up weird. At least with AR you can see where you are going. It's just weird how little peripheral vision people have and yet stare down at their phone while walking. Or like people filming me (which is luckily not allowed where I am) without consent? Talking about nuisance.
- dmix 4y ago
  This is how consumer products fast track into pivoting into enterprise product lines. Disregard for culture and obvious social media reactions.
  - kimburgess 4y ago
    “Enterprise” product: why spend the resources making something people _want_ to use when you can instead focus on just getting one person (who doesn’t use it) to buy it, then force it on an entire organisation of users.
    - dmix 4y ago
      That's an oversimplification. Plenty of enterprise tech products are a drastic improvement over what the orgs were doing before (usually no tech). The problem is the products themselves are usually garbage due to the bureaucratic/"management" driven sales process that adopts the tech, where product development is driven by saying "yes" to every customer's demands. The good consumer products figure out what people want for a demographic by listening to them (or being them) - but not actually letting them design the software itself by doing everything they ask. Yet there's still plenty of low-quality enterprise software which is miles better than previous 'processes'.
deleted 4y ago
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michaelgold 4y ago
I was involved in the original project on the business side. So I can help answer the question of why it looks this way? Optics :) Technical details are in the patent for the cardboard version from 2017: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180011327A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180011327A1/en
gfodor 4y ago
The trick I think Apple will pull that few are expecting is that their device will be worth wearing powered off
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  Other than fashion, what possibly positive function could such a device afford? I find it much more likely that they will use external facing screens that recreate the appearance of the wearers face to onlookers and so reduce the perceived anti-social nature of opaque goggles.
  - avian 4y ago
    > they will use external facing screens that recreate the appearance of the wearers face Honestly that sounds horrifying and straight out of some Black Mirror episode. Possibly it comes with an app that makes your external face smile and covers up the bags under your eyes?
    - germinalphrase 4y ago
      I imagine it to be more like ‘the headset is transparent’ except the effect is digital rather than material. To your question - we’re only talking about eyes, not the mouth and whole face. Beautification does seem like something to be sold though.
  - gfodor 4y ago
    The point is that if it is reasonable or maybe even worthwhile to wear when off, then it can support all-day wear (not all day use) given power constraints, which makes it a lifestyle product not a gadget, like a watch. Put it on when you leave in the morning, take it off and put it on the charger at night. I think it will flip up. They will do what you said but they can only do that for a few hours a day before the battery dies, and worse, if the battery dies, you can’t see anything anymore. So they need a mechanism that lets you keep wearing it when it’s dead. If you have to take it off when the battery is dead, it will end up in the closet next to your other headsets. I’m guessing they will have a design that is fashionable and comfortable to wear when flipped up and off.
RF_Savage 4y ago
To get large FoV for the AR overlay one needs large optics and large-ish displays. There is only so much magic one can squeeze out from optical trickery. Especially at a price point like this.
tluyben2 4y ago
> no one is going outside with this shit. Plenty of people would though if it would work well. It doesn't though. And sticking your phone in front of something really isn't going to work imho. But I would definitely wear them outside as interim solution, not the entire day, but normally I walk to places (4-10 km/day) and a lot of that is boring and spent thinking of on my phone or both. I would wear them there. The TCL RayNeo X2 looks pretty ok, however, i'm not sure what it really does. It says it will send out to devs soon, so it means there are apps and the reviews during CES don't look bad, but there is no pricing, specs etc. At least not that I could find.
- mattbee 4y ago
  Yeah I agree people will wear headsets outside if it's compelling enough. How many people were being just as dorky with Pokemon Go when that first came out? There was a plague of arms-length-phone-holders in every park for a year.
colordrops 4y ago
Looks like these still require a cable though? That's a bigger hindrance than size.
digitaltrees 4y ago
No one wanted to wear glasses when they first came out, or use umbrellas or ride bikes. Everything is embarrassing at first until it becomes normalized.
esskay 4y ago
Apple are apparently working on this area, they've got 2 products coming out. The VR headset (with passthorugh) likely this year, and an AR set of glasses (with options for prescription lenses) which will do the whole projecting into your field of vision thing. There's no leaks or concepts of what they're actually doing with the AR ones as far as I know though so not a clue what they look like. If anyone can get those right it will be Apple with their ability to do high performance tiny compute.
- henry_viii 4y ago
  More info on the VR headset: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-01-08/when-will-apple-launch-the-reality-pro-mixed-reality-headset-apple-2023-devices-lcnfzkc7 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-01-08/when-w... It's expected to be released before WWDC. According to the article, an AR/VR headset has been an R&D project at Apple since at least 2015.
amelius 4y ago
From what it looks like from the outside, that MeganeX has a small field of view.
napier 4y ago
It's ridiculous! Even more so because the underlying patented materials tech has been timing out on the shelf gathering dust for over a decade. All companies working in the XR/AR/VR/ghost-in-the-snowcrash-shell-gargoyle space need to do in order to develop something widely accessible/affordable, mass-producible and mass-market adoptable while operating within the constraints of currently viable, high yield, low loss rate fabrication feasible tech is.... shoot for wearable display glasses that are in the product line's slimmest tier simply sunshade size, and at the beefiest, a ski-gogglesque form factor. They do this by stopping trying to jam everything and the GPU-plated kitchen sink into the headset. Restrict design scope of the HUD-glasses to a binocular retina-or-better-resolution MEMS-based display, and maybe a few small, lightweight multispectral sensors and an accelerometer for environment mapping and multi-axis positioning. Everything else can be connected via a clipped on snagsafe/magsafe cable from a waist, upper arm or torso wearable primary device unit encompassing main battery, SoC, storage, etc; and this could feasibly be the user's next-gen upgrade smartphone.
Haga 4y ago
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zdragnar 4y ago

VR is, IMHO, a fundamentally flawed concept. To immerse yourself, you need to block out your peripheral vision and everything else. The average, casual user isn't going to do that on a regular basis. It's not something you can do with kids around if you need to keep an eye on them, unlike a book or a TV show or even a game on your phone or laptop. Fundamentally, immersion is a selling point to a very specific audience, and a major drawback to everyone else.

jesuscript 4y ago
The average user wont do it because there is still physical barriers. The headsets are too heavy still, and outside of the Quest2, they are usually tethered. It’s not a casual experience yet because even putting the headset on is not a casual matter. You have to fuck with the strap to get a nice aligned view, constantly adjust the visor, scratching your nose or adjusting your glasses requires fumbling around. It’s not as simple as picking up your phone, or … well, it’s not as simple as putting on glasses.
- gernb 4y ago
  and yet people ride bikes, mountain climb, ski, surf, all things that requires equipment and setup time.
  - lmm 4y ago
    Other than casual utility cycling (which doesn't require expensive equipment or setup time), people don't do those things casually. Most people don't do them at all, or do them occasionally on a dedicated holiday for doing that. People who are really into them do them a lot, but even those people generally do them on dedicated trips.
- ilyt 4y ago
  I'd think that's more related to a fact you need pricy gaming PC in addition to pricy headset, all to play select few games > You have to fuck with the strap to get a nice aligned view, constantly adjust the visor, scratching your nose or adjusting your glasses requires fumbling around. I doubt anyone didn't get VR for that reasons
trzy 4y ago
100% agree. VR immersion is fundamentally broken anyway due to the locomotion problem. You can walk freely in your play area but it's always too small compared to typical game world size. So you end up being able to look around, duck, and dodge, but if you want to take a step forward, you need to remember to twiddle a joystick instead. It's a lot of cognitive load and discomfort for very little benefit. Flat games feel quite immersive already. And others can easily be nearby and watch.
- actinium226 4y ago
  Some games compromise on this by having the character sitting in the pilot's seat of a ship or a mech, making the interaction with the joystick make sense. I haven't tried them, but it seems like a good way to go, particularly for a game with fighter jets or something like that.
  - a4isms 4y ago
    I’m aware of several flight simulators that support VR headsets. For those who don’t get queasy using VR in a simulated aircraft, it is an excellent benefit: In real life, many tasks like flying the landing pattern or joining a busy area of lift require constantly scanning both the instrument panel and outside the plane, at various angles. If you use a standard monitor, you’re teaching your hands to push buttons that switch the direction of view. If you use VR, you teach yourself to look around with your head. If you are flying for the purpose of training yourself to fly in real life, or practising skills you’ll use in a real aircraft, the latter is -referanke, all other things being equal.
    - carbocation 4y ago
      > the latter is -referanke, all other things being equal. Based on the letters, I think "-referanke" is a typo for "preferable." Out of curiosity, do you type the 'b' key with your right hand?
      - gpderetta 4y ago
accrual 4y ago
> To immerse yourself, you need to block out your peripheral vision and everything else. But what if that's what I want? I want VR so I can experience totally different worlds fully as if I was there. I can do that safely from my living room. I want AR so I can live the cyberpunk dream of seeing data and other extra info overlaid on top of my normal vision while out in public. I don't think either concept is flawed, they just have different purposes for different times and places.
- abirch 4y ago
  I want VR so that I can have 8 different monitors and even more desktops. I want this at work so I can have different remote sessions up and just look right to see the current metrics, left for slack and email, vs code central...
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    I hope you know how to touch-type.
    - jupp0r 4y ago
      That's super easy to learn.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      Or write on a piece of paper without looking at it, or drink coffee without knowing where the cup is, &c.
    - acous 4y ago
      It's already possible to bring a supported keyboard into VR on the Quest.
  - arcanemachiner 4y ago
    I expressed this same desire to a friend, who warned me of the VR goggle marks left on your head when you take them off after a long session. I want the VR monitors, but I'm wary of having a permanent mark on my head from wearing them for 8 hours a day for days on end...
dragonwriter 4y ago
> The average, casual user isn’t going to do that on a regular basis. So? Plenty of successful products aren’t for the average, casual user. HOTAS controllers aren’t for instance. So what? Not everything is universal adoption or nothing. Also, predictions about the “average, casual user” will want tend to be…unreliable. Trends driven by the kind of non-average, non-casual users that tend to be early adopters can shift this in surprising ways.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  people are expecting and wanting at least AirPod level success here. I can't think of a mainstream product that's direct to consumer that's "niche", perhaps inherently so
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > I can’t think of a mainstream product that’s direct to consumer that’s “niche” Well, yeah, that’s kind of trivially true; “mainstream” and “niche” are antonyms.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      in a sense, yes, but something popular enough could border on mainstream despite the product category being niche, like apple watches.
- mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
  I agree with the parent comment, VR is going to be a strictly niche thing. People, as in the vast majority of people, do not like wearing something covering their eyes for long periods of time. I think this is why Meta's big bet on Enterprise VR is going to be a flop. This doesn't mean VR won't be successful for gaming or highly technical niche things just that getting over the chasm of early adopters/niche to mainstream isn't likely to happen. There are going to be a ton of anecdotes here on HN about how people like it but people here on HN are in the early adopter/gaming niches.
dmix 4y ago
Yet VR is extremely fun and provides a set of experiences unmatched by traditional gaming. Especially for the Wii/casual crowd. Much like TikTok-hate on HN, it's probably another example of adult nerds who fail to grasp the value in early-adopter zoomer heavy tech (even though adult nerds have plenty to love if they actually spent time investing into trying it, just like TikTok). > It's not something you can do with kids around Whenever I played multiplayer Quest 2 games 99% of the voices were kids/young teenagers. Apparently it doesn't need parents to care, the kids in up their bedrooms is good enough. If anything the problem is that good VR isn't cheaper than it already is, to hit the market for parents to buy it for their kids. The current selection of games on Oculus store is basically glorified Android games. But PC/Steam VR games I've tried like Half Life Alyx were mind-blowing. Maybe when $2000+ PC VR setups finally mainstreams adult nerds will care. I highly doubt that's reliant on AR.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  Being a kid and having to take care of a kid are fundamentally so opposite of things that I can't believe you are confusing the two of them.
  - dmix 4y ago
    What's your point? That parents won't want to buy VR for their kids because they want to protect them a different video game interface that will ignore their surroundings slightly more than what they were doing before? If that's what you're saying it only shows you're someone who hasn't actually used VR much. Anyone who has used VR knows it isn't even a permanent replacement for hardcore day-to-day gaming. That's why I used the Wii/Casual analogy. It's amazing for small spurts of lightweight gaming. Which just happens to be very attractive to kids/young teens (and yes non-gamer adults) who aren't hardcore gamers (Nintendo/mobile shows this is a massive market).
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      Do you understand the point the parent was making? The children's market is not what VR developers are going for. For one: COPPA kinda makes monetizing VR spaces not possible; two: some parents might let their kids have one, but right on the device it says not to let kids under 12 use it, so I doubt most will. Mainstream consumer adoption is not squeaky voiced pre-teens.
mr_toad 4y ago
> unlike a book or a TV show or even a game on your phone or laptop. You can’t even pick up a beer while playing a game. That’s a deal breaker.
- tiborsaas 4y ago
  Google "beer belt" :)
- TheHappyOddish 4y ago
  You absolutely can and people often do in VRchat.
deltree7 4y ago
I've been literally playing Cricket VR for 4 hours everyday since X-Mas. For someone who played college-level cricket, this is a dream come true for me and the sensation of hitting the ball in the middle of the bat is mind blowing. But, here's the kicker. In real world, If I had play 120 pitches (baseball equivalent), I'd have to wait for 4 hours. In VR it could be done in 30 minutes. I've already lost 7 pounds and feel energetic. I can't imagine how playing sports, music, concerts in the next 5 years is going to be in VR accelerating the skill-mastery process. People who diss VR is the same kind who diss AI. Mixed Reality / AI will enhance productivity of everyone leaving the luddites far behind
- rusticpenn 4y ago
  There's a cricket VR? can you tell me more (on a dm perhaps)
  - deltree7 4y ago
    IB Cricket
  - icemelt8 4y ago
    IB Cricket is the only useful app on the Occulus and yes its very good.
- graeme 4y ago
  They argued VR total immersion is a niche case. I’m not sure you’re rebutting them? Most people can’t exercise for four hours a day while ignoring their environment, effectively outside of their home. Whereas if you had glasses that let you do AR thing, you could do that while keeping an eye on your kids or on what you’re cooking or while doing some chores or while brushing your teeth etc What you described sounds very cool! But could you do it with young kids or a household to run?
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    I think this argument against VR stems from a misunderstanding of what VR is competing with or excelling at. VR is not your mobile phone. Repeat it with me, VR is not your mobile phone! You will not play bejewelled on the train in VR, you will not check your email while waiting for the kettle in VR, you will not doom scroll Twitter when you're lying in bed in VR. Those things, as you correctly identified, belong to the realm of AR. VR is not AR, they are two completely different types of technology, markets, use cases, etc. The V in VR is there for a reason, the virtualization of experience is the core principle. The person you are replying to is using it to virtualize Cricket. It is replacing a real Cricket game with a virtual one. This has value because, I'm guessing, they haven't been able to play Cricket for a long time due to some set of constraints in their life. VR makes this former pastime available to them again because they don't have to leave their home, they don't need to buy or rent equipment (other than the headset and game), they don't need to find a local group, they don't need to schedule their time around a set date. All they have to do is put the headset on and jump in a match. Think hard about these differences. Ask yourself, what does it remind you of? Where has this happened before?
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
If it’s your one hour of exercise a day, you can make it work. But yes, keep young kids away, especially if you’ve learned to punch or slash really hard in your VR shadow boxing or fencing experience. Immersion isn’t really the problem in that case, the experience just needs to be distracting since your primary goal is to sweat. VR fitness is the killer app.
galaxyLogic 4y ago
But there is Augmented Reality. You could be watching something while the augmented reality tracks your kids on a virtual overlay. It's not too different from having Google driving instructions. You don't immerse yourself in them. But when driving it would be nice not to move your eyes to the small phone screen but instead see it though your VR lenses while at the same time seeing the road ahead through it. Keep your eyes on the road, but also get alerts and instructions without having to let your eyes off the road.
- TylerE 4y ago
  Real killer app will be pack of cards or smaller projector that will turn any shiny surface into an ad hoc HUD. Gets most of the value of AR without having to wear anything. Like… imagine being able to have a recipe projected right on to the counter top or stove door.
  - xrguy 4y ago
    indeed, i guess thats what humane is working on.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  I think it's important that Augmented Reality is implemented by mostly the same tech as Virtual Reality. I think AR is more useful at least to begin with, it helps us in real reality, not in some virtual reality which requires lots of people to be in the SAME virtual reality as you are to be useful. Whereas everything and everybody around you already is in your augmented reality.
moonchrome 4y ago
Viewing VR through the lens of entertainment is a fundamentally flawed approach IMO and the whole industry got this wrong. In the era of remote working how insane would it be if you could just carry a set of glasses and have infinite monitor space anywhere you go ? And once people are using it 8 hours a day for work - the stigma around using it for fun goes away.
ChrisRR 4y ago
> To immerse yourself, you need to block out your peripheral vision and everything else. You really don't. People who haven't played VR don't seem to understand how easy it is to lose yourself. Your brain quickly adjusts to the lack of peripheral vision, bad graphics, low contrast, etc. and you quickly find yourself leaning on things that aren't really there or hitting walls because you forgot that you've wandered off.
- ubercore 4y ago
  > Your brain quickly adjusts to the lack of peripheral vision, bad graphics, low contrast, etc I'm always reminded of this when I revisit a game I remember playing as kid. The graphics and sound _never_ live up to my memory of them. Brains are great at filling in those details.
tiborsaas 4y ago
> To immerse yourself, you need to block out your peripheral vision and everything else. Sounds perfect for a flight.
- detrites 4y ago
  Apart from the flailing limbs and suddenly-rotating head with apparatus. Eliminating those, are we back to just watching a movie? That said, I'd much rather watch a movie on a plane in a VR headset than off of a seat back.
  - tiborsaas 4y ago
    I mean, there are other applications for VR that might make sense for spatially limited situation like a flight is. On some planes I couldn't even open my laptop properly. With VR you might have lots of screens.
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    Watching a movie in VR on a flight beats the hell out of the crappy headrest TV. A 2 hour flight turns into a 2 hour experience in a full size movie theatre. The seats are fairly similar so it would probably add to the immersion. With good noise cancelling headphones you might even forget you're on a plane.
- TheHappyOddish 4y ago
  I've experimented taking a rooted Quest 2 on flights before and have enjoyed it. 6DOF is a bit of a problem, but watching movies and non movement based games are great.
chaostheory 4y ago
VR has a lot of problems, but that’s not one of them. The only thing you’ve proven is that you have yet to use modern VR within the last three years. The main problem is that the current VR device form factor is so intimidating for most people that they won’t even bother putting it on to try it. Instead, they’ll just make a lot of bad assumptions about a product that they haven’t actually tried yet for a good amount of time
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  The intimidation aspect is interesting here. I'm old enough to remember people being intimidated by the big scary computer on the desk. People being weirded out by VR and prophesying that it's just a fad very much so reminds me of the same responses to computers.
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    I do feel that are we are now in that same era for VR where there is a huge barrier to mass adoption. I believe only Apple can move the industry ahead at this point
major505 4y ago
I don't have much use for VR. But augmented reality seens to be more the way of the future.

bredren 4y ago

Accounts of the work suggest ski goggle like size for the first release. But, form factor and weight are just some of the things that influence customer experience. Apple’s other efforts, such as retinal authentication and automatic, motor-driven pupil distance adjustment remove other points of friction that interfere with enjoyment. Apple identifies many rough edges in HW and SW that hold back a category. Then it makes difficult compromises, sanding down a combination of them enough to meet release consideration.

gnopgnip 4y ago

Nreal is pretty close to regular glasses for AR

SkyPuncher 4y ago
I've been very, very happy with mine. Really excited for _eventual_ 4k.
- danielEM 4y ago
  I have not, used them for maybe 5hours in total, after one hour it is freakin inconvenient to have them on a nose. Lack of ipd adjustment makes it one eye to have part of the screen always blurred and last one is dumb lack of spec that would allow for full Linux support.

mc32 4y ago

Even worse is their vision of people playing complete idiots in public places --yeah, I'm just gonna do virtual fencing in the middle of a crowded street and make myself vulnerable to assailants. The park, yes, that works but a busy street, are they just out of touch with reality?

smallnix 4y ago
> make myself vulnerable to assailants Also be a nuisance to everyone
- tluyben2 4y ago
  Like people walking into you while looking on their phone, which, somewhere like central London, happens 1000x per day? That used to be frowned upon and before that (90s) it was straight-up weird. At least with AR you can see where you are going. It's just weird how little peripheral vision people have and yet stare down at their phone while walking. Or like people filming me (which is luckily not allowed where I am) without consent? Talking about nuisance.
dmix 4y ago
This is how consumer products fast track into pivoting into enterprise product lines. Disregard for culture and obvious social media reactions.
- kimburgess 4y ago
  “Enterprise” product: why spend the resources making something people _want_ to use when you can instead focus on just getting one person (who doesn’t use it) to buy it, then force it on an entire organisation of users.
  - dmix 4y ago
    That's an oversimplification. Plenty of enterprise tech products are a drastic improvement over what the orgs were doing before (usually no tech). The problem is the products themselves are usually garbage due to the bureaucratic/"management" driven sales process that adopts the tech, where product development is driven by saying "yes" to every customer's demands. The good consumer products figure out what people want for a demographic by listening to them (or being them) - but not actually letting them design the software itself by doing everything they ask. Yet there's still plenty of low-quality enterprise software which is miles better than previous 'processes'.

deleted 4y ago

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michaelgold 4y ago

I was involved in the original project on the business side. So I can help answer the question of why it looks this way? Optics :) Technical details are in the patent for the cardboard version from 2017: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180011327A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180011327A1/en

gfodor 4y ago

The trick I think Apple will pull that few are expecting is that their device will be worth wearing powered off

germinalphrase 4y ago
Other than fashion, what possibly positive function could such a device afford? I find it much more likely that they will use external facing screens that recreate the appearance of the wearers face to onlookers and so reduce the perceived anti-social nature of opaque goggles.
- avian 4y ago
  > they will use external facing screens that recreate the appearance of the wearers face Honestly that sounds horrifying and straight out of some Black Mirror episode. Possibly it comes with an app that makes your external face smile and covers up the bags under your eyes?
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    I imagine it to be more like ‘the headset is transparent’ except the effect is digital rather than material. To your question - we’re only talking about eyes, not the mouth and whole face. Beautification does seem like something to be sold though.
- gfodor 4y ago
  The point is that if it is reasonable or maybe even worthwhile to wear when off, then it can support all-day wear (not all day use) given power constraints, which makes it a lifestyle product not a gadget, like a watch. Put it on when you leave in the morning, take it off and put it on the charger at night. I think it will flip up. They will do what you said but they can only do that for a few hours a day before the battery dies, and worse, if the battery dies, you can’t see anything anymore. So they need a mechanism that lets you keep wearing it when it’s dead. If you have to take it off when the battery is dead, it will end up in the closet next to your other headsets. I’m guessing they will have a design that is fashionable and comfortable to wear when flipped up and off.

RF_Savage 4y ago

To get large FoV for the AR overlay one needs large optics and large-ish displays. There is only so much magic one can squeeze out from optical trickery. Especially at a price point like this.

tluyben2 4y ago

> no one is going outside with this shit. Plenty of people would though if it would work well. It doesn't though. And sticking your phone in front of something really isn't going to work imho. But I would definitely wear them outside as interim solution, not the entire day, but normally I walk to places (4-10 km/day) and a lot of that is boring and spent thinking of on my phone or both. I would wear them there. The TCL RayNeo X2 looks pretty ok, however, i'm not sure what it really does. It says it will send out to devs soon, so it means there are apps and the reviews during CES don't look bad, but there is no pricing, specs etc. At least not that I could find.

mattbee 4y ago
Yeah I agree people will wear headsets outside if it's compelling enough. How many people were being just as dorky with Pokemon Go when that first came out? There was a plague of arms-length-phone-holders in every park for a year.

colordrops 4y ago

Looks like these still require a cable though? That's a bigger hindrance than size.

digitaltrees 4y ago

No one wanted to wear glasses when they first came out, or use umbrellas or ride bikes. Everything is embarrassing at first until it becomes normalized.

esskay 4y ago

Apple are apparently working on this area, they've got 2 products coming out. The VR headset (with passthorugh) likely this year, and an AR set of glasses (with options for prescription lenses) which will do the whole projecting into your field of vision thing. There's no leaks or concepts of what they're actually doing with the AR ones as far as I know though so not a clue what they look like. If anyone can get those right it will be Apple with their ability to do high performance tiny compute.

henry_viii 4y ago
More info on the VR headset: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-01-08/when-will-apple-launch-the-reality-pro-mixed-reality-headset-apple-2023-devices-lcnfzkc7 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-01-08/when-w... It's expected to be released before WWDC. According to the article, an AR/VR headset has been an R&D project at Apple since at least 2015.

amelius 4y ago

From what it looks like from the outside, that MeganeX has a small field of view.

napier 4y ago

It's ridiculous! Even more so because the underlying patented materials tech has been timing out on the shelf gathering dust for over a decade. All companies working in the XR/AR/VR/ghost-in-the-snowcrash-shell-gargoyle space need to do in order to develop something widely accessible/affordable, mass-producible and mass-market adoptable while operating within the constraints of currently viable, high yield, low loss rate fabrication feasible tech is.... shoot for wearable display glasses that are in the product line's slimmest tier simply sunshade size, and at the beefiest, a ski-gogglesque form factor. They do this by stopping trying to jam everything and the GPU-plated kitchen sink into the headset. Restrict design scope of the HUD-glasses to a binocular retina-or-better-resolution MEMS-based display, and maybe a few small, lightweight multispectral sensors and an accelerometer for environment mapping and multi-axis positioning. Everything else can be connected via a clipped on snagsafe/magsafe cable from a waist, upper arm or torso wearable primary device unit encompassing main battery, SoC, storage, etc; and this could feasibly be the user's next-gen upgrade smartphone.

Haga 4y ago

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