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I think there is something that often gets overlooked with VR headsets becuase people don't even know how to describe it well and that's this: they are not shar

I think there is something that often gets overlooked with VR headsets becuase people don't even know how to describe it well and that's this: they are not sharp, edge-to-edge. The reality of current VR is that every headset has a pretty small cone of focus in the center. Everything outside of that cone is simply out of focus. You have to train yourself to "look with your head and not with your eyes" and it's just unnatural. A lot of the eye strain comes from looking at thing outside of the center cone of focus and trying to focus on them, only realizing that it's impossible. The larger the FOV, the larger the part of the image that is not focusable. I really expected Apple's headset to do better. I never thought they would ship a headset with an image that's so soft around the corners. I expected some kind of reverse OIS magic that would allow you to actually look around and see a sharp image, edge to edge. I do not want to re-learn how to look.

D13Fd 3y ago
> I really expected Apple's headset to do better. I never thought they would ship a headset with an image that's so soft around the corners. Just out of curiosity, are you speaking from direct experience with a headset or based on reviews/photos?
- themagician 3y ago
  Direct experience. The Vision Pro is the best headset I've ever used, but it's still bad. I suspect one reason they went with a relatively narrow FOV is to minimize the out of focus area. So the narrow FOV minimizes/masks the problem but it's really just as evident in the Vision Pro as it is in any other headset. Unless you train yourself to "look with your head" it's just not possible to use for an extended period of time. You can try it yourself. There is a cone of focus that extends about 30º off center axis. Within that cone things are sharp. Things then degrade pretty rapidly. I actually don't understand why this isn't mentioned in more reviews. It's the #1 thing I care about. I'd much rather have a low resolution image thiat's tack sharp across the frame than high resolution screens paird with optics that produce soft corners.
  - eastbound 3y ago
    Excuse me but isn’t it the physics of lenses which makes it impossible to have a lens that is more than say 60° wide ?
hackeraccount 3y ago
It does do eye tracking. Eye tracking is presumably the way or at least one way around what you're talking about here. That said I haven't tried the AVP so I have no idea just how good the eye tracking is.
- themagician 3y ago
  It does do eye tracking, but the lens itself doesn't move. All it does is increase the resolution of where you are looking, but if you are looking at an area that's out of focus it doesn't help much. In some ways I actually think it makes it more fatiguing, because your eye expects to be able to focus and it just can't.

D13Fd 3y ago

> I really expected Apple's headset to do better. I never thought they would ship a headset with an image that's so soft around the corners. Just out of curiosity, are you speaking from direct experience with a headset or based on reviews/photos?

themagician 3y ago
Direct experience. The Vision Pro is the best headset I've ever used, but it's still bad. I suspect one reason they went with a relatively narrow FOV is to minimize the out of focus area. So the narrow FOV minimizes/masks the problem but it's really just as evident in the Vision Pro as it is in any other headset. Unless you train yourself to "look with your head" it's just not possible to use for an extended period of time. You can try it yourself. There is a cone of focus that extends about 30º off center axis. Within that cone things are sharp. Things then degrade pretty rapidly. I actually don't understand why this isn't mentioned in more reviews. It's the #1 thing I care about. I'd much rather have a low resolution image thiat's tack sharp across the frame than high resolution screens paird with optics that produce soft corners.
- eastbound 3y ago
  Excuse me but isn’t it the physics of lenses which makes it impossible to have a lens that is more than say 60° wide ?

hackeraccount 3y ago

It does do eye tracking. Eye tracking is presumably the way or at least one way around what you're talking about here. That said I haven't tried the AVP so I have no idea just how good the eye tracking is.

themagician 3y ago
It does do eye tracking, but the lens itself doesn't move. All it does is increase the resolution of where you are looking, but if you are looking at an area that's out of focus it doesn't help much. In some ways I actually think it makes it more fatiguing, because your eye expects to be able to focus and it just can't.