4 ms·

can we really call it standalone if you need it to phone home to Meta? and doesn't it require an account one of their services too? they did a fantastic job wi

can we really call it standalone if you need it to phone home to Meta? and doesn't it require an account one of their services too? they did a fantastic job with hardware. I just wish they didn't couple the software so tightly.

bonton89 3y ago
I know they raised the price recently but it seemed pretty obvious to me they were selling these at a loss to try and get people locked in by the software.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
docmars 3y ago
It makes me wonder how the world would be if monitor manufacturers did the same thing, it would be unacceptable. I view VR headsets and their peripherals as no different than a mouse, keyboard, and display. Companies requiring all this nonsense to use your device, put in that light, is ludacris.
- hyuuu 3y ago
  comparing it with a monitor is rather unfair, you have to bundle the computing along with it, not to mention the applications to make it an actually fair comparison. At that point, is it still ludacris?
  - docmars 3y ago
    To clarify my thoughts on this, I responded here to a similar reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39611122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39611122
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  A silly comparison. A standalone VR headset is more comparable to a smartphone or game console than a monitor or keyboard. The latter have little to no compute.
  - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
    So compute requires vendor lock in? That seems silly to me. Edit: Can we just acknowledge that a lot of the bells and whistles are for the companies benefit at the expense of the user? Thats their right, but it's also our right to want something better.
    - TulliusCicero 3y ago
      > So compute requires vendor lock in? That seems silly to me. Correct, it's very similar to game consoles, though it is somewhat more open than those (sideloading is possible, including standard Android apps IIRC, and you can run PC VR games from other stores while tethered). > Can we just acknowledge that a lot of the bells and whistles are for the companies benefit at the expense of the user? It's the same model as XBox or Playstation, seems like. They sell the hardware at cost or at a loss, and make it up via software. A fully open headset with comparable specs would probably cost much more for the hardware. From a business standpoint that would be very stupid for a company like Meta, but this is hacker news, and many commenters here see nothing wrong or silly about asking businesses to commit suicide.
      - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
        > Correct, it's very similar to game consoles This doesn't explain why its _required_. It just means there is precedent. Your other point is better, although I think you mean it would cost the consumer more for the hardware, right? The hardware would cost the same to produce, it's just that the company would miss out on surveillance based revenue. It's a reasonable point, fb would make less money if they made an open headset, possibly to the point that they wouldn't make it all. But the world where fb doesn't make any headset, and the world where they make an unacceptable headset are basically equivalent to me - the former might even have an edge in that shitty relationships with corporations aren't being encouraged (like they are throughout everything tech related currently). Granted, them blazing the trail has a tiny chance of enabling a reasonable alternative to come along in the future. But I am a bit of a Luddite, and I know that people want their toys, and they want them now.
- agar 3y ago
  > I view VR headsets and their peripherals as no different than a mouse, keyboard, and display That could be valid when VR headsets were tethered to a PC via a DisplayPort or HDMI connection and essentially mirrored the display. The Quest is closer to an iPhone or Android phone or an all-digital handheld gaming device. With integrated compute, display, battery, text input, pointing devices, mic, and speakers, it bears little functional resemblance to peripherals like a mouse, keyboard, or display with no utility unless slaved to another device. Considering I can use my Quest with no wifi or other network to log in (once initial set up is complete), it seems that the Meta back-end APIs must have broke in some way that confused the headsets into thinking they were available when they weren't.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    It sounds like a server-side bug that forced a log out somehow. Which does really suck, Meta deserves criticism for that, but acting like this means the headset "isn't standalone" is silly, since that's not what "standalone" means in the context of VR headsets.
    - agar 3y ago
      Agree, many posts I read seem like classic "I don't like Meta/VR/big companies/social media so let me use this specific incident to confirm my biases." As you say, there's valid criticism to be made but it's hard to find the signal through the noise.
    - docmars 3y ago
      I think the desire for "standalone" VR headsets to mean offline-capable is totally reasonable. It has its own storage, apps and games get installed on it directly, and none of its core features need to rely on an online connection.
  - docmars 3y ago
    Given that it uses its own OS, essentially, is a fair point. I guess what I meant around my monitor analogy earlier is that it has the capability to serve that purpose, possibly without the sophisticated OS that wraps the store experience, the apps/games, and other features -- specifically with being able to use it on SteamVR or your PC in general. This makes it a device that's generally capable of using any supported source for its screens, and can pass its peripheral input to other devices, like a PC, not unlike a mouse and keyboard. VR headsets could treat their "OS" as a minimal experience akin to an OSD on a monitor that lets you switch sources and use the peripherals more generally like a mouse/keyboard with the right drivers on the target machine. I'm more interested in calling out that Meta missed an opportunity here, and that it's confusing that they offer some semblance of these features (wireless linking for SteamVR...) while coupling that so closely to their OS and online-only experience.
TulliusCicero 3y ago
> can we really call it standalone if you need it to phone home to Meta? Yes.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  This doesn't work anywhere without internet service. Standalone it is not.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    Not true. You can turn off the wifi and the headset works fine. The current problems sound like a server-side bug while it phones home. But usually it can work fine without internet. Standalone just means the VR compute is happening on the headset itself, not on a console or gaming PC the headset is tethered to. Of course, most of the people disputing "standalone" already know that, they're just playing definitional games.
oven9342 3y ago
I wonder how many people are secretly boycotting the product because of the prison Reputation of the maker
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  Oh there are definitely people who avoid it because it's made by Meta. Maybe a bunch. On the other hand, it seems to be the most popular VR headset line by a wide margin. It would be cool if Valve came out with a standalone headset, they're one of the few companies I can see that would be in a good position to do that: they already have a good amount of VR experience with one high-end headset + SteamVR APIs + a couple VR games, they have their own highly popular store/platform, they generally have a positive reputation with gamers, and they have a decent amount of hardware experience in general including the recent Steam Deck for mobile gaming hardware specifically. And of course, a Valve headset would probably be significantly more open than the Quest. The Steam Deck has gotten some good reputation among more FOSS/hacker-oriented people for being fairly open: you can use it in a regular Linux desktop mode, you can install Windows (or presumably other OSes) on it, it's fairly repairable, etc. The default behavior is very console-like, but it's not very locked down if you don't want it to be. Best of both worlds, really.
ben_w 3y ago
> can we really call it standalone if you need it to phone home to Meta? Yes, because etymologically it's "standalone" vs. "wired"; this is akin to how phones are "mobile" vs. (when I was a kid) "landline".
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  Nitpick: strictly speaking it's standalone vs tethered (which is usually wired, but could be wireless).
beardbound 3y ago
For what it's worth it does require a meta account, but not a Facebook one. I refused to buy one while it required a Facebook account since I deleted a couple of years ago. Once they made the change I figured that was an OK compromise. I just found out today during the outage that my headset won't work if I get signed out of my Meta account. That was an unpleasant realization, although I suppose it's partially my fault for trusting Meta not to hamstring the hardware their selling. It's the equivalent of finding out that if Microsoft's auth servers go down no one with a Windows PC can use it since they can't authenticate. I'm fairly displeased.

bonton89 3y ago

I know they raised the price recently but it seemed pretty obvious to me they were selling these at a loss to try and get people locked in by the software.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

docmars 3y ago

It makes me wonder how the world would be if monitor manufacturers did the same thing, it would be unacceptable. I view VR headsets and their peripherals as no different than a mouse, keyboard, and display. Companies requiring all this nonsense to use your device, put in that light, is ludacris.

hyuuu 3y ago
comparing it with a monitor is rather unfair, you have to bundle the computing along with it, not to mention the applications to make it an actually fair comparison. At that point, is it still ludacris?
- docmars 3y ago
  To clarify my thoughts on this, I responded here to a similar reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39611122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39611122
TulliusCicero 3y ago
A silly comparison. A standalone VR headset is more comparable to a smartphone or game console than a monitor or keyboard. The latter have little to no compute.
- ifyoubuildit 3y ago
  So compute requires vendor lock in? That seems silly to me. Edit: Can we just acknowledge that a lot of the bells and whistles are for the companies benefit at the expense of the user? Thats their right, but it's also our right to want something better.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    > So compute requires vendor lock in? That seems silly to me. Correct, it's very similar to game consoles, though it is somewhat more open than those (sideloading is possible, including standard Android apps IIRC, and you can run PC VR games from other stores while tethered). > Can we just acknowledge that a lot of the bells and whistles are for the companies benefit at the expense of the user? It's the same model as XBox or Playstation, seems like. They sell the hardware at cost or at a loss, and make it up via software. A fully open headset with comparable specs would probably cost much more for the hardware. From a business standpoint that would be very stupid for a company like Meta, but this is hacker news, and many commenters here see nothing wrong or silly about asking businesses to commit suicide.
    - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
      > Correct, it's very similar to game consoles This doesn't explain why its _required_. It just means there is precedent. Your other point is better, although I think you mean it would cost the consumer more for the hardware, right? The hardware would cost the same to produce, it's just that the company would miss out on surveillance based revenue. It's a reasonable point, fb would make less money if they made an open headset, possibly to the point that they wouldn't make it all. But the world where fb doesn't make any headset, and the world where they make an unacceptable headset are basically equivalent to me - the former might even have an edge in that shitty relationships with corporations aren't being encouraged (like they are throughout everything tech related currently). Granted, them blazing the trail has a tiny chance of enabling a reasonable alternative to come along in the future. But I am a bit of a Luddite, and I know that people want their toys, and they want them now.
agar 3y ago
> I view VR headsets and their peripherals as no different than a mouse, keyboard, and display That could be valid when VR headsets were tethered to a PC via a DisplayPort or HDMI connection and essentially mirrored the display. The Quest is closer to an iPhone or Android phone or an all-digital handheld gaming device. With integrated compute, display, battery, text input, pointing devices, mic, and speakers, it bears little functional resemblance to peripherals like a mouse, keyboard, or display with no utility unless slaved to another device. Considering I can use my Quest with no wifi or other network to log in (once initial set up is complete), it seems that the Meta back-end APIs must have broke in some way that confused the headsets into thinking they were available when they weren't.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  It sounds like a server-side bug that forced a log out somehow. Which does really suck, Meta deserves criticism for that, but acting like this means the headset "isn't standalone" is silly, since that's not what "standalone" means in the context of VR headsets.
  - agar 3y ago
    Agree, many posts I read seem like classic "I don't like Meta/VR/big companies/social media so let me use this specific incident to confirm my biases." As you say, there's valid criticism to be made but it's hard to find the signal through the noise.
  - docmars 3y ago
    I think the desire for "standalone" VR headsets to mean offline-capable is totally reasonable. It has its own storage, apps and games get installed on it directly, and none of its core features need to rely on an online connection.
- docmars 3y ago
  Given that it uses its own OS, essentially, is a fair point. I guess what I meant around my monitor analogy earlier is that it has the capability to serve that purpose, possibly without the sophisticated OS that wraps the store experience, the apps/games, and other features -- specifically with being able to use it on SteamVR or your PC in general. This makes it a device that's generally capable of using any supported source for its screens, and can pass its peripheral input to other devices, like a PC, not unlike a mouse and keyboard. VR headsets could treat their "OS" as a minimal experience akin to an OSD on a monitor that lets you switch sources and use the peripherals more generally like a mouse/keyboard with the right drivers on the target machine. I'm more interested in calling out that Meta missed an opportunity here, and that it's confusing that they offer some semblance of these features (wireless linking for SteamVR...) while coupling that so closely to their OS and online-only experience.

TulliusCicero 3y ago

> can we really call it standalone if you need it to phone home to Meta? Yes.

ipaddr 3y ago
This doesn't work anywhere without internet service. Standalone it is not.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  Not true. You can turn off the wifi and the headset works fine. The current problems sound like a server-side bug while it phones home. But usually it can work fine without internet. Standalone just means the VR compute is happening on the headset itself, not on a console or gaming PC the headset is tethered to. Of course, most of the people disputing "standalone" already know that, they're just playing definitional games.

oven9342 3y ago

I wonder how many people are secretly boycotting the product because of the prison Reputation of the maker

TulliusCicero 3y ago
Oh there are definitely people who avoid it because it's made by Meta. Maybe a bunch. On the other hand, it seems to be the most popular VR headset line by a wide margin. It would be cool if Valve came out with a standalone headset, they're one of the few companies I can see that would be in a good position to do that: they already have a good amount of VR experience with one high-end headset + SteamVR APIs + a couple VR games, they have their own highly popular store/platform, they generally have a positive reputation with gamers, and they have a decent amount of hardware experience in general including the recent Steam Deck for mobile gaming hardware specifically. And of course, a Valve headset would probably be significantly more open than the Quest. The Steam Deck has gotten some good reputation among more FOSS/hacker-oriented people for being fairly open: you can use it in a regular Linux desktop mode, you can install Windows (or presumably other OSes) on it, it's fairly repairable, etc. The default behavior is very console-like, but it's not very locked down if you don't want it to be. Best of both worlds, really.

ben_w 3y ago

> can we really call it standalone if you need it to phone home to Meta? Yes, because etymologically it's "standalone" vs. "wired"; this is akin to how phones are "mobile" vs. (when I was a kid) "landline".

TulliusCicero 3y ago
Nitpick: strictly speaking it's standalone vs tethered (which is usually wired, but could be wireless).

beardbound 3y ago

For what it's worth it does require a meta account, but not a Facebook one. I refused to buy one while it required a Facebook account since I deleted a couple of years ago. Once they made the change I figured that was an OK compromise. I just found out today during the outage that my headset won't work if I get signed out of my Meta account. That was an unpleasant realization, although I suppose it's partially my fault for trusting Meta not to hamstring the hardware their selling. It's the equivalent of finding out that if Microsoft's auth servers go down no one with a Windows PC can use it since they can't authenticate. I'm fairly displeased.