[HN Gopher] What it's like to spend 40-50 hours in VR every week
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What it's like to spend 40-50 hours in VR every week
Author : eflowers
Score : 918 points
Date : 2021-09-28 00:52 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.immersed.team)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.immersed.team)
| diskzero wrote:
| I would like to give this a try, but I don't want to support
| Facebook in any way. I saw a couple of headsets mentioned below.
| Is there a definitive list out there of competitors?
|
| As an aside, I used to use VPL eyephones, VPL datagloves and a
| SGI Crimson to do research back in the late 80s. I honestly
| thought back then we would all have fully adopted VR by now. I
| was so wrong!
| ptom wrote:
| OP here - It takes a long time for research and consumer
| hardware to align.
|
| The only 2 that run this particular software right now are the
| Quest, and the Vive Focus 3 (which cost $1000 more). There are
| other virtual office interface options available, though, and
| those run on WMR or any Steam compatible headset.
|
| None others that support Linux that I'm aware of, though.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| I wonder how this will impact our posture given that we're
| already at risk of a forward head posture seated. More weight on
| the head or the front of the head would accelerate these problems
| if you're not sitting properly.
|
| Until the technology gets much much lighter of course, which it
| will.
| deviation wrote:
| I imagine similar to the posture of riding a motorcycle, seeing
| as a helmet on average would weigh a similar amount to a VR
| headset.
|
| As a rider myself, the first week or so was a bit rough and an
| unusual feeling- it wears off after that.
| ptom wrote:
| OP here. Of important note, I also have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome,
| a connective tissue disorder that makes me especially prone to
| muscle stress and joint instability.
|
| Good ergonomics apply in VR just as they do in any occupational
| setup. I was suffering from cervical lordosis before ever going
| into VR - but because I've used it to increase my range of
| motion throughout the day, and eliminate my need to ever hunch
| or squint, I'm feeling much better than before going full-time
| VR.
|
| But: don't do it all at once. Work up to it, balance the weight
| appropriately, position screens properly, and take breaks! Yes,
| I do 8-10 hours a day in VR - but not all at once.
| WalterSear wrote:
| IME, it's mostly a step up from a monitor, because I can
| position the displays wherever I want. In addition to OP's
| sitting and standing setups, I spend a lot of time working
| lying down, or sitting extremely back, with my head fully
| supported.
| gman83 wrote:
| Have they solved the motion sickness yet? I used an early Oculus
| (I think it was Oculus Rift DK2) and mainly used it for virtual
| desktop stuff try to see if I could replace my multiple monitor
| setup, but I'd feel really unwell after about 30 minutes so I
| kind of gave up. If that's been resolved I'd be interested to
| give this another go.
|
| Is there a reason why Immersed only works with Facebook devices?
| I deleted my Facebook account and this would be a definite
| dealbreaker for me.
| grumbel wrote:
| As long as you are sitting or moving naturally, motion sickness
| is pretty much solved for most people. Refresh rate and
| tracking are good enough these days.
|
| Where motion sickness is not solves is with artificial
| locomotion, e.g. using to use the joysticks to move around like
| in a regular FPS game, that will still make most people motion
| sick to varying degrees, but many will get used to it after a
| while.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I think motion sickness in VR is a bit like taking LSD. Set and
| setting is all I can think about when I hear people's stories
| unless they are particularly bad.
| ptom wrote:
| OP here; motion sickness doesn't really apply to the
| productivity setup, since nothing's in motion (physically or
| visually). Good tracking and high framerates take care of most
| motion sickness for room-scale activities - those in which your
| physical and virtual motions are well aligned. But experiences
| which simulation motion are still likely to induce nausea
| unless you get your "VR legs".
|
| As for the FB devices - available audience and cost of doing
| business. They also support the Vive Focus 3 now though, and
| others are in the works.
| PerkinWarwick wrote:
| The Facebook angle to this sounds absolutely heinous, but just
| what have they done to lock the headset to Facebook? Is there
| some kind of secret handshake/encryption going on?
|
| If someone from the Evil Empire was here, it would be interesting
| to get some notion how Facebook checks identity. Is there some
| huge glom of software that compares online activity, public
| records, phone records, bank records, credit records, etc. to
| make sure you're an OK person?
| soylentcola wrote:
| As a device that's essentially a smartphone with some extra
| hardware/custom software, I would imagine that's like asking
| "what has Apple done to lock the iPhone to iOS?" or "what has
| Sony done to lock the Playstation to only run Playstation
| software?"
|
| If you think of it less like a monitor and more like a game
| console or a phone with a locked bootloader, then it's easy to
| see how you can require account auth in order to use the built-
| in software.
| PerkinWarwick wrote:
| The underlying question is 'what would it take to break the
| device free'.
| volta83 wrote:
| Can't answer that question, but suppose you break it free,
| then what ?
|
| It would be like maintaining a separate appstore for
| iPhones.
| soylentcola wrote:
| I recall that being the case when I had an old gen2 iPad
| and wanted to do a few things that weren't
| sanctioned/supported by Apple. There were a few well-
| known repos for homebrew software and that's where I got
| the handful of useful tweaks and customizations for that
| (jailbroken) tablet.
|
| I guess the issue there is that the popularity of the
| platform and nature of its limitations made it worth
| someone's trouble to maintain those repos. With something
| like an Oculus, I don't know that there are enough users
| (and also a sufficient subset that want to avoid Facebook
| or run some unsanctioned software) to justify the effort.
| PerkinWarwick wrote:
| Perhaps as a hobbyist device, there's certainly a lot of
| interesting apps that could be written.
|
| I'm assuming here that it is somehow subsidized (via
| volume or via data mining) and is cheaper than
| alternatives.
| Tepix wrote:
| Just look at the privacy policy of Facebook with regards to
| Virtual Reality devices and you'll see that they want it all.
| It's well documented.
|
| No thanks.
| WhereIsSweden wrote:
| what an awful future awaits :(
| laurieg wrote:
| I really like seeing this detailed breakdown of VR for work.
|
| I would like to use VR more but even an hour with the Oculus
| Quest leaves me feeling quite tired. The physical weight of the
| device and the not quite perfect alignment of the lenses are the
| likely causes.
|
| The authors points about VR not having the limitations of real
| life are spot on. Tools like Workrooms are just a stepping stone
| to more and varied VR experiences.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Wait till psychologically -informed VR malware develops. VR is
| the new frontier in more ways than one.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| if this was a virus you'd be dead now
|
| fortunately it's not
| dogman144 wrote:
| Not sure what you're implying!
|
| End of the day, it's tech. Tech platforms will have security
| vulns and thread models. Interested to see what that looks
| like for VR.
|
| Pretending it won't happen is sticking ones head in the sand.
| feteru wrote:
| Reference to the book Snowcrash! It's a fun book
| dogman144 wrote:
| Ahhh the next Stephenson I have on the docket
| danielEM wrote:
| How does compare Oneplus 9 pro wiith its 120hz screeen in a vr
| helmet to quest 2? Anyone tried both?
| dougmwne wrote:
| I have not tried the OnePlus, but every phone VR I have ever
| seen is only 3 degrees of freedom. The Quest 2 is 6-dof, which
| is a game changer for comfort, presence and experience.
| danielEM wrote:
| For games definitely, from dev perspective feels to me like
| just nice extra feature. Thinking of Quest only in terms of
| dev. I play literally no games, but I'm dev for 14h a day :-)
| dougmwne wrote:
| I think 3-dof would lead to motion sickness issues. You
| might be mostly moving your head rotationally, but if you
| move at all in the xyz directions your movement is no
| longer going to match up to the image in the headset. That
| mismatch between movement and vision is the primary cause
| of motion sickness. Phone VR was an evolutionary dead end
| for VR tech. The future is 6-dof, hand, eye, face and body
| tracked, both for work and for play.
| danielEM wrote:
| > Phone VR was an evolutionary dead end
|
| Wouldn't be that quick in judgement :-) I think all that
| 6dof is about image sensors and machine learning and both
| are already widely used in mobiles. To my senses it feels
| like nowadays smartphones could handle 6dof with even
| only single camera with just appropriate software.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| I'm inspired. I'm gonna spend a month on this.
| ptom wrote:
| OP here - please work up to it, don't dive in all at once.
|
| And come hang out on the Discord - would love to talk about
| your new-user experience, and help make it work for you.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| I have always been a jump off the deep end kind of person.
| I'll check out the discord
| Wunderdeer wrote:
| I like the ideas presented here. I wish more people understood
| that VR has purpose outside gaming, almost anything you do on the
| web can currently be done in VR. Perception of VR seems to be
| more focused on virtual worlds, or seeing it as just another
| gimmicky toy for computer people.
|
| My largest gripe with this piece is if you're going to write
| about comfort in VR, you need to mention the Valve Index. The
| base model is, in my experience, the most comfortable headset
| even without modding. If you wear glasses you can find many
| prescription lens vendors online for ~60-90 USD. Not to mention
| the top of the line specs on the Index compared to it's
| competitors.
| jalino23 wrote:
| bro thank you so much, I did not know vr has prescription lens
| you can buy! wearing glasses is literally the only thing
| stopping me from using VR!
| ptom wrote:
| OP here. I use Reloptix lenses, $70 and worth every penny -
| the difference they make the VR cannot be overstated.
| ptom wrote:
| OP, here. I'm hoping that this article helps change that
| perception, get people talking and open minds to the
| possibility.
|
| There's definitely better hardware out there than the Q2 - it
| just doesn't run the software I need yet.
|
| Valve has great hardware, no question - but this also wasn't
| about "how to make VR comfortable", it was how I personally
| make it productive for me. The Immersed software has, until
| very recently, been Oculus only. They now support the Vive
| Focus 3, which I hope to try some day (when it's in the budget,
| or someone notices my article and starts comping me hardware <-
| subtle hint).
|
| ...and I do use (and mention) prescription inserts - $70 at
| Reloptix, and I'm delighted with the product and my
| interactions with the company.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > If you wear glasses you can find many prescription lens
| vendors online for ~60-90 USD.
|
| Heck, even less than that. I got lenses for my Index for $20. I
| could have gotten them for as little as $7, but opted for the
| oleophobic coating to reduce fingerprints when I'm taking them
| in or out when other people use my headset.
|
| Then you just need a 3D printed adapter which, if you have a
| printer, you can print with like 5 cents worth of filament, or
| likely use a 3D printing as-a-Service provider like I did and
| pay $4 + shipping.
| bowmessage wrote:
| I really want to try out this setup, so I can work outside
| without having the sun blind me or otherwise obscure the laptop
| screen. This post looks like it has everything I need to get
| started. Thanks OP.
| bostonsre wrote:
| I don't think oculus works well outdoors.
| caslon wrote:
| It's... complicated. It works, but there's a near-certain
| chance you'll eventually burn the display through the lenses
| if you do it wrong. It's the same reason you shouldn't leave
| _any_ VR headset laying beside a window without a cover.
|
| The tracking is fine, but you'll probably end up re-buying a
| headset on a monthly basis if doing it.
| bowmessage wrote:
| Ah. So the issue is catching stray sunlight through one of
| the lenses and having it focus onto / burn the display? If
| that's avoided, are there other issues to worry about?
| caslon wrote:
| Some users have reported that the tracking cameras have
| gotten white dots in them from sun exposure, but the
| units that I've seen generally have a few dots in the
| periphery straight from the factory, so I think they're
| just not noticing until after. You rarely use the
| passthrough view, anyway, so it isn't a huge deal,
| generally.
|
| Other than that, I can't really think of anything off the
| top of my head. I know someone who uses one on a
| trampoline in the heat of the summer to cheat in a video
| game; Q2s are surprisingly durable little things.
|
| Just don't stare at the sun, I guess.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| FWIW, I fly FPV and am aware of this issue but haven't had
| a problem with it.
|
| I probably average about 4-6 hours per week outdoors in
| sunlight with my Skyzone 04X. It has dual OLED screens and
| a very similar (if smaller) form factor to my Quest 2.
|
| I'd say it's more a "be aware of this and be careful"
| problem than a "you're going to break it once a month"
| problem.
| saberdancer wrote:
| I am always amazed that people tend to make this into
| such a big problem. I've used Quest in the sunlight, you
| just have to be aware of it and remove it carefully, if
| possible while in shade. With the passthrough or just
| moving the headset slightly above your eyes you can do
| this very easily and safely.
| caslon wrote:
| To be fair, FPV equipment has always been made largely
| for outdoor use, hasn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if
| they found some way to mitigate it.
|
| The Q2 without a non-OEM facial interface isn't exactly
| tuned as well for outdoor conditions (then again,
| Facebook just put out a new one) as most FPV hardware is.
|
| By the way, do you know the vendor of the panels in
| Skyzone hardware? I've been wanting to try some out from
| a certain vendor for ages, but I can never tell what
| they're in, just that they're occasionally used in FPV
| gear that's always discontinued by the time I find out
| about it. Microdisplays are such a worse market than
| standard displays (like what's in the Quest 2); it's a
| real headache.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > To be fair, FPV equipment has always been made largely
| for outdoor use, hasn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if
| they found some way to mitigate it.
|
| To my knowledge, they have nothing to them that would
| mitigate damage from sunlight - and I can't think of any
| way to do that, given how the lenses work. Certainly it's
| a common thing that is warned against in forums and other
| online venues.
|
| > By the way, do you know the vendor of the panels in
| Skyzone hardware?
|
| Sorry, I don't off the top of my head. I don't think
| they're terribly easy to disassemble to that point,
| either. I wouldn't mind popping them open to check for
| you... but I have ~$600 in my set at the moment, so I
| don't want to void the warranty on a whim :).
|
| You might send an email to the folks at Fat Shark,
| though. You can often get their older goggles, like the
| HD3, used on Facebook for ~$200.
| caslon wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation!
| foxes wrote:
| There is a part of me that is disturbed. I like working at my big
| wooden table overlooking the city, nice natural light filtering
| in, the ability to detach from the screen and pace around to take
| a break. VR for work seems like a trap, you'll be consumed,
| ensnared by something that demands all your attention. You won't
| know freedom. Maybe this is the current state of headsets,
| clunky, like a chain with cables, bad tracking and screens. Maybe
| if it was seamless and I could slip it on as needed, like a pair
| of sunglasses.
|
| The other part of me is that having a giant whiteboard and
| endless space seems cool. Imagine if the entire virtual space had
| powerful programming environments, some more powerful version of
| Mathematica, I could gesture and run a some powerful. Maybe that
| would be worth it, but it doesn't seem there yet.
| jaxn wrote:
| It does add separation from work and not-work. Take the headset
| off and you go from work to home without any commute.
| wonnage wrote:
| Isn't this why everyone is burnt out from WFH? The desk is
| right there, you can sit down/strap in any time, and
| "leaving" work is mostly just a mental shift
| jaxn wrote:
| When you get up from the table, and you still see the
| environment you work in, you never leave. But when you take
| off the VR headset, you can't see the environment you work
| in.
| HanaShiratori wrote:
| What? Since when does WFH burn everyone out? At least my
| perception is that people want to stick to it... I'm
| confused
| Ensorceled wrote:
| My wife is in HR at a large international tech company.
| The number of people that want to work remote 100% of the
| time has been steadily dropping for the past year. People
| mostly want flex time now ... 2-3 days in the office max,
| no Fridays ... but the do want to come into the office.
| michaelt wrote:
| It's difficult to tell apart the effects of WFH from the
| effects of pandemic lockdowns.
|
| I know plenty of people who had a shitty time and ended
| up dealing with a lot of mental health issues.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > There is a part of me that is disturbed. I like working at my
| big wooden table overlooking the city, nice natural light
| filtering in, the ability to detach from the screen and pace
| around to take a break. VR for work seems like a trap, you'll
| be consumed, ensnared by something that demands all your
| attention. You won't know freedom.
|
| That's exactly the point, with VR someone in a small apartment
| they share with an extended family can ALSO have a nice big
| wooden table overlooking the city. Even if they are facing a
| beige wall ...
| namlem wrote:
| It depends on how you design the VR office. I've found myself
| staring aimlessly into the distance in Microsoft's WMR Cliff
| House a number of times.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I hear you, but there are layers to this. In a way, VR is like
| a hyper realistic lucid dream, and so actually gives a sort of
| freedom. VR is like a protective bubble of reality, you can
| substitute an unpleasant, ugly, and claustrophobic room for a
| big wooden table overlooking the city. Also there is something
| strangely anti-materialistic about VR. Why have all this big
| bulky, expensive equipment, furnishings, decorations around
| when all it takes is to slip on the glasses. It may be pseudo-
| dystopian, but I'm really interested in VR on planes so I can
| cross the continent while watching movies in my ski chalet.
| Filligree wrote:
| > I'm really interested in VR on planes so I can cross the
| continent while watching movies in my ski chalet.
|
| It works great, and I actually use my Quest 2 for this.
|
| The only, er, _slight_ issue is it detects rotation using
| gyros, so when the airplane turns it 'll be immediately
| visible in a way it isn't when you're not using VR. It
| ironically makes you more aware of your surroundings.
| keville wrote:
| > my big wooden table overlooking the city, nice natural light
| filtering in, the ability to detach from the screen and pace
| around to take a break
|
| Nice flex, but not everyone has this kind of setup.
| magpi3 wrote:
| A decent size table, natural lighting and room to pace is a
| flex?
| [deleted]
| girvo wrote:
| For some of the jobs I've done over the years, definitely.
| Gosh I do not miss those.
| [deleted]
| jachee wrote:
| You skipped "overlooking the city".
| burntoutfire wrote:
| In post-communist countries in Europe millions of people
| live in soviet-style tall residential buildings
| (typically 7-20 stories high), a nice view of the city is
| not a luxury there (like I guess it is in the US?).
| Ensorceled wrote:
| And his table went from big and wooden to "decent sized"
| Aeolun wrote:
| > my small plastic table, looking out on the blank concrete
| wall of the building next door, some fading indirect light
| filtering in, the ability to turn around and take a whole
| step back before bumping into my cabinet to take a break
|
| Sounds more reasonable for Tokyo and I imagine, HK or
| Singapore.
| distantaidenn wrote:
| Central Tokyo maybe. Tokyo is huge and on the outskirts you
| can get some nice places with a view. I personally just
| moved a bit outside of Tokyo to a house on a hill. Often
| working from the roof and enjoying the sunset.
|
| Aside from that, this post is about to make me buy an
| Oculus.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Of course I was exaggerating for effect, but it's
| certainly possible.
| brightstep wrote:
| We should put our efforts toward making pleasant living and
| working spaces a reality for everyone, rather than funneling
| ourselves into non-reality.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| > You won't know freedom
|
| You can...take off the headset.
| [deleted]
| brightstep wrote:
| Until your workplace requires you to use it. And so does
| every other company you might move to.
| anotheryou wrote:
| Let's hope the AR hybrid will be possible soon :).
|
| Sit down and your real room just widens virtually, your window
| remains and big screens pop up next to it.
| dbtc wrote:
| > Imagine if the entire virtual space had powerful programming
| environments, some more powerful version of Mathematica, I
| could gesture and run a some powerful.
|
| Not sure.
|
| But I think that there will be far fewer people who work
| relative to those who play in these virtual+immersive
| environments than there are with any of our more augmented
| ones.
| RIMR wrote:
| I have worked a day inside of an Immersed VR environment, and it
| was a pleasurable, intuitive experience that let me bring a ton
| of monitors from my Windows, Mac, and Linux machines all into one
| place. It was a better experience than I expected.
|
| But for doing a day of work, I would almost complain that it is
| too immersive. It eliminates distractions, but it also traps your
| eyes in front of screens and eliminates the real world except for
| things like eating and using the bathroom (and with the Quest
| passthrough, you don't even have to remove your headset for
| that).
|
| I feel that, no matter how good you made this kind of tech, it's
| not going to work until it's full AR. VR isn't comfortable for
| long periods, even at its most comfortable, because your brain
| (or at least mine) prefers regular doses of reality.
|
| And if you're going to be trapped in a VR computer, I found that
| using it for entertainment is the better experience. I can play
| Gamecube games and watch Netflix and Twitch at the same time,
| while keeping track discord.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I think the upcoming Quest Pro could very well take the VR office
| from an extreme thing that just a few people are doing to
| something much more comfortable for most people.
|
| Here are the leaked specs from investigations of a recent
| firmware: https://uploadvr.com/quest-pro-specs-controllers-leak/
|
| If we get improved lenses, fine-ipd and distance control for a
| really clear picture, plus eye and face tracking for expressive
| avatars, color HD passthrough so I can see my hands and keyboard,
| and a lighter, smaller headset, that would go a long way to
| addressing my issues with working in VR.
|
| I'm personally quite interested since I travel a lot and it would
| be amazing to have a multi sit-stand setup in a ski goggle case.
| I have already been having good results using the Quest 2 as a
| portable gym, so portable office would be icing on the cake. If
| these specs are real, I'll be a day-1 customer.
|
| One other thing that I had issues with that hope to see
| addressed: with both immersed and the Horizon Workrooms, the
| mouse latency was a killer when using their desktop client. Not
| sure what the deal was but was using a recent MacBook pro.
| Tepix wrote:
| " _The display is allegedly a Dual-Cell LCD from BOE with the
| same resolution as Quest 2..._ "
| sktrdie wrote:
| Here I am instead trying to minimize my hardware by using a less-
| addicting single black/white display with no video playback
| capability. VR on the other hand seems the quintessential
| distraction by literally stimulating way too many senses for what
| seems healthy.
| ikurei wrote:
| I've been wanting to test this for a long time, but every time I
| research this I find that the Occulus seems like the best option,
| but I can't stand the FB account requirement, and I wouldn't feel
| comfortable with that.
|
| What alternative would you guys recommend? Would the experience
| be significantly worse if I tried to do this with an Index, for
| instance?
| jachee wrote:
| In the FAQ on Immersed[0] they mention that they're planning to
| support "other XR platforms in the future". As a G2 owner, I'm
| holding out hope that it's sooner than later.
|
| [0] - https://immersed.com/faq#tag1
| caslon wrote:
| The most critical thing in this piece:
|
| Get a better head-strap! He mentions it in passing in the
| article, but 90% of the strain from wearing the Quest 2 for
| extended periods of time can be traced to the garbage default
| head-strap. You want something that properly balances the
| headset. If you want, you can even get one that gives you a bit
| of extra charge, too. There are plenty of options.
|
| Something critical that doesn't seem to be mentioned:
|
| You can manually alter the resolution of Quest apps; if an app is
| looking blurry it's almost always because it's set to a lower
| resolution than native. This is a problem with a lot of
| "productivity" VR apps, and the main reason why I ended up
| working on my own for a few months.
|
| The standard 90hz is comfortable for me for prolonged periods of
| time, but if you feel nauseous, you can turn it up to 120hz,
| though some applications will require manual adjustment.
|
| The Quest 2 is really cheap and offers a lot of different ways to
| do work; you can pretty much throw it in a bag with a USB-C mouse
| and keyboard (and splitter, so you could technically also bring
| along a USB-A mouse and keyboard just fine if you bought a
| 2A-to-C splitter) _or_ a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo and
| you 've got a full computing environment anywhere, assuming you
| set it up beforehand. And if you bring around a laptop or other
| small form-factor PC while traveling, it works really well to
| augment those, too.
|
| Literal _years_ ago Palmer Luckey talked about using a Go, a
| significantly less powerful headset, as a replacement for any
| monitor setups while traveling with his computer. We 're finally
| at a point where you can do the same on any operating system, and
| it's honestly a really good experience.
| bottled_poe wrote:
| Is it really that surprising that spending 25% of your life
| with 35% extra weight at the top of your head is going to
| affect your neck? I'm not convinced that a different strap is
| going to make a significant difference.
| Armisael16 wrote:
| The weight matters a little, but people having been wearing
| helmets at work for millennia. The bigger problem is that the
| weight isn't balanced - the front is heavier than the back.
| stubish wrote:
| > Get a better head-strap! He mentions it in passing in the
| article, but 90% of the strain from wearing the Quest 2 for
| extended periods of time can be traced to the garbage default
| head-strap. You want something that properly balances the
| headset.
|
| I'm very curious why I seem to have heard this exact same
| advice for every single headset on the market. Why does it seem
| endemic that headsets ship uncomfortable, fixed within days by
| amateurs with Velcro and tape? Why haven't manufacturers
| noticed that they are partly responsible for one of the major
| blocks to wide spread adoption?
| Kiro wrote:
| For most people the stock strap is good enough. I spend a lot
| of time in VR and never even considered replacing the strap.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| The Quest 2 was heavily optimized for reduced cost since
| otherwise, VR is a very expensive hobby to get into. Before
| the Quest, you had to buy a $600 headset AND a $1500+ gaming
| PC if you didn't already have one if you wanted to get into
| VR.
|
| As it is, I imagine at $300, Facebook is likely losing money
| on the sale of each headset.
|
| High-end headsets like the Valve Index come with a very good
| strap. There's no need to mod it or get an aftermarket one
| because the stock one is already very comfortable and
| balances the weight on your head very well. But the full kit
| is $1,000 and requires a gaming PC.
| elliottkember wrote:
| It's all in the box! The standard strap is very foldable and
| cuts the total size down a lot. Extended wear straps make the
| kit much larger. I have a Quest 2, with a fancy strap and a
| standard carry case and they don't really work together. The
| simple strap is also easier to adjust.
| MichaelEstes wrote:
| They make money from selling the better head strap, the Quest
| 2 elite strap is $50 extra.
| wccrawford wrote:
| Better headstraps are bigger, bulkier, and _more expensive_.
| In a market that competes on price, it 's most efficient to
| have the basic version in the box and then charge for
| upgrades.
|
| Plus, this also allows you to grow your market share by not
| excluding people that can't quite afford the better version
| of the headset.
| ptom wrote:
| I think the Vive Focus 3 has learned this lesson, and ships
| with what looks to be a very serviceable strap.
| dorkwood wrote:
| For me the worst thing about the Quest 2 is the lack of
| adjustable eye-width options. The original Quest had an
| adjustable dial, but they replaced it with I think 2 or maybe 3
| different widths to choose from. Because of this, my experience
| is way more uncomfortable than the first Quest, since none of
| the settings match my eyes.
| anonred wrote:
| It's not well known, but the Quest 2 firmware does support
| intermediate IPD settings, so it's straightforward to 3D
| print an adapter for the lenses:
|
| https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4627924
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/jeie0q/your_ip.
| ..
| caslon wrote:
| Yeah, that's actually a problem that Palmer mentioned years
| ago with the Go. It hasn't gotten better since these things
| hit mass-market.
| redisman wrote:
| It sounds like you're describing the Quest 2 as a full
| computing device. I thought it was pretty much a replacement
| for just a monitor in a traditional setup.
| caslon wrote:
| The Quest 2 has enough performance to run Citra (a recent
| Switch emulator) without any slowdowns; you can install just
| about any .apk on it, and if you want you can literally run
| _Docker._ It works pretty much okay for just about any actual
| computing task you can throw at it.
| caslon wrote:
| Small correction that I only realized a minute ago (past
| the edit window): Citra isn't a Switch emulator, if I
| recall correctly.
| snailmailman wrote:
| The quest two is basically an android phone with special
| hardware/software for VR. It's running android. It can be
| used completely standalone.
|
| It _can_ be hooked up to a more powerful PC and essentially
| just used as a monitor, but it can also run less demanding
| titles natively with no additional hardware. It has a web
| browser built in and you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard to
| it. So you can do _some_ stuff without a laptop /pc. There's
| a good library of native games but if you wanted to make a
| PowerPoint or do office/work you'd likely be using a web app
| (or just connecting to a pc)
| jmiskovic wrote:
| You can also install (sideload) Termux for a decent
| standalone Linux experience - vim, git, python, ssh...
| leovander wrote:
| Not sure why he got rid of the picture of it, but he actually
| put a computer inside his HHKB. I was waiting for him to do a
| write up.
|
| https://palmerluckey.com/oculus-goblack-how-to-make-your-ocu...
|
| You can see that on wayback machine.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190325121641/http://palmerluck...
| caslon wrote:
| Yeah! I double-checked that post while writing my comment and
| noticed the picture was gone, myself. I'm guessing it's
| because he was using the Facebook CDN.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| What was it for? That sounds nuts (not a lot of room)
| caslon wrote:
| What was it for? So... he could have a computer inside of
| his keyboard.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Do you have any suggestions for a better head strap for the
| Quest 2?
| caslon wrote:
| I talked a little about them in this comment:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678568
| gilbetron wrote:
| Recommendations for a strap? We have the Oculus Elite Strap and
| while better, isn't as comfortable as our Rift S "strap".
| fomine3 wrote:
| Quest 2 original strap + cheap strap pad significantly
| improves comfortability.
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001657071604.html
|
| Add a weight on the back is also good.
| ptom wrote:
| Hi! OP here - I use a GoQuestVR Halo strap. I'd originally
| purchased it for my Quest 1, and adapted it to fit the Quest
| 2. There are several makers of this form factor now, though.
| gilbetron wrote:
| I'll give that one a try since you and the article mention
| it, thanks!
| ptom wrote:
| Well... I'm the author of the article, so that still only
| counts as 1.
| gilbetron wrote:
| Ah, I thought "OP" as in the comment I was replying to!
| Good article by the way, I'll have to give it a try.
| caslon wrote:
| The Elite Strap has some _really_ awful reliability issues; I
| 'd definitely recommend returning it if you can.
|
| If you've got a 3D printer, there's a pretty popular project
| that allows you to adapt the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap to a
| Quest 2; I've heard little but glowing praise for it.
|
| However, since you mention the Rift S, as far as I'm aware
| the halo strap(s, there are a lot of different brands pushing
| pretty much the same thing) the author mentions in the page
| is pretty much just a clone of the Rift S strap, and I've
| also heard _really_ good things about it. It 's like $20 on
| AliExpress, so it's probably worth a try, at least.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Mine broke after a few months and not very heavy usage
| either. Very frustrating.
| caslon wrote:
| Your Elite Strap? Yeah, they're all pretty awful.
| PrivateButts wrote:
| The Vive Deluxe Audio Strap is the way to go. You can 3d
| print or purchase the adapter off of Amazon. I also strapped
| a usb battery pack to the back of the headstrap to
| counterbalance the HMD. The DAS is very comfy and solves the
| audio problem with the quest 2 as well.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > The Quest 2 is really cheap
|
| But it requires a FB account right? Or is there a way to use it
| without one?
| caslon wrote:
| It requires an _Oculus_ account. There are ways to get a new
| one even now that don 't require you to make a Facebook
| account. If you check the subreddit you'll probably be able
| to figure it out in about ten minutes. I make a habit of not
| mentioning exactly how to do it here because I don't trust
| employees of companies on HN to avoid fixing any user-
| beneficial problem involving their work.
| girvo wrote:
| Is that still the case as of today? Even the subreddit
| itself seems convinced its no longer possible to create an
| Oculus account with a Quest 2 without linking a Facebook
| account.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/k81bg2/oculus_with
| o...
| caslon wrote:
| It still is the case. I was alarmed by how many people
| were insisting I'm wrong, so I factory reset mine and
| walked through the process with a new, non-FB Oculus
| account. Still works.
| sneak wrote:
| Oculus is owned by Facebook; an Oculus account is still a
| Facebook (Inc) account.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| They say they will eventually force everyone to Facebook.
| At least, that's what they said when I got mine back in
| January.
| caslon wrote:
| Nope, that's not what they were saying. They did say that
| they'd eventually cut out the store for people on legacy
| Oculus accounts, but your headset would still be
| perfectly usable; you'd still be able to load .apks in
| like you can now, you'd still be able to use it with a
| computer, and it would still more or less work just fine,
| as long as you weren't depending on Oculus functionality
| beforehand.
|
| It'd be more like a Wii without _Nintendo Wi-Fi
| Connection_. It really won 't be that different unless
| you're dependent on their online services.
|
| However, eventually they'll be getting rid of the avenues
| to make a new account without a Facebook account like
| they've already slowly been doing. Which is a bad move,
| but while the avenues are available they might as well be
| taken.
| [deleted]
| grumbel wrote:
| Quest2 requires a _Facebook_ account, only Quest1 /Rift/S
| still work with an old Oculus account (at least until 2023
| when that goes away as well and it's Facebook for
| everybody).
| caslon wrote:
| _False._ I literally factory reset and made a new Oculus
| account just to verify that the comments so harshly
| _insisting_ that I was wrong were in fact wrong, and they
| are. You 've gotta jump through a _single_ hoop, but that
| hoop isn 't making a Facebook account.
| asdff wrote:
| why not just make a burner fb account for these things
| kjaftaedi wrote:
| Because they close your account for not being real and you
| lose your game library?
| rspoerri wrote:
| Oculus support did help me in that case and apparently
| disconnected the facebook account so i could still use my
| quest 2
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Yeah, I never understood why people don't treat Facebook
| just like email, where you can have a throwaway account
| unrelated to anything.
| grumbel wrote:
| Every account on Facebook must be attached to a real
| person and every person is only allowed a single Facebook
| account. A throwaway account is an automatic TOS
| violation and can lead to an account ban. Facebook does
| actively enforce their TOS, so especially with new
| accounts it isn't uncommon for the account to get locked
| and Facebook will force you to verify your ID.
|
| In the case of Quest2 that would mean you lose all the
| games you bought on the device along with the Facebook
| account.
| pjerem wrote:
| I needed a temporary Facebook account recently. I put a
| fake but plausible name and I did what I had to do. That
| account was blocked in no less than 20min, asking for my
| ID and my phone number.
|
| I'm pretty sure that Facebook is unofficially << closed
| >> for new << non verified >> accounts.
|
| And that's not even surprising : literally everybody was
| on Facebook a decade ago, it's definitely not the social
| network of the younger generation, and nobody who had the
| occasion to register 10 years ago is going to change its
| mind today. So the vast majority of new registrations
| must be spam bots.
| bserge wrote:
| New service: subscription identity - buy a real identity
| of a real person from some poor country and use it for
| yourself in the glorious developed world.
|
| Official government issued ID, passport, photos, video
| verification available for a fee.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| There are already marketing scams that involve renting
| out one's Facebook account so that third party entities
| can make posts with them:
|
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/faceb
| ook...
|
| Come to think of it, that could be a way to get accounts
| with which to use Oculus with.
| tommica wrote:
| Also known as identity theft
| Aerroon wrote:
| If you don't steal someone's identity is it still
| identity theft? Ie they give use of their identity to you
| voluntarily for using these services.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| That's not what is happening in this scenario.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| If something is given with permission, it's not theft.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I wonder if they restrict Google Voice or other VoIP
| numbers.
| burnished wrote:
| I thought they weren't allowing that? Like, you had to
| appear to be a real person and can't just make and keep a
| blank profile?
| grumbel wrote:
| It's a ToS violation, but you can still do it. Facebook
| will only ask for ID verification after they locked your
| account, but not while creating it. Locking of accounts
| is however pretty common.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Because people are ideologues, especially on HN.
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| It's actually now pretty hard to create fake FB accounts.
| You will at least need a phone number, but often times they
| will also ask for ID scan if the detection mechanism will
| mark your account as fake.
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| None of this is true. I have bunch of fake FB accounts
| created for one reason or another. I haven't checked on
| all of them, but the one I use for Oculus works fine. It
| is literally two random names picked from generator and a
| picture of Kermit the frog.
| bserge wrote:
| I had a few, too. They're suspended now! I think they
| started looking at action history - little to no
| posts/likes/friend requests/logins will probably suspend
| your account and ask for an ID.
|
| Now, Facebook can go fuck itself, but damn the Quest 2
| looks nice. What a shame.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| When were these created?
|
| New account creation on numerous services (not just FB)
| has become increasingly limited. Even simple MS Windows
| registrations.
| klausjensen wrote:
| My cat's facebook account disliked this post.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| Yep, according to the FAQ [1]:
|
| > Quest 2 requires everyone to use a Facebook account to log
| in.
|
| > If you are an existing Oculus user and have an Oculus
| account, you will have the option to log in with your Oculus
| account and merge your Facebook and Oculus accounts.
|
| I can't speak how enforced these are, but even if it's a soft
| requirement for now, it's enough for me to avoid it. Pity,
| since it seems pretty good tech wise.
|
| [1] https://support.oculus.com/fb/
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| Yep, that rules that out. It is a competitive space, I'll
| wait.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >I'll wait.
|
| Same here. Such a shame that this toxic company is
| stifling VR adoption by wrapping their tentacles around
| such a prime product.
| vkoskiv wrote:
| > I can't speak how enforced these are, but even if it's a
| soft requirement for now, it's enough for me to avoid it.
| Pity, since it seems pretty good tech wise.
|
| Strictly enforced. I borrowed an older oculus headset from
| a friend to try out a while ago. It wouldn't let me use it
| without providing Facebook my personal details. I tried
| making a new anonymous facebook account, which was
| immediately locked out before I could provide government
| issued identification. I borrowed my friends' oculus
| account to briefly give it a go, but quickly returned the
| hardware because I was just too creeped out by the Facebook
| association.
|
| It really is a shame that the companies with the biggest
| R&D budgets are also the ones which are the least aligned
| with the interests of the user.
| caslon wrote:
| This is either a lie or a heavy misconception; my Quest 2
| (the _first_ Oculus headset to "require" a Facebook
| account; none of the others do), didn't require a
| Facebook account, and works even with Oculus accounts
| made within the month.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I have an Oculus Go that I logged into last week that I
| hadn't used in months. There were a lot of dark patterns
| trying to get me to use a facebook login but I finally
| figured out how to use my original Oculus account.
|
| Falling for shitty dark patterns doesn't earn being
| called a liar; take the victim blaming somewhere else.
| blensor wrote:
| Carmack just announced that they will unlock the
| bootloader of the go to allow root access and give the
| owners full control.
|
| As for the Quest, you can buy a Facebook free version for
| about twice the price of the standard one
| caslon wrote:
| I said a lie _or_ misconception, and I was right.
| jeofken wrote:
| Deal breaker sadly. I will pay 3x for a hackable/free setup
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yes, also a dealbreaker for me. Guessing it's a loss leader
| for data collection.
| [deleted]
| ptom wrote:
| The "business" class Quest does not require the FB account.
| Same hardware, $800 IIRC.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Link?
| ptom wrote:
| Oof - $999, worse than I thought:
|
| > Every Oculus Quest for business costs $999.
|
| https://skarredghost.com/2020/05/22/oculus-business-vr-
| price...
| taneq wrote:
| So that's how much all the tracking and other data
| (biometrics? 3D model of your home?) is worth to them.
| luc4sdreyer wrote:
| No, that's now much they think businesses or other
| professional consumers will pay.
| romanhn wrote:
| On top of the high price, you don't get the Oculus Store
| either. I think you can theoretically sideload the
| consumer apps, but it won't be a straightforward process
| from what I understand.
| Someone wrote:
| But, if that article is correct, ( _"When you buy a
| headset like Oculus Quest, it is meant for consumer
| usage, and theoretically speaking, you can't use for
| commercial purposes (exhibitions, training applications,
| VR cinemas, etc...). Yes, I know, we all use it for
| commercial purposes as well and for sure Oculus won't
| enforce the licensing in the short term, but if you want
| to play exactly by the rules, you should buy a Business
| Quest for every enterprise application."_ ), you can use
| it commercially! That's a steal!
|
| What's next? Ballpoints for business use, at double the
| price of ballpoints for personal use?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Technically FB says they won't require an FB account until
| 2023. However they make it a pain in the ass to use a Quest
| without a FB account, and presumably your device will be a
| paperweight in a year once the FB requirement rolls out
| grumbel wrote:
| Quest2 requires a FB account today and for everybody, the
| 'until 2023' is only for old Oculus accounts used on old
| devices, i.e. Quest1 and Rift/RiftS.
| caslon wrote:
| Nope! Mine works perfectly fine with Oculus accounts made
| within the month; I literally just factory reset the
| thing and made another to verify that the comments saying
| otherwise were wrong, and yeah, they're wrong.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Mark is ruining it for every upcoming nerd.
|
| It's almost like he's working on being disliked?
|
| Maybe it's his a way of get back at the world for being
| invisible on so many levels, until financial success?
| nicoffeine wrote:
| Deep down he knows that all he did was create a cleaner
| version of MySpace at the perfect moment. He's used that
| lottery ticket to acquire companies built by people
| smarter than he is, and he'll keep trying to tie their
| genuine innovation back to FB to soothe his fragile ego.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I would have said so too before his investments in VR.
| Instead of Google's pie in the sky moonshot projects, he
| picked a tech that was just out of reach and focused an
| enormous percent of the company on bringing it into the
| present. He will be hailed as a Jobsian genius if he
| actually pulls off the next general computing platform,
| but even if not, certainly caught my attention.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| Yeah and it's a shame, because Myspace was awesome and
| facebook sucks, it's a bloated mess with so much crap
| attached to it these days.
| baby wrote:
| It's almost like every device you buy these days have you
| create an online account to use it.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Even some hp printers recently
| kjaftaedi wrote:
| How do they store your purchases if you refuse to use
| facebook?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I use an Oculus account instead
| magnetowasright wrote:
| Yes, they require accounts. A while ago, FB were saying the
| FB account must also be "in good standing" in response to
| people who had purchased the Quest 2, created the compulsory
| FB account, and were then banned immediately rendering the
| device totally useless.
|
| There was a fair amount of bad press about the issue and how
| there was no way to get unbanned. The bad press forced their
| hand a bit, but I wonder if it's an issue again now that it's
| not such a hot topic.
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/news/oculus-quest-2-users-
| banne...
|
| https://screenrant.com/oculus-quest-worthless-facebook-
| accou...
| azinman2 wrote:
| Having a screen blast your eyes 2" away is only ok for so long.
| Perhaps some can handle this but I cannot possibly imagine this
| is good for most people at scale. There's already concern about
| eye problems due to cell phones in youth, and that's at least
| 6-10" away from one's eyes and with other light coming in.
|
| The resolution isn't there yet compared to my 4-5k monitors for
| text, but clearly will get there in the future. For now I don't
| see what advantages it really gives me compared to a normal
| monitor in the real world, especially if I'm just coding. The
| exception would be if I were on something like an airplane --
| being able to look forward is a big deal here.
|
| Personally it makes me feel a bit nauseous, particularly if
| there's any movement (I get motion sick easily in VR but not
| normally in real life). My understanding is that about 20% of the
| population is like this and nothing is known to prevent it.
|
| There are cool things about VR that I really enjoy (particular
| things like Google street view) but I think it's way over hyped,
| and possibly dystopian depending on what people are leaving
| behind.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| The physical distance from the glass to your eyeball is
| irrelevant.
|
| What is relevant is the distance to the _focal plane_.
|
| For typical screens, the focal distance and the screen distance
| are obviously identical.
|
| For VR systems, they're very different. The last one I tried
| had a focal plane that was about 4 meters away. This makes it
| _better_ than typical screens!
|
| However, the low resolution is an issue. I've found that I get
| sore eyes if I use a low-resolutions screen. This is because my
| eyes try to focus, fail, and keep "hunting" by changing focus
| back and forth looking for the point of sharp focus -- but it's
| never there. This is why all of my displays are 4K.
|
| For VR because of the large field of view, the required
| resolution is at least 8K per eye or equivalent. Ideally a
| "fake" 16K using foveated rendering.
| Retric wrote:
| Focal distance is only part of the issue another is is
| consistency. Using a headset for 8 hours means your eyes are
| constantly focusing within a very narrow range of distances
| for 8 hours which isn't good. Your brain might be somewhat
| fooled when looking at a wall vs a VR window, but your eyes
| don't change focal distance.
|
| Similarly VR has a narrow range of possible brightness, this
| is less of an issue but can also cause problems long term.
| colordrops wrote:
| Isn't the focal distance to your monitor also static? Well
| mostly static, since you do move around a bit.
| max46 wrote:
| every time your eyes look outside your monitor (even for
| a fraction of a second), they get a little rest.
| EG.:Looking a your coffee mug before you grab it, looking
| at the window, adjusting your keyboard, looking at your
| colleagues, your 2nd/3rd monitor that's a bit further,
| moving back and forth on your chair, etc. You never spend
| 100% of your time starring at the center of your monitor.
|
| On a VR headset, your eyes will always focus at the exact
| same distance until you remove the headset.
| ptom wrote:
| Hi! OP here. It absolutely can cause issues, and the same
| occupational hygiene and ergonomics apply in VR as they do
| for sitting at a desk.
|
| So while I spend 8-10 hours a day in VR, I don't do it all
| at once - I do take breaks, which means walking the dog 3
| times a day right now, in addition to bio breaks or just
| stretching my legs a bit.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Why not just walk the dog in VR?
|
| Pardon and I believe that I am futurist .. forward
| thinker like AR Glasses apps I want to make...
|
| - Keep track of real life ping pong game score via AI &
| show each awarded point in glasses view (can do similar
| for fencing, card games, etc)
|
| - AR location history (show me how this building looked
| decades ago)
|
| - AR turn day into night & vice versa
|
| - AR zoom in ... Apple just added their Magnifer app ..
| put that in AR/smart glasses
|
| AR/smart glasses (really should call them that "smart,"
| it makes more sense to regular consumer) will be
| revolutionary for sure as it enhances and innovates
| something millions and millions already do wear glasses.
| People will pick them up by the millions to billions and
| possibly because some of the app ideas I listed above.
|
| VR has been around for 30 years .... why would millions
| to billions want to strap on a headset to talk to memojis
| of their co-workers for hours each day. It's isolating
| vs. AR ... AR glasses will enhance social behaviors ...
| VR i never see becoming anything like the iPhone. AR
| glasse are no doubt the next iPhone especially where
| developers create revolutionary apps for them.
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| I'd be interested in hearing the perspective of a forward
| thinker such as yourself on the Google Glass.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Google glass was the very first of such a headset and not
| a good experience. It's probably still a little early for
| smart/AR glasses but they make a ton more sense to be the
| next big thing vs. VR. VR requires everyday people to do
| something unusual ... something they havent done before
| .. that is isolating ... that is uncomfortable for long
| periods of time ... maybe it will make sense for
| videogames but not working 8 hours a day with a headset
| strapped to your face (lol).
|
| Ask those outside of your VR circle ... are they excited
| to use VR ... strap a headset on their face and work in a
| virtual world with their co-workers' memojis for 8 hours
| or would they prefer to wear their sunglasses or
| prescription glasses that are smart & enhance the world
| around them like never before. If my AR ideas are not
| good ...not ground breaking ideas that get millions to
| billions of regular people buying them im sure other
| developers ideas will be even better and prompt billions
| to adapt and buy them. But i am excited to be able to
| play real life games like ping pong (card games) and have
| my glasses keep/show me the score in my glasses view. I
| guess that is a stupid completely void of innovation type
| idea..... not changing how we do everyday things
|
| Maybe out of all this work in VR things will be learned
| and used to create smart prescription or sunglasses.
| ketzo wrote:
| Yeah, but again, that's an issue that is shared with
| physical computer screens as well.
|
| It's obviously easier to look _up_ from a physical screen
| and look around to change up your focal distance, but
| frankly, this is something that people already forget to do
| -- and it 's just as easy to do in VR if you've got
| something in the far distance to look at.
| Retric wrote:
| Looking at something "far away" in VR doesn't change your
| eyes physical focal distance. You need to physically
| remove the headset to rest your eyes.
| ketzo wrote:
| Huh, okay, after some very cursory googling it looks like
| you're right. I was misunderstanding how VR focal
| distance worked.
|
| Then your point definitely stands: taking off a headset
| in order to mix up your focal distance does sound like a
| pain.
| taylorius wrote:
| There are lightfield displays that can synthesise
| arbitrary focal planes, but they're still experimental
| afaik.
| Filligree wrote:
| There are consistent rumors they'll appear in the Quest
| 3.
|
| I rather doubt it, but if we're lucky it's something
| they're working on. A generation or two after, maybe?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| It's not just the resolution. Lenses get dirty, and you get
| other optical artifacts (god rays, chromatic aberration,
| screendoor effect) that mess with the quality of the picture
| and create eye strain.
| fouric wrote:
| > Having a screen blast your eyes 2" away is only ok for so
| long.
|
| Distance isn't really a factor here, at least not as far as
| total light entering your eyes goes - a 1W/m^2 source 10cm from
| your eyes causes the same amount of light to enter as a 16W/m^2
| source 40cm away.
|
| What matters, as others have pointed out, is the distance
| between your eyes and the _focal plane_.
| anentropic wrote:
| Seems like you'd have to be able to touch type to do this
| sp332 wrote:
| The focus issue is not that things are too close (as jiggawatts
| covers) but that the focal plane never changes. You might want
| to specifically do some eye exercises by focusing on objects at
| different distances outside of VR.
| [deleted]
| caslon wrote:
| > Personally it makes me feel a bit nauseous, particularly if
| there's any movement (I get motion sick easily in VR but not
| normally in real life). My understanding is that about 20% of
| the population is like this and nothing is known to prevent it.
|
| This is almost always one of two things:
|
| * A low or unsteady framerate or tracking
|
| * Lack of spending twenty minutes in it to teach your body to
| cope with the aforementioned low or unsteady framerate or
| tracking
|
| The Quest 2 won't drop below 90hz if in any productivity app,
| and you can even turn it up to 120hz (it can handle games at
| 120hz; a productivity app won't put any stress on the
| hardware), so there isn't really the opportunity for nausea.
|
| It really does sound like you've only used Cardboard or
| Daydream, since the only thing you're listing is Street View.
| There's nothing _wrong_ with Cardboard and Daydream, but they
| 're 3DoF and you were lucky if it would hit 60hz consistently.
| They're a box for nausea. Even the original Vive (still an
| admirable headset, although pretty rough these days) is
| significantly below the state of the art enough that judgements
| about VR as a whole can't justifiably be made.
| sp332 wrote:
| VR gear has improved dramatically, but there are some things
| you can do to make yourself more comfortable. https://web.arc
| hive.org/web/20190813004505/http://elevr.com:... I think the
| most important piece of advice is to take a break right away
| when you're feeling bad instead of trying to push through.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I have a quest 2, and have put it at 120hz. I still get
| motion sick. It's not just frame rate. Movement in real life
| involves more inputs than just eyes.. you feel it in your
| vestibular system for example. Here we have a disconnect
| between motion in the eyes and the rest of your body. And for
| many, such as myself, that results in motion sickness.
| _flux wrote:
| Do I understand correct that you don't get motion sickness
| if standing still but looking around--when there is no
| disconnect in motion? This is the use case for productivity
| apps.
|
| In my understanding it is extremely rare to experience VR
| motion sickness if the motion in VR matches the motion in
| IRL.
| thih9 wrote:
| As someone who works with a single screen, I don't get it.
|
| I spend most of my time in the terminal, occasionally switching
| to a browser. The fact that I see a single window at a time is a
| "feature" to me.
|
| Then again, if there was no difference in comfort, size, weight,
| etc, I'd happily increase the size of my screen, if only to
| increase the font size. I guess I'll be a late adopter.
| backoncemore wrote:
| Nice to see another single screen maximalist. I was given two
| screens at work and always kept the second one clear. Alt-tab
| is my go-to second screen.
| fouric wrote:
| It seems to be generally easier for the human brain to look in
| another physical place for some information than to "overlay"
| them on top of each other (as happens when you alt-tab between
| two fullscreen windows).
|
| This is both noticed anecdotally by a lot of people (the
| majority, if the prevalence of multi-monitor setups are
| anything to go by) and you can also derive this from the facts
| that people put more than one thing on their single monitor at
| a time, and prefer larger screens.
|
| You've probably either gotten in the habit of using a single
| screen, or your brain hardware behaves in a way that most
| peoples' doesn't. I don't think that your preferences are
| actually reflective of an objective increase in efficiency, or
| comfort for the majority of computer users.
| ehnto wrote:
| I do miss two screens from time to time, but single screen
| using i3 is a total productivity win for me because it helps me
| minimize context switches and focus better.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I had the same thought, most of the argument here seems to be
| about screen space. I think at some point we're all attracted
| to the idea of having a bunch of monitors so you can feel like
| some kind of multi-tasking movie hacker, but the reality is
| that if you learn to use your window manager efficiently, one
| monitor is almost always all you need.
| shannifin wrote:
| Anybody know how reading & desktop work on the Quest 2 compares
| to the original Oculus? I tried programming in the original
| Oculus years ago, but the low resolution was just too annoying...
| is it improved a good deal? (I know the resolution is higher,
| just wondering about the actual experience.)
| pault wrote:
| Still not good enough, unfortunately. Anything below 18-ish
| point type is too difficult to read.
| mherrmann wrote:
| I recently consulted as a VR programmer on a Quest 2. There is
| a built-in way to see your PC screens in the headset (I can't
| remember what it was called). I used the Oculus Link cable.
|
| It worked and I could certainly program. But it was far from
| comfortable. The resolution is very noticeably worse than on my
| physical monitors. I don't know why OP's experience is so
| different. I suspect he's just willing to sacrifice crisp text
| for the coolness of the experience.
| cschmittiey wrote:
| I've also used that feature and I've spent >10 hours working
| in Immersed - Immersed (and even another app called Virtual
| Desktop) absolutely is leagues above the built in experience.
| cgag wrote:
| This post is making me wonder if I did something wrong, but I
| hated the low resolution in the quest 2 for programming when I
| tried it.
| nbzso wrote:
| This is cool. As a experimental experience. I will wait fro a
| hologram solution to remove the Eizo's from my workflow.
|
| Reasons: I don't like to be totally disconnected from
| reality/physical world. I work in a room with balanced natural
| light. Removing this is not productive for me. In recent years I
| developed a technique to refresh cyclically my brain by making
| timely stops away from my computer. Example: In the breaks I walk
| away completely in a different room and may play guitar, draw, do
| physical exercise or just meditate. Advantages from this
| interruptions are immense. Your brain is never bored, and your
| work sessions are effective and absent from procrastination.
| dougmwne wrote:
| My timely steps away from my desk have been VR boxing, table
| tennis, and mini golf. There's no better way to destress after
| a meeting than 3 rounds and a knockout. I think it taps deep
| into the limbic system and evaporates stress through a full
| activation then resolution of the fight or flight response.
| nbzso wrote:
| This is a completely different use case (in my view).:) I
| have a long daily work sessions, interruptions (brakes) are
| part of the flow. To remove something from my head 3-4 times
| per hour obviously is a lot slower than simply to stand up
| and go.
|
| This is your way to evaporate stress, everyone has individual
| choices in this regard.
|
| Mine include going outside, walking, running, some exercise,
| shoot photography, drive to a near village, etc.
|
| I spend enough time in-front of a set of displays. And since
| early 2000s my choice is always towards high-quality displays
| as Eizo or Nec. The newer models have eco-friendly mode which
| adjust automatically the brightness with accordance to
| ambient light.
|
| Thats why my preference for the work of future is towards
| holographic displays or projectors. It is more natural.
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| I can't speak to the use-case for this amount of time, but as
| someone who has used it plenty I can attest to pretty much
| everything the author has stated. The experiences that have blown
| me away the most have ironically been the ones that are the most
| "boring", or like essentially being a close analogue to the real
| world. When I tried online poker in VR, it was mind-blowing. It
| wasn't like reality... it was objectively better.
|
| Whenever I have friends over, the hands take some time, the game
| can be slow and boring, etc. In VR, we're in an amazing scene,
| folks not in the hand can play all sorts of games in parallel,
| the game is much more dynamic since you have an expert dealer,
| etc. It made me realize that if I did have 5 people over in my
| house, I'd rather us all plug into the VR environment than
| playing in real life.
| heax wrote:
| Oh come on, im not an experienced poker player but even i know
| that reading the facial expression and body language of your
| opponent is a core element of the actual game.
| nouveaux wrote:
| Facial expressions and body language is not a core part of
| modern poker. Many pros play online.
|
| Online poker among friends gained a lot of popularity during
| Covid. With the computer dealing, its much easier to play for
| 1-2 hours. Given our stage in life, we can play once a week
| online instead of once or twice a year in person.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| If your goal is to optimize money, then yes.
|
| But since PokerStars VR is only with fake money, most are
| there just to have fun, at least in the lower stakes tables,
| so people make (and call) a lot of silly bets.
| yubiox wrote:
| Sounds great until you find out that it requires windows.
| ptom wrote:
| Ah, but I'm running Linux. :) (oh - and I'm the OP)
|
| They also support Mac, and yes, Windows for those unable to
| escape the pull of Redmond.
| rdrey wrote:
| I had a question about your Linux setup: Does Immersed VR
| support multiple monitors in Linux now? Or do you have to
| mirror a "real" 4k monitor to have it show up in your app?
| Edit: Ah, I've found some `xrandr` tricks that should work.
|
| Thanks for the post!
| yubiox wrote:
| Well crap. The first hit on google with "Oculus Quest version
| 2 mac" is recent and completely wrong apparently. Sorry.
| yodon wrote:
| I suspect a lot of us would be working this way (VR Quest
| headsets simulating a large multi-monitor workstation) by now if
| the pandemic hadn't forced the world to be on zoom calls 40
| hours/week.
| ptom wrote:
| OP here - fortunately my meeting load isn't as absurd as some
| place, since this company figured out "remote work" long before
| COVID forced it upon people who don't know how to go 10 minutes
| without a meeting.
|
| I join most of my Hangouts and Zooms as an avatar, using a
| virtual webcam from within the software. If it's personal,
| sensitive, or requires more professionalism, I'll still
| "resurface" and use a regular webcam - but it's a special
| occasion.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| My biggest issue with Immersed currently is it eats a tremendous
| amount of CPU on my Mac, which is admittedly aging (2016 era).
| Perhaps its unfair to expect it to run well on something of that
| vintage but it's definitely a problem.
|
| Then the next obvious one is screen resolution is just not high
| enough yet. It probably needs to double and I don't think even
| the top end of headsets are quite there yet.
|
| It's exciting because all the problems I can identify are
| essentially things that have high confidence of being solved over
| time. So I can see there is an inevitability this will be a major
| way of working at some point and for those of us willing to
| stretch to it, you can get to the future ahead of everyone else.
|
| At the same time, every time I do the experiment it is
| objectively less productive than just using a basic 3-screen
| setup outside of VR. The bar, unfortunately, is quite high.
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| Try vSpatial - they have an approach where each PC window is
| displayed as a completely separate screen in the VR
| environment. Everything is seperated into layers so you work in
| a cockpit instead of on a desktop. I like their design a lot
| for most tasks although some display scaling edge cases just
| don't work. They have a web cam emulator that projects your
| workspace with you as an avatar & its very cool in zoom calls.
| Definitely worth checking out for any extended workflows like
| TFA.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| As someone who has spent quite some time tuning their VR setup
| for iRacing, I highly recommend the Pimax headsets (Pimax 8K X
| has dual native 4K). Best resolution and FOV, decently priced,
| light software, and surprisingly great support.
|
| I 3d printed some supports to mount a vive headstrap to it, and
| removed the vive headphones in favor of Airpods. 200 degrees of
| FOV @ 75hz would be incredible for work with a far superior
| viewport than OP.
|
| This blog post makes me want to give this a try.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| What do you mean by light software? Are they not just dumb
| displays?
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I mean literally that the PiTool running in the background
| takes like 10mb of memory. I've seen a lot of reports from
| friends and online in the sim community that their beastly
| systems can barely pull 90fps steady in the G2/Oculus
| headsets, meanwhile I'm at almost double the FOV at 120hz
| steady, maxed, on a worse system.
|
| We've tried everything we could to get their headsets to run
| smoothly. There are multiple guides in the iRacing forums
| about combing through every line in all relevant .ini files,
| setting up windows, nVidia settings, etc.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I haven't used one of those, but I can guess what he means
| based on owning an Oculus Rift 2. Let's say I want to start
| playing a Steam game with my headset. To do so, I must
| install the Oculus software, sign in with my Facebook account
| (it's a brick with a headstrap without an account), then find
| the setting that enables "non-Oculus software" to operate the
| Rift display. Using the Rift always starts the Oculus
| software. There are shortcuts on the headset that throw you
| into Oculus's own environment for buying and launching games.
| caslon wrote:
| There's no real avenue for a "dumb display" to work as a 6DoF
| headset, and even back in the DK1, 3DoF days you'd still end
| up needing _some_ software (mainly drivers) for things like
| the gyroscope.
| soylentcola wrote:
| If I remember correctly, weren't the early ones at least
| _more_ akin to this? I have a DK2 sitting in a box
| somewhere. Ordered it to mess around with and it was cheap
| enough that I could risk not getting a ton of use out of
| it.
|
| I seem to remember that it was mostly done on the computer:
| IR emitters on the headset for tracking with a
| sensor/camera to receive the positional data to be
| processed by the computer. Then the generated output of the
| "camera" was sent to the display sitting behind the lenses.
|
| There was definitely processing going on and you did need
| drivers/software. I'd imagine you could still use it with
| not much more than some lightweight drivers/software to
| process the positional data and render the appropriately
| distorted output.
| caslon wrote:
| Things _were_ a lot lighter.
| jachee wrote:
| Just a _caveat_ -- the article is very Facebook-centric. All
| the software they mention seems to be Oculus-specific within
| that closed ecosystem. No mention of non-Oculus options.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Thank you for bringing up FOV. It frustrates me to no end that
| in nearly 5 years of VR advances, we're still stuck with a ~90
| degree periscope angle of view for the vast majority of
| headsets.
| copirate wrote:
| Most headsets have > 90deg FOV: https://arvrtips.com/vr-
| headset-comparison-tool/
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Sigh. If you had read my comment you'd have seen the tilde,
| which indicates "approximate". I've used the vive with 110'
| , that is _not_ a significant difference, particularly when
| you consider that the human eye has an fov of ~200 (notice
| the tilde)
|
| Only 7 of the 21 VR listed in that page exceed 115 degrees.
| And four of those are PIMAX systems.
| Tepix wrote:
| I consider a 22% improvement (110deg instead of 90deg) a
| significant improvement.
| bob229 wrote:
| I'm a skeptic but this actually sounds amazing. Only mad person
| would ever use a Facebook product though
| joejohns wrote:
| Shortly, VR will help industries train their employees and
| experience tasks under different scenarios. This will probably
| help them reduce their budget and at the same time improving the
| training quality.
| archon810 wrote:
| All I could think about when reading about the coffee shop
| experience was that the author would be robbed blind (pun
| intended) in the San Francisco Bay Area. Computer snatched
| because of the lack of awareness, phone stolen, etc.
| arnaudsm wrote:
| Fortunately Quest Intrusion Passthrough is rolling out soon
| lodovic wrote:
| I'd be very afraid to fry my eyes. I can't imagine strapping a
| bright display at 10cm from your eyes, for hours on end, won't
| lead to eye issues later on in life. I already feel strained
| after using a headset for an hour.
| rspoerri wrote:
| I am unsure wether you are aware that the screen is only
| physically 5cm away. But our eyes have to focus (Focal
| Distance) on a distance of 2m (oculus quest 2) or infinity
| (vive) (afaik, i'd love to get more detailed informations on
| what glasses have what focal distance). This is archived by the
| fresnel lenses used in the vr glasses.
|
| So it's not the problem focussing something in 5cm distance.
| The big issue is that your eyes never have to adapt the
| distance they are looking at. Watching a screen all day 50cm
| from your eyes is equally bad. You could say that focussing a
| distance 2m or infinity is better, but i am no eye-scientist.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Using my phone is frying my eyes today. I am getting lots of
| eyestrain and blur from too much phone time. Once I got a Quest
| 2, I substituted enough screen time that my eye strain issues
| went away. Not saying there will be no long term effects, just
| that today in the here and now, my eyes feel better using VR
| for an hour or 2 a day.
| taneq wrote:
| There's no headset display on earth that will be brighter than
| the outside world on a sunny day, and we've evolved to handle
| that for 8+ hours a day indefinitely.
| goodpoint wrote:
| As many people pointed out, the focal point is at a much higher
| distance than the typical screen.
|
| If anything, this could be much healthier.
|
| If only the head mounted displays were designed with health in
| mind rather than making a quick profit...
| backoncemore wrote:
| I've had problems with eye pain for years due to, what I
| thought, was computer use.
|
| After a lot of trial and error and just thinking about what
| could possibly be causing this, I believe I have found that I
| wasn't getting enough sleep. I haven't had eye pain in months
| and I have been using my computer even more frequently than
| before (because my eyes don't hurt).
|
| I have learned that I need at least 8 hours of sleep, but try
| for 8 1/2 - 9 hours. If I go a couple of days getting 5-6 hours
| of sleep, my eyes start killing me again.
|
| Might be worth looking into your sleeping habits.
| tigershark wrote:
| I'm sure that I would fry my eyes. When I was working with 6
| screens for one year and half I couldn't focus anymore far
| away, everything was blurry. After years that I didn't use that
| setup now my eyesight is normal again. I can't imagine what
| would do to my eyes to focus on a screen mere centimetres from
| my eyes.
| teekert wrote:
| One nice thing is that (next to being able to dim the screen as
| there is no background), the eyes actually focus on infinity
| with the lenses in a VR headset. This is the eye's natural
| state (staring in the distance, relaxed circular muscles around
| the lenses, which then flatten), and should be much better in
| the long term that staring at a screen 50 cm away from you.
| danielbln wrote:
| Generation 1 headsets were focused at infinity, these days
| they're focused around 2 meters[1].
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1130973138362294272
| teekert wrote:
| Ah, thanx for the the clarification! Would be neat if it
| could be set at a therapeutically optimum setting or
| something. Or perhaps vary? Or that would be weird I guess.
| Best thing would be if certain elements require close
| focus, while others require one to focus on infinity. In a
| ratio that mimics natural use. But I guess that is a lot
| more difficult to implement.
|
| Btw, too little light is also not good for the eye,
| outside, in the sun it can easily be 100x brighter than
| your screen and your eye needs that every now and then to
| remain in good shape.
| q_andrew wrote:
| People keep bringing up vision problems, but I think my biggest
| concern would be circadian rhythm. How does my brain know when
| to release sleepy chemicals when I shut off the daylight for 10
| hours at a time? All that artificial light would really mess up
| my sleep patterns. Although, with the winters we have here, it
| wouldn't make a difference during the twilight months.
| btbuildem wrote:
| I imagine that's something that could be compensated for
| within the virtual environment -- similarly to the way apps
| like f.lux change the average colour temperature of a screen
| depending on time of day.
| SimCity3000 wrote:
| I feel like people had the same worries when television,
| computers and video games invaded homes everywhere in decades
| past. I'm thinking the problems (if any) won't be as bad as you
| think they will be.
|
| And to your last point I think that's where common sense comes
| in. If something is painful, if it causes you discomfort, stop.
| You're body is decently good at protecting you from things that
| are harmful to it (except sugary sweets for me...)
| tamrix wrote:
| The amount of people being prescribed glasses is growing each
| year due to phone and computer use.
|
| I have poorer vision in low light conditions then when I was
| younger. My optometrist has confirmed my sensitive eyes and
| advised to wear blue light filters but I choose not to. I
| have friends who need glasses to drive legally at night for
| similar reasons.
|
| Don't give people the wrong impression without first asking
| professional advice as you could do harm by misleading
| someone.
| 93po wrote:
| >Don't give people the wrong impression without first
| asking professional advice as you could do harm by
| misleading someone.
|
| The irony of posting this after a statement that is
| patently not supported by any evidence, and is generally
| thought to be wrong:
|
| >due to phone and computer use.
| mcbishop wrote:
| Word, that sort of claim begs for an associated reference
| to a study.
| kmmlng wrote:
| While it is true that incidences of myopia are increasing,
| we don't quite have the evidence to assert that it is due
| to phone and computer use. Indeed, many studies suggest
| that the reason might actually be a lack of bright light
| (i.e. sunlight) and that deliberate exposure to bright
| light may actually be a good intervention to prevent myopia
| (see e.g. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1
| 371/journal...,
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-26635-7, https:/
| /iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2355431)
| ninkendo wrote:
| Relevant YouTube video about this from SciShow:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwQzTKHIkb4
| Filligree wrote:
| > The amount of people being prescribed glasses is growing
| each year due to phone and computer use.
|
| I have some hope the use of VR gear might start to reverse
| that trend. The focal plane is normally set a couple meters
| away from you -- I think six meters for the Quest.
| Anecdotally, I find it comfortable to look into; it has a
| 'night' mode that reddens the light, too.
|
| I don't know how provable it is, but I've always heard that
| nearsightedness may be caused by looking at things that are
| too close, too often.
|
| Right now there's a concern in that the focal plane is
| _always_ six meters, but light-field displays will be
| coming at some point, probably before these become a mass-
| market product.
| rtpg wrote:
| Well specifically to the brightness, how much light is going
| into your eyes when using a VR set relative to, say, a TV? Or
| a 27-inch monitor close to your face?
| meheleventyone wrote:
| I'd imagine most discomfort is eye strain rather than
| brightness. The way VR headsets work right now it's
| important to have your eye correctly positioned and the
| headset adjusted for your own distance between pupils.
| growt wrote:
| Or the sun/daylight while being outside? I'd guess that's
| some orders of magnitude more.
| empiricus wrote:
| Ironically you need to be exposed to the strong light
| outside (as a child), otherwise you will need glasses.
| kataklasm wrote:
| Yep, I really regret spensing so much time of my youth
| indoors in front of a monitor... At age 19 I can
| experience the loss in sight quality already. It is
| recommended to spend AT LEAST 2 hours everyday outside in
| daylight to prevent myopia. I did not follow that
| recommendation and regret it sorely.
| robbiep wrote:
| The evidence around this appears to be most strong for
| actually having a long focal distance as being one of the
| most important factors (as opposed to the lux) - unless
| the evidence has significantly changed.
|
| I mean there's probably a pretty strong correlation
| between being outside and having a long focal distance,
| but my understanding was that when attempting to control
| for this (ie rise of increase in apartment living, first
| in Japan and then other Asian cities) its tightly
| correlated to not focusing on things a long way away
| toshk wrote:
| I think it's a little bit more then the worries we see with
| TV's since children under a certain age are not allowed to
| use it.
|
| But yeah I couldn't imagine using it for a workday. I bought
| an Oculus Go once, my eyes couldn't handle it for more then 5
| tot 10 minutes.
|
| But I guess everyone is different, can imagine for some
| people like me it's not healthy
| Filligree wrote:
| The Oculus Go has a resolution of 12.67 pixels per degree.
| The Quest 2 has a resolution of 15.5 (vertical) to 20
| (horizontal) pixels per degree, and a massively reduced
| screen-door effect.
|
| Anecdotally (i.e. for me), that makes it far less straining
| to look into. although I'd really want twice that.
| kjaftaedi wrote:
| You can't really feel pain in your retina though.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Indirect sun light on average sunny day is many times more
| energetic rhan anything screens put out.
| capableweb wrote:
| Is the output of the sun somehow equal to the output of LED
| lights? One could imagine there are slight differences in how
| they react with the eye, so they probably bring different
| issues by being received by your eyes for long durations.
|
| Not to mention humans have evolved with sunlight in mind and
| LED lights are relatively new. Our eyes most likely are more
| used to sunlight than LED lights.
| basisword wrote:
| Likewise. I worked from a laptop for the last decade. Got a new
| job and switched to a large monitor that I sat pretty close to.
| 6 months later I needed glasses after having perfect vision for
| 30 years. It could be coincidence but I feel the screen caused
| the vision deterioration. Having a screen strapped to my head
| sounds like it would be a more extreme version of the large
| monitor.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| While it is physically 10cm from your eyes, there are
| collimating lenses, resulting in a picture that is apparently
| much further away from you, I think 1.3m is a typical distance,
| but it can vary by headset. It is much further away than a
| typical monitor. As for the light itself, it is light, no UV,
| not overly bright, sunlight is orders of magnitude brighter
| (which is a problem for AR btw). The image is also in front of
| you so no weird eye movement. I don't really see how it can
| damage your eyes though maybe some people know better, maybe
| the low resolution/screendoor effect can be a problem on
| current-gen headsets.
|
| There are things that can cause strain. For example, items too
| close to you can be out of focus, the low FOV makes you move
| your head a lot more, and it has extra weight strapped to it,
| there is the heat, the motion, etc... But a well designed
| desktop setting like in the article avoids many of these
| problems.
| illwrks wrote:
| I would feel the same.
|
| I'm not ophthalmologist but I do wear glasses for myopia. My
| concern would be emitted light, distance and emitted heat...
|
| Screens are emitted light. Having a screen strapped to your
| head emitting light into your eyes is very different to having
| a monitor in a room (adjusted to ambient light) emitting light
| and in an environment with a lot of natural reflected light.
|
| Distance, yes there are lenses that bend the emitted light and
| change the perception of distance to the screen but it's still
| only a short distance from your face emitting light and heat.
|
| You might be fine for a few years but I would be willing to bet
| you will have some form of eye issue in later life.
| ako wrote:
| Isn't everything picked up by your eyes emitted light?
| illwrks wrote:
| No.
|
| Think of it like a cinema projection vs TV screen.
|
| In a cinema a projector sends light onto a screen that
| bounces off and towards your eyes, this is a reflected
| light.
|
| If you were to watch a TV of the same size it would be
| emitting light from LED's shining light directly to you.
|
| There are some comments on an older thread with some good
| info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17993615
| goodpoint wrote:
| Direct or reflected light is just light. Same stuff.
|
| What matters is the content and quality of the light
| spectrum.
|
| LED lights or even LCD screens can be designed with a
| more or less healthy spectrum depending on the priorities
| of the manufacturer. But this is an economical problem
| that can be regulated.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Meh, what the hell. Immersed has a Linux build, I've got a spare
| headset, I decided to give it a whirl. While I'm a little
| disappointed by how little input the controller affords me, I'm
| impressed with how well it works! You've got my attention, but
| not my 40-50 hours a week... Yet.
|
| Edit/disclosure: corrected a typo I made while in VR
| revicon wrote:
| For me, the problem is I wear glasses and I have no interest in
| switching to contact lenses. I've never found a car headset that
| worked with glasses well
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I haven't looked into it for other devices, but it is
| technically possible with the Quest to get custom lenses for
| the Quest. Not from FB, but other companies have filled this
| space.
|
| I've gotten rid of my unit, but back when I had it, custom
| lenses were the best thing I did for comfort. I can't wear
| glasses close to my eyes, and was just generally miserable with
| the glasses squished in an already small space. The custom
| lenses solved all of that.
| kovek wrote:
| > If you need corrective lenses, get lens inserts: it's
| superior to wearing glasses, and I find it better than wearing
| contacts. For horrible astigmatic myopia like mine (-7.5), it
| was cheaper than most pairs of glasses I've had, and a totally
| reasonable expense since I use them all day for work.
| arc-in-space wrote:
| No problem at all. I use these: https://vroptician.com/
|
| Custom lenses, appropriate fitting for every major headset. The
| inserts don't seem to limit the field of view at all, and they
| even serve as an extra layer of protection against scratching
| the headset's particularly delicate lenses.
| bryceacc wrote:
| my glasses fit in the hp reverb g2, very snug though, i can get
| you caliper measurements if you care
| caslon wrote:
| There's actually a mod for this! $10 prescription wireframe
| glasses, pop the lenses out, 3D-print a facial interface for
| it. There's a guide for it somewhere.
| jdlyga wrote:
| The main problem is the poor image quality. It's much nicer to
| look at monitors than fuzzy text and images on the Oculus Quest
| or Oculus Quest 2. It also makes me feel sick after an hour even
| if I'm in a static space that's not moving.
| est wrote:
| I wonder what's the focal length like in a decent VR set?
|
| Is it just few centimeters or can be adjusted to be like 15
| meters?
| ptom wrote:
| It's currently fixed distance, until the varifocal tech
| improves. That distance is about 1.3m/4'3".
|
| You can change the effective stereographic distance though, so
| things _look_ like they 're pretty far away (or super close, if
| that's your thing), and the movement parallax, and eye
| convergence agree - but the resolving power is still the same
| for all objects in the visual field.
| barrenko wrote:
| "Memory Palaces, or the method of loci, is perhaps the most
| effective mnemonic device ever created. Dr. Lynne Kelly has
| proposed that pre-literate cultures maintained their encyclopedic
| knowledge by combining a similar approach with physical,
| ceremonial settings...
|
| _We use the very environment around us to think_ ".
|
| Yes, exactly. Great blog post.
| HMH wrote:
| > The trip from video encoding on the PC, over the WiFi, and
| display in the headset averages about 3ms for me, using a 5ghz
| access point that's several years old.
|
| Wow that's pretty impressive, especially considering the 4K main
| screen + additional virtual screens used. I wonder how you get
| the latency this low. 3ms means no buffering at all, neither
| during encoding nor decoding. The best I could achieve so far is
| a little less than 60ms but with the additional restriction that
| playback has to be done via browser.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I had major issues getting the latency down to something
| reasonable, so didn't end up trying immersed for more than 10
| minutes.
| smilespray wrote:
| Yeah, that's impressive. A little too impressive.
|
| Does OP have any documentation on how this latency can be
| achieved and measured?
| ptom wrote:
| Yes I do!
|
| 1. WiFi direct, or as direct as you can make it - which means
| the computer is either the AP itself, or wired directly to it
| in order to keep the hops short.
|
| 2. Measurement can be done via a companion ping that looks at
| frame timing, but that's kind of a secondary measure. Best
| way to _really_ check it is with high-speed video capture of
| a hardware display and the mirrored content in the headset,
| of a high-(temporal-)resolution stopwatch. I can also watch a
| YouTube video streamed with the desktop to the headset, and
| listen to it on headphones wired straight to the laptop, with
| no discernible offset (and this is with years of audio
| engineering experience) - the error bars on that subjective
| experience are much larger, but demonstrate that it 's at
| least usable.
|
| 3. Hardware acceleration, via Nvidia NVENC, and rather than
| use Immersed's own virtual screen tech, I usually rely on
| HDMI dummy plugs ($12 for a 3 pack) to maximize GPU
| throughput (and not cannibalize CPU cycles).
|
| 4. Not ALL content is going to move at this speed even in the
| best of circumstances - I have a low overall rate of change,
| which means the delta streaming of the NVENC encoder is super
| short: not much data to grab, not much data to send.
|
| I can absolutely get _worse_ rates than this if I want to
| push a ton of video content, or if I were to use it for
| gaming, etc. I don 't think everyone would have this level of
| performance for every use case, but it's what I've been able
| to achieve and maintain.
| smilespray wrote:
| Thank you for a good response, which takes into
| consideration several of my concerns.
|
| My advice would be to both include these points and
| demonstrate this (perhaps with a video) in your article, as
| latency is IMHO correctly perceived as the killer of
| several concepts, such as remote game streaming services
| and host-to-goggles interactivity. This is especially
| important as you're using a cheapish consumer device as
| your primary display.
|
| Do include the circumstances that contradict your 3ms
| claim. You do this elsewhere in your article (the gray old
| computers example) but it will serve to bolster your
| overarching argument.
| HMH wrote:
| Thanks for the insights!
|
| > Best way to really check it is with high-speed video
| capture of a hardware display and the mirrored content in
| the headset, of a high-(temporal-)resolution stopwatch.
|
| Agreed, it's a little cumbersome but afterwards you can be
| pretty confident in your result. Have you measured 3ms like
| that? Getting below 3ms with small deltas using NVENC
| sounds possible but considering that even with a refresh
| rate of 120fps there is over 8ms between two frames, 3ms
| does sound suspiciously low.
|
| One last question, have you done any experiments with the
| video codec, due to compatibility requirements I am pretty
| much limited to H.264 but was wondering if there is
| something better for super low latency encoding?
| georgewsinger wrote:
| This is such a great post, and really covers the _spiritual_
| aspects of what it 's like to work for prolonged periods in VR.
| Glad to see Immersed getting traction, and taking VR forward. We
| all benefit from this.
|
| For Linux enthusiasts (possibly the OP as as well): SimulaVR
| (www.simulavr.com) is working on a portable Linux VR headset with
| office/programmer productivity as the #1 goal. It will offer the
| following advantages over the OP's Immersed setup:
|
| 1. *More than double the text quality.* We are making a headset
| with more than double the PPD (pixels-per-degree) of the Oculus
| Quest 2. This is extremely important for facilitating multi-hour
| VR sessions without eye fatigue.
|
| 2. *Proper window management.* SimulaVR is a fully functional
| Linux window manager (built over Wayland/wlroots infrastructure).
| Unlike Immersed, it isn't just emulating screens on another host
| OS. This means you get an unlimited number of windows, popups can
| (when desired) behave as new windows, etc. No hacks are required
| to get this sort of functionality. It will also later on
| facilitate proper 3D/VR applications being able to share the same
| space with 2D applications.
|
| 3. *Proper portability.* Our headset is going to be fully
| portable (with a detachable compute pack in the back), and won't
| require you to tether your headset to another computer over WiFi,
| or take along an additional laptop just to get your VR computer
| working somewhere else.
|
| 4. *Proper hackability.* Simula is built over FOSS, and is not
| tethered to the Facebook platform. If there's something you want
| to change or tweak, you're free to do so.
|
| One thing Immersed has though is immediate availability and
| scalability (there are an unlimited supply of Oculus Quests
| floating around :). We're likely going to be constrained on the
| number of headsets we can produce, at least initially, and will
| have to queue first to the early users.
|
| We (and the industry at large) also have a lot of work ahead of
| us to improve upon a VR-centric UX (incorporating proper tiling
| management, and other things). Very exciting.
| MikusR wrote:
| Is there even a prototype?
| ptom wrote:
| OP here! I've been keeping a very close eye on the SimulaVR
| project for a while. I agree with most of what you've got here,
| and would love to be able to try it out in the future.
|
| One question I've got about the window management system - I
| make heavy use of virtual desktops so I can swap several
| windows out simultaneously (all my source code on one screen,
| my database GUIs on another, etc.). I'd run out of room using a
| spatially tiled VR interface unless I had "sets" or other
| groups of windows (or different vantage points); how is that
| being approached? Is there a "virtual desktop" equivalent?
|
| Any chance of coopting other hardware as part of your
| development/deployment strategy? (Vive Focus 3, maybe?)
|
| I'll definitely continue to watch the project - please let me
| know if I can ever be of service in the endeavor. You guys are
| building an awesome future.
| lwneal wrote:
| The current build of SimulaVR[1] does support workspaces,
| accessed via Super+number keyboard shortcuts. I use them like
| a higher-level alt+tab, to switch between a set of text
| editor windows (super+1) and a set of browser and terminal
| windows displaying test output (super+2).
|
| [1] https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/tree/dev#usage
| georgewsinger wrote:
| Hi ptom.
|
| 1. Simula is planning on adding a window tiling/window
| grouping dynamic to its UX. Agreed this is a useful feature,
| and we've heard from other people as well that this would
| improve things.
|
| A short-term hack though, since Simula is a fully functioning
| window manager, is to simply launch another window manager
| inside Simula as a client (e.g., launching i3 or xfce4 inside
| Simula, and using it as a way to group applications
| together).
|
| 2. We've been unable to get Linux support from other VR
| manufacturers in order to run Simula on other hardware. In
| fact, our initial goal was to only do this (so that we could
| focus on the software only), but eventually decided it was
| better to just build our own headset (in particular a high-
| fidelity one that is uniquely suited for office/programmer
| productivity).
|
| Would love to stay in contact. Your office VR setup really
| captures the spirit of the VR age.
| FieryTransition wrote:
| I have been eyeing the xr3 headset, it has a really good pixel
| density and arrangement, to the point it's unreal, but it's
| really expensive.
|
| But if you have enough money to burn, you can taste the future
| now.
| nullifidian wrote:
| solving vergence-accommodation conflict could also be important
| for long term use fatigue, which no current or near future
| headset even attempts to solve.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Gargoyles from Snow Crash are now becoming a reality.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Smartphones have already made aspects of being a gargoyle
| common to society, outside of the AR bits.
| amelius wrote:
| Question: what happens when you open a webpage that shows 3D
| content?
| nickpow43 wrote:
| ideally it would render stereoscopically but I imagine since
| most 3D applications control the camera themselves this will
| be difficult to make work across all things. 3D using css may
| work since it is up to the browser how it gets rendered.
| throwaway_2047 wrote:
| Would be great if there is support between navigation of 3D
| content and VR headset.
|
| If no support between them, there will be a virtual window
| embedding e.g https://threejs.org/examples/#webgl_decals ,
| which is weird
| m4rtink wrote:
| Simula looks like how ptoper open VR should be. If (and/or
| _when_ ) they can pull it of is still a question though.
| lindseymysse wrote:
| What is your webXR support going to be? I think for business
| applications, webXR is going to be the communication medium of
| choice.
|
| Nothing beats HTML for expressiveness and transmit-ability, and
| with frameworks like A-Frame you already have an enormous
| amount of software written for your headset.
|
| Between you guys and Frame.work, it feels like hardware might
| get inspiring again. Good luck!
| Xevi wrote:
| Wow, I noticed that it even has Tobii Eye Tracking. That's
| extremely exciting imo. It would allow me to code fully hands-
| free with something like Serenade/Talon, and just use the eye
| tracking to move the mouse.
|
| Can the headset be connected to a Windows PC? I'm running very
| heavy stuff when developing, and need all of the the horsepower
| available. On top of that I also need access to certain
| software that don't exist on Linux.
| danielEM wrote:
| What is more less the price range you expect for your headset?
| OOPMan wrote:
| I can't wait for the n-gate take on this...
| 0x4d464d48 wrote:
| "Realism will increase (perhaps to hyperrealism) and our ability
| to perceive and interact with simulated objects and settings will
| be indistinguishable to our senses."
|
| Hard pass from me.
|
| Gaming addiction was only officially recognized within roughly
| the past decade. The idea of developing some sort of dependance
| on virtual reality fills me with absolute dread. Whats worse is
| that companies promoting virtual offices like this have every
| incentive imaginable to promote this (hi Facebook!).
|
| I don't have anything against VR and think it has a lot of
| potential as a medium for gaming and the arts but theres a lot of
| danger in assuming there is no risk or minimizing the risks.
| Ignore the addictive power of the things which tune out the
| inconveniences of life at your own peril.
| overgard wrote:
| Idk it sounds nice for some people but I think he handwaves away
| real motion sickness concerns. I can't spend more than 10 minutes
| in VR without being dizzy. Maybe it gets there some day but Ive
| yet to try a headset without getting sick
| ptom wrote:
| Author here; no hand waving was intended, and I do make note of
| it in the FAQ.
|
| There's a lot of VR content I still can't handle, even though
| I've built a tolerance to many others. But for a stationary
| experience like productivity, where I at most walk in a very
| small area while at the standing desk, it's not applicable -
| I'm running 100fps+, and the 6DoF tracking does an excellent
| job.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > even with my higher-capacity headset and accessories, my entire
| outlay is easily competitive with a conventional multi-monitor
| configuration.
|
| I highly doubt it. My dual monitor setup cost me about PS300
| including a nice desk stand. No fancy GPU or anything required.
| If that VR setup really cost that much it would be an impulse buy
| for me.
| dougmwne wrote:
| The Oculus Quest 2 really is $299 and it's the only necessary
| piece of equipment. It's a standalone computing platform
| running a flagship mobile processor. It's a completely amazing
| device along several different use cases, VR office is just one
| of them. Gaming, art, media consumption, social, education,
| work and more are eventually going to get revolutionized by
| this tech. For any tech geek, I would recommend an immediate
| purchase.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Ah, I won't buy tech that needs a cloud subscription, though.
| Especially not one linked to Facebook.
| kovek wrote:
| Vario XR has a very good resolution. Did anyone try to code with
| it?
| ptom wrote:
| OP here - Doesn't run this particular software, and it's
| prohibitively expensive unless you've got corporate
| sponsorship. Would love to give it a try, though.
| caslon wrote:
| I think you mean Varjo. It's a pretty ridiculous headset, but
| the thing also forces you to buy a $2000/month subscription
| _after_ you purchase it. It 's safe to say it's not a really
| reasonable option.
|
| It also doesn't _actually_ have a particularly high resolution,
| and sort of cheats by making your periphery have a
| significantly lower resolution (hardware, not software, is
| responsible for this, so you can 't just turn foveated
| rendering off), which makes it good for many use cases, but
| worse for programming.
| samplatt wrote:
| Got a source for the "forces you to subscribe" bit?
| Everything I've seen says that part is optional.
|
| Also, even disregarding the extra focal-spot screens, you're
| wrong about the resolution. It's the highest of all headsets
| that don't have insanely wide FOV's like the Pimax8K, by a
| long way. 2880 x 2720 per eye (Varjo VR-3) > 1832 x 1920 per
| eye (Quest 2) > 1440 x 1600 per eye (Vive Pro 2) ~= 1600 x
| 1440 per eye (Valve Index)
| caslon wrote:
| https://store.varjo.com/xr-3
|
| _A valid Varjo XR subscription is required to use the
| device Every XR-3 user must have a Varjo account and a
| valid XR subscription. Read more here._
|
| You could have just checked the store.
| caslon wrote:
| Just to eliminate any doubt, the same is also the case
| for the VR-3 and every other Varjo model:
|
| _A valid Varjo VR subscription is required to use the
| device Every VR-3 user must have a Varjo account and a
| valid VR subscription. Read more here._
|
| https://store.varjo.com/vr-3
| gardaani wrote:
| I haven't tried coding on Varjo, but I've played Alyx on their
| Varjo VR-1 headset. The resolution is incredible! No blur, no
| pixels visible. While playing, I often just stopped to look at
| things to see pixels or other flaws in them, but I couldn't
| really see any flaws. Also, texts looked very sharp like in the
| real world.
| tcmb wrote:
| I have only 40% acuity in one of my eyes, is a typical VR headset
| still a good experience?
| modeless wrote:
| Yes, that shouldn't present any problem for using VR.
| wisienkas wrote:
| Discussed this with co-workers 2 years ago, seems this could be
| reality. I think for offices this might be a usecase for office
| mainframes coming back
| rcarmo wrote:
| Weird. I have a Quest 2 and the thought of having it constantly
| on my face (likely powered by cable) is... daunting.
| ptom wrote:
| OP here; it takes some getting used to. I've adapted well to
| it, but I also: replaced the facial interface, moved to a halo
| mount for better balance and reduced facial pressure, and keep
| everything clean and cool (small or medium desk fan, depending
| on the day).
| resonious wrote:
| I was really excited about VR for awhile when the Oculus Rift was
| first getting press. The idea of programming on an infinitely
| large screen also seemed really cool. I couldn't afford one at
| the time so just held out.
|
| Since then, I've been able to try a number of headsets and they
| all give me a headache after about 30 minutes. Depending on how
| the camera moves around, I can speedrun getting a headache in
| less than 5 minutes.
|
| Does anyone else experience this? The OP's setup or SimulaVR
| sound really cool but I highly doubt I'll be able to do it for
| any productive amount of time.
| suyash wrote:
| It's like being in front of a large television screen for many
| hours. Can't be good for your eyes, curious to hear how your eye
| test results will come out after 6 months to year of 40-50
| hours/week of VR usage.
| inDigiNeous wrote:
| Curious about how blasting WiFi next to your head 8 hours a day
| affects your brain also, especially when dealing with high
| bandwidth streams like video all the time.
| drath wrote:
| There is nothing wrong with sitting in front of a large
| television screen, as long as your eyes are not dry and you
| don't look at one point all time.
| Doxin wrote:
| The main difference there is that the lenses in a VR headset
| make the focus plane be infinitely far away. The main thing
| that's bad for your eyes with monitors and TVs is focusing your
| eyes up close for hours and hours. If anything a VR headset
| would be better for your eyes than a regular monitor.
| rspoerri wrote:
| Funny ppl downvote this comment while it's actually true. If
| you check out the "focal distance" of "focus plane" you will
| find out that everything you see in vr is on a fixed
| distance. What distance it is depends on the vr glasses
| (2m-infinity). I am unsure wether it's proven to be better,
| but it's surely not worse then watching a screen at 50cm
| distance all day long.
| kgwgk wrote:
| Infinitely far away as in 1.3m away according to other
| comments. How close are you to your tv?
| rspoerri wrote:
| not "as in" but depending on the vr glasses.
| sp332 wrote:
| Elevr had some great research and blog posts about this kind of
| thing, but they ran out of funding and even the website is gone
| now. Here are a couple of my favorites:
|
| The Office of the Future
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190816013625/http://elevr.com/...
|
| The Three Scales
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190830025347/http://elevr.com/...
| ptom wrote:
| Author of the article here - these are really cool, thanks for
| sharing! I'd not seen these at the time, they were definitely
| working on good stuff - the technology is taking a while to
| catch up.
| malloreon wrote:
| I'd like to try this if there was an option to do so without
| giving Facebook money.
| stubish wrote:
| Curious if the op now uses quick head movements to focus
| attention rather than rapid eye movement. I haven't used the
| Oculus, but with another headset found reading text to the far
| left or right difficult, as the resolution there is poor. Moving
| your head so the text is centered increases the pixel density and
| the text becomes readable.
| ptom wrote:
| OP here; some of each, actually. The resolution does drop off
| at the edges, especially with more aggressive foveated
| rendering (which I turn off, so as to get as much clarity as
| possible). I do end up moving my head, but it's casual rather
| than quick, certainly not like darting around. The end result
| is improved ergonomics, too - used to be, with a fixed monitor
| my neck would become very tight and snap/crack horribly when
| stretching after a long session. The frequent movement in VR
| has completely eliminated that issue while working.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| I've had to do a lot of reading for work and I have to say, the
| Quest 2 has saved me from a lot of migraines, because I can
| recline while reading so as not put strain on my neck.
|
| I'm not a Zuck fan, but damn the Quest 2 is a game changer for
| me.
| ptom wrote:
| OP here - I suffer from migraines as well; being able to work
| in a black void with minimal interface has helped me be
| functional in situations I'd otherwise just have to stay in
| bed, triptans notwithstanding. I didn't want to bring it up in
| the article though because I didn't want to make false promises
| or urge migraine sufferers to adopt it - in the early days of
| VR, the bad software IPD management in the DK2 would actually
| _trigger_ migraines for me.
|
| As an accessibility tool I'm delighted to see it working for
| another migraine sufferer though.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Hey! Yes, that's why I thought to bring it up in the comments
| here, just in case there were other people in the same boat.
| I'm glad it worked for you.
|
| I've been wanting to do more to get towards your setup i.e
| coding in VR, but just haven't had the time. That's why I got
| excited when I saw your post, because now I've got the
| blueprints :)
|
| If I ever move more into this, I'll blog about it and credit
| your post. Thanks again!
| spiderice wrote:
| How can you stand reading on something with as low resolution
| as the Quest 2? That sounds painful.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| The in-built browser with large font, and also Adobe Acrobat
| side-loaded works really well. I'd rather have larger text
| than usual if it can save me from a sore neck.
| superasn wrote:
| I don't know but for some reason this article feels like one of
| those things - which is what will be see in a show 20 years from
| now about where/how it all started.
|
| Like the guys from 1980s talking about video games in the recent
| Netflix documentary 'high score', where some people started
| spending 8+ hours a day playing games with really primitive
| graphics because it was just enough to be enjoyable.
|
| VR now seems like something that is almost finally ready to
| explode and like the atari or iphone is going to change all our
| lives forever.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Yes VR a technology that's been around since the 90s is finally
| going to take off ... maybe ...can anyone name another
| technology that started decades before and later became a
| product that changed the world like the iPhone?
|
| Why would I want to wear a headset strapped to my face for
| hours to interact with memojis of my co-workers? I've
| definitely tried out VR games in the past few years ... cool,
| but novel fun and the headset strapped to my face annoyed me.
| soylentcola wrote:
| The example you gave (iPhone) is itself the result of decades
| of advances in microprocessors, cellular communication,
| display tech, and input devices. Apple was successful because
| they put in the resources to develop a device with mass
| consumer appeal once the underlying tech and engineering
| allowed for it.
|
| You could've asked someone 20 years earlier "why would you
| want to walk around with a suitcase attached to a phone so
| you could make calls from your car?" Or you could ask someone
| 10 years earlier why they would want to carry a small brick
| in their pocket so they could scribble notes with a tiny
| stylus. Or 5 years earlier why they would want a phone that
| ran "apps" when you had to buy them at the store on SD cards
| and interact via a small resistive touch screen.
|
| Few-to-none of these things spring fully formed from the
| minds of a lone genius. They're the result of identifying new
| and potentially useful things that can be done with tools
| that are just becoming good enough to be adequate.
| dcx wrote:
| Yes, lots of technologies work like that. Solar panels. Deep
| learning in pretty much its modern form was invented decades
| ago, but had to wait for the hardware to get good enough to
| show results. Personal computing took decades to take off.
| Heavier than air travel spent centuries as a curiosity.
|
| Tipping points are fundamental to the nature of reality.
| Technology improves through decades of little tweaks and
| incremental improvements, which can sometimes bring a
| technology to a point where it's optimal and suddenly
| dominates the landscape.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Sure I agree with you but the cellphone brief case of the
| 90s looks way different our iPhones.
|
| The form factor basic idea of VR hasn't changed since the
| 90s which is still strap a bulky headset to your face.
| Prescription or sunglasses aren't bulky ..what humans have
| worn for possibly centuries.
|
| Maybe it will finally change how we play video games but
| working virtually with my coworkers emojis for 8 hours or
| long periods of time with a headset strapped to my face is
| lol
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Do not confuse the existence of a technology with its
| viability as a consumer product.
|
| VR may have been invented in the 90s, but it likely wasn't
| until a few years ago that we could do it well enough and
| cheaply enough to make it worthwhile for consumer-level
| gamers.
|
| VR in the 90s was incredibly low resolution and and had low
| framerates, not to mention thousands of dollars and with
| shitty latency. It was ugly and nauseating.
|
| To make VR useable for consumers, it had to be semi-
| affordable and attractive. It wasn't until the last 10 years
| as small high-DPI LCD screens dropped in price and PCs could
| render at the 90+ fps needed to keep latency low (And really,
| since it's 90+ fps PER EYE, it's really rendering at 180 fps)
| that VR became viable.
| titzer wrote:
| I can tell you what, that much screen time right _on your face_
| is going to fucking _ruin_ millions of eyes.
| ianlevesque wrote:
| The actual focal distance on a Quest 2 is about six feet,
| that's further away than I keep my desk monitors.
| titzer wrote:
| The issue isn't (only) the focal distance. The difference
| is that your desk monitors don't encapsulate your entire
| eye cavities and cause pupil dilation, pumping blue light
| directly onto your retinas, which has been suspected to
| accelerate macular degeneration, night-blindness, and dry
| eye, as well as cause poor sleep.
|
| https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/blue-light-health
| Loocid wrote:
| Can't you use blue light filters in VR like you can with
| regular monitors (eg Flux or Windows Night light)?
| dougmwne wrote:
| Yes, that is a system level software option in the Oculus
| menu, along with brightness control.
| westoncb wrote:
| Is there some basis for thinking that? AFAICT your eyes/brain
| seem to overlook the physical location of the screen and are
| tricked into variably focusing based on simulated depth.
| titzer wrote:
| It's not just focal distance, but also accommodation and
| general eye coordination. (Today's) VR screws up your
| visual neurological systems and studies show this:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003
| 6...
| Kiro wrote:
| Worth it.
| frankenst1 wrote:
| Are "focal distance" and "accomodation" separate issues?
| Isn't accomodation focusing on an object at a certain
| distance?
| titzer wrote:
| Sorry, I meant to also mention _convergence_ , which is
| the movement of the two eyes together to focus on near
| objects because of line-of-sight. This is perhaps the
| bigger problem.
| ux-app wrote:
| >are tricked into variably focusing based on simulated
| depth
|
| No, the focal distance in a headset is fixed. The light
| hitting your eye is always coming in at the same angle.
| stuaxo wrote:
| I wonder if you end up short sighted.
| sharmin123 wrote:
| How to hack someone's phone | 6 Ways to hack someone's phone:
| https://www.hackerslist.co/how-to-hack-someones-phone-6-ways...
| mulmen wrote:
| Please, for the love of everything good, do not hijack the right
| click.
| brightstep wrote:
| Anyone else _not_ want to cut themselves off from physical
| reality for hours at a time for productivity purposes? I like
| looking away from my screen and seeing my dog and cat on the
| couch. I like looking out my window. I like being distracted by a
| car driving by. This sounds awful.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| It doesn't just sounds "awful" to me...it sounds absolutely
| hellish. Reminds somewhat of being "jacked-in" to The Matrix
| and completely "blue pilled".
|
| As time goes on and technology becomes sufficiently advanced, I
| can't help but feel all the dystopian nightmare sci-fi created
| as _warnings_ are instead being used as instruction manuals by
| power hungry Silicon Valley execs.
| brightstep wrote:
| Those novels are natural extrapolations, deductions given the
| way our economy and society are organized. They are warnings,
| but given the incentives of market capitalism, they are in
| many ways inevitable. Even if Facebook et al decided not to
| do such things on moral grounds, it wouldn't be long before
| someone else appeared to fill the void.
| fouric wrote:
| Very few things are "inevitable", and I don't think that
| the things you cite are an exception. Regulation exists for
| a reason, and we have many examples of going from _worse_
| conditions to _better_ ones e.g. from the 12-hour workdays
| to 8-hour workdays and banning child labor. Don 't give up
| - these are things that can be legislated around.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| The Matrix, according to the lore, was created as the perfect
| world for humans to happily live in :)
| closetohome wrote:
| _Did you know that the first VR office was designed to be a
| perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone
| would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the
| program. Entire interns were lost._
| Diggsey wrote:
| Maybe things have improved a lot since I last tried VR, but the
| combination of low effective resolution and distortion from the
| fresnel lens (which also produces a kind of discretization effect
| similar to visible pixels) meant it was very unsuited to
| productivity tasks.
|
| (Gaming was amazing though...)
| erikbye wrote:
| Not to mention the terrible lens glare.
| ptom wrote:
| Hi! OP here - the discretization effect is also known as the
| "screen door" effect. That can be even worse when the VR is
| trying to provide a picture of a picture.
|
| It's improved a little bit, but still takes a lot of tweaking
| to maximize readability. I'd say it's "maybe passable" for most
| users without a lot of patience to do that tuning and
| compromise in favor of density over beauty.
|
| So it might not be there for you yet - but it's moving in the
| right direction.
| erikbye wrote:
| I tried working like this but the resolution is not there yet,
| not sure why some people are not bothered by this. For me it's
| very important text is as crisp as on my 4k display.
| pornel wrote:
| I'm very surprised that OP is using Quest 2 instead of a high-
| end headset. I don't think VR is ready yet for working with
| text.
| Filligree wrote:
| The Quest 2 works without any stationary equipment. (LIDARs,
| whatever.) This makes it massively more portable, and the
| resolution is _almost_ good enough. It 's also much cheaper.
|
| Personally I wouldn't do it, but it'd be difficult to use a
| setup based around e.g. the Pimax without building a room
| around it, and... at that point why not just install some
| regular monitors? You can buy quite a few at that price
| point.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Quest 2 has a higher resolution than Valve Index.
|
| IIRC, the only headset with a higher resolution than Q2 is a
| PiMax.
| dkh wrote:
| There are plenty of people who don't seem to notice how crappy
| things look when their monitor is set to non-native resolution,
| or the differences between SD/HD/4K, or a clearly uprezzed JPG.
| Might be something to do with what they are used to, and/or
| their individual eyesight. Resolution is just as critical for
| me as it is for you, but my eyesight is good and my eyes/brain
| are pretty well-trained from years of having to do things like
| spot a single dead pixel in a 6.5k video frame for a living.
| jjcm wrote:
| This is a great breakdown of the early state of VR productivity.
| There are still a few key items that are barriers for me
| personally:
|
| 1. Eye and face tracking. The author mentions lip syncing and
| hand tracking. That goes a long way, but it doesn't recreate the
| video experience to me. There are a few vtubers out there that
| are doing some seriously impressive tracking, but it requires
| tons of special equipment at the moment. Once this gets resolved
| in a consumer model, I think things will really shine for virtual
| presence.
|
| 2. Lighter weight headsets. For longer sessions, a custom
| headstrap helps a ton, but even still lighter headsets will go a
| long ways to helping here.
|
| 3. Better lenses and better displays. The lower res means you're
| really forced to work at huge virtual screen sizes, as the author
| mentions. While this is the least needed item in this list for
| basic productivity, the screen door effect definitely creates a
| barrier some of the time.
|
| I highly anticipate that we'll see a sizable portion of the
| population change over to VR for productivity within ten years.
| It has huge potential, especially with the remote work
| environment many are in these days. I would love to be able to
| feel the presence of people around me again, while still not
| having a commute or the risks associated with being physically in
| the same room.
| qq4 wrote:
| > risks associated with being physically in the same room
|
| What risks are you anticipating in ten years time?
| drited wrote:
| The latest firmware update for the Quest 2 (v33 [1]) brought
| "Link sharpening" which improves text clarity when connecting
| to your PC through Air Link (wirelessly) or Link (via USB). I
| tested before and after the update. Before the resolution
| wasn't quite there for coding etc., but I could definitely work
| with the post-update resolution.
|
| As an aside, a handy cheap way to get more screens in VR with
| Oculus Link is to insert a headless HDMI plug into your video
| card. This also works for creating new screens in VR using
| Immersed although they claim that the virtual screens (paid
| feature) work better.
|
| [1]: https://support.oculus.com/release-notes/
| caslon wrote:
| There are actually a few decent choices for eye tracking now (a
| company that was just acquired by Bytedance had a pretty good
| eye-tracking standalone), and there are a few crazy headsets
| that do all of your listed requirements for 1. and _more_ , but
| they're all in the $1,000+ range.
|
| Lighter-weight headsets is something necessary but also
| something that is in sort of a weird spot. The Quest 2 is
| actually a lot heavier than average, because it's standalone.
| As cool as it is, it's regressive in some interesting ways.
|
| For better displays, there's already some pretty impressive
| displays these days if you don't mind jumping up in price a few
| notches. Enthusiast-range, for sure, but still consumer models.
| rattray wrote:
| Which device would you overall recommend for all day
| productivity use?
| caslon wrote:
| Honestly, it depends on what your setup is. I would
| recommend taking a look at the recent Pimax headsets, the
| Quest 2, and the new Reverb G2 Omnicept, figuring out which
| features you can't live without (and which price tags you
| can), then picking one.
| josephg wrote:
| > The author mentions lip syncing and hand tracking. That goes
| a long way, but it doesn't recreate the video experience to me.
|
| The oculus team put together a seriously jawdropping demo of
| facial tracking using a few cameras in a headset, combined with
| a lot of AI. The prototype was from a couple years ago. I can't
| wait until it makes it into commercial headsets. I wonder what
| the hold up is?
|
| Well worth a look if you haven't seen it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XcQtoja_Y
| the_af wrote:
| Your last paragraph reminded me of Isaac Asimov's novel "The
| Naked Sun" and his fictional world of Solaria, where people
| have grown used to living far from each other and only "meet"
| in VR, and this has happened long enough that people feel
| repulsed by other people and feel sick if they believe they are
| in the actual presence of another person.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Well that one certainly came to pass, didn't it?
|
| The pandemic is the best opportunity FB will ever have to
| push VR into the mainstream. Zuck has also been playing up
| that it could replace business travel post pandemic and there
| have been leaked specs for a Quest Pro that would deliver a
| very cutting edge productivity experience.
| wlamartin wrote:
| Years ago I had a dream that VR companies had released an
| airborne virus such that the only way for humans to
| experience outside was to wear VR tech.
|
| I woke up thinking, "I need to invest in drone deliveries!"
| ekianjo wrote:
| > change over to VR for productivity within ten years
|
| Curious, but why not AR for productivity rather than VR? Both
| could work, and AR is less invasive.
| Groxx wrote:
| AR has a lot further to go on a fundamental technology level
| to reach "usable without uncomfortably dim surroundings". VR
| already works.
|
| E.g. the very best AR stuff you can buy right now is still
| moderately-bright glowing pixels on top of whatever you're
| currently looking towards. So if you have too much contrast
| in the background, or actual light sources, they show right
| through and ruin much of the visual clarity.
|
| As much as I like AR as a concept, it's much further from
| "ready". It has all the complexities of VR, plus real-world
| tracking, plus visual overlay - it'll necessarily trail VR
| until those latter two are "good enough", and they certainly
| are not at the moment.
| kderbyma wrote:
| if they had some form of e-ink like backing it could block
| the light on the external side and the. render the emitting
| light on the eyes side
| kirrent wrote:
| How do you block light away from the focal plane? There's
| been research headsets with incredibly long and
| convoluted indirect light paths so that an attenuation
| layer could be inserted at a separate focal plane.
| There's also out of focus attenuation layers which can be
| surprisingly effective. Neither seems sufficient for a
| consumer headset.
| leereeves wrote:
| Why don't AR headsets use variable tint sunglass lenses to
| dim the incoming light?
| Groxx wrote:
| There have been some tech demos along these lines -
| basically an LCD filter layer that turns black where the
| pixels are lighting up.
|
| Last I saw, that opaque layer's pixel density was far too
| coarse (so it blocked too much or too little - it needs
| like >10x higher density than the highest density
| consumer screens out now), and every tech I've seen has
| had a fundamental issue with focus - we can project AR
| pixels at comfortable focus ranges with complex enough
| techniques, but nothing exists to project "darkness", so
| it's at an entirely different visual and focal distance
| as the pixels, and it never looks quite right.
|
| On top of that, you can't really use it to make semi-
| opaque pixels - you can only darken, and draw brighter
| stuff on top. So even if you solve ^ all that, you
| _still_ have to accurately track the world, figure out
| what 's being occluded, and re-draw that along with the
| pixel you want to draw. Without blocking vision, so the
| cameras to do all this can't see exactly the same thing
| you see.
|
| ... so every AR headset just adds a pair of literal
| sunglasses behind it all to dim the world so things don't
| look quite as bad, and that's the best we have now.
|
| In VR with a couple cameras, you... just draw a semi-
| opaque pixel on top. And it looks perfect.
| Impossible wrote:
| VR with pass-through might still win this because it's more
| practical for work scenarios. Arguably this is still AR, but
| subtly different than HMDs with transparent displays.
| jjcm wrote:
| I would argue that the future of AR is VR with passthrough.
| AR fundamentally has issues with light passing through the
| display screen. VR passthrough is solvable with current tech.
| AR that solves the problem of not being able to selectively
| block out light is a breakthrough or two away.
| idorosen wrote:
| This can't be good for your eyes.
| formvoltron wrote:
| Maybe take a walk & find a girlfriend?
| dougmwne wrote:
| Friend, this is probably not the website for you.
| jstrieb wrote:
| > Complete control over my visual environment is like using
| noise-canceling headphones for my eyes.
|
| Could not agree more. I tried out a much simpler setup on my
| friend's Oculus Go (predecessor to the Quest 2, since abandoned
| by Facebook), and was amazed at how well I was able to focus.
|
| For my setup, I used the a web browser on the headset itself to
| connect to ttyd [0] running on my computer for doing programming
| homework when I was in college, and it worked really well. I
| wrote about my experience, and drew similar conclusions. [1]
|
| When I looked into immersive coding environments at that time, I
| didn't find much. I guess I didn't look hard enough...
|
| [0] https://github.com/tsl0922/ttyd
|
| [1] https://jstrieb.github.io/posts/vr-programming/
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| The future of cubicles.
| fouric wrote:
| Cubicles suck, but if I'm going to be stuck in one anyway, I
| might as well opt to block everything out of my vision except
| for my screen. My monitor bezels, keyboard, mouse, desk
| surface, phone, post-it notes, office locker, etc. are just
| distractions unless I actively need to interact with them.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I suppose so, but in a remote world it might be _your_
| cubicle? Probably just another bifurcation between the
| "cattle" (provocative term that I disagree with but still)
| and the 5x-ers (HN readers...).
|
| One man's prison is another man's minimalist office?
| MrDresden wrote:
| Sounds interesting, and I'd love to try this.
|
| However I am never buying an Oculus device, for fear and loathing
| of anything made by Facebook. Having to have and use a FB
| account, with their track record of privacy blunders has
| completely alienated me from all their products.
|
| Sadly that doesn't leave very many options on the table, some of
| which cost an arm and a leg.
| OneTimePetes wrote:
| Now can i train a NN that parses the code and my actions as input
| and auto-rearranges the windows depending on the workflow?
| drumttocs8 wrote:
| "...experience less eye strain than I ever did with a bunch of
| desk-bound LCDs."
|
| Is this really true? As someone who has never used VR, I assumed
| that an issue would be higher eye strain.
| ptom wrote:
| Hi! OP here. The screens are physically close, but the lenses
| give it an effective focal range of about 1.3m / 4'2", further
| than most monitors are placed. It feels a lot further, though.
|
| As other posters have shared, the bigger issue is that the
| focal plane is _static_ , at least until the varifocal
| technology matures. Getting good eye exercise outside of VR is
| important, just like it is with all-day computer work.
|
| Cheers!
| titzer wrote:
| Exposure to UV light (not blue light) is also really
| important for eyes. Get good eye exercise
| outside...literally. Outdoors.
| dr_faustus wrote:
| nauseating
| smarri wrote:
| I had an interesting VR experience, I bought the Oculus during
| lockdown when I had some time off work. I played a lot of hours
| over a few days to complete the Walking Dead Game. What I felt
| was most curious, was afterwards I now have visual memories of
| being in the apocalyptic town fighting zombies. Almost like, a
| fake memory of it. I think because VR is total visual immersion,
| there could be some memory link unlike that which can be found
| from film or monitor based games.
| ptom wrote:
| That was my experience with the Tuscany demo from the DK1 days
| - my brain craved the missing sensations, such as the change in
| temperature from sunlight falling on my face, or the texture of
| the worn stone pillars, the humidity on various surfaces. But
| then thinking back on it later, I didn't remember the screen
| door effect, or many of the things that _didn 't_ work - the
| visual memory was as though I'd actually been in that place.
| smarri wrote:
| Glad to hear of your experience too. I wonder if there is any
| research being done in this area? Seems like an interesting
| opportunity to explore and understand memory in a new way.
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