[HN Gopher] Lenovo's Glasses T1 let you bring a private big scre...
___________________________________________________________________
Lenovo's Glasses T1 let you bring a private big screen display with
you
Author : taubek
Score : 160 points
Date : 2022-09-03 14:20 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| numpad0 wrote:
| Is it actually different from Nreal goggles or is this a
| rebadged/licensed for better market support?
| Philip-J-Fry wrote:
| I get the idea, but why would you extend your laptop screen with
| this? Considering there's no VR or AR type tracking, as soon as
| you look at your laptop it would be obstructed by the second
| screen. Granting you no real benefits.
|
| Edit: Apparently there's an accelerometer which can activate a
| screen when you look up vs looking down. But seems like that'd be
| clunky.
| Theodores wrote:
| This is a product that has been invented before.
|
| The original Virtual IO glasses of the late 90's were a
| consumer product that was riding the Virtuality hype that was
| in vogue at the time. They failed in the marketplace, however,
| I remember meeting the rep and what he had to say. I was
| absolutely smitten by the product and 'knew it was the future'
| even though that video was somewhat VGA, so not even SD
| resolution. It was in 'stereo' unlike Virtuality, which relied
| on novelty to give the impression of 3D.
|
| The use case apart from immersive gaming was just so you could
| watch TV whilst doing tasks such as washing dishes or making
| dinner. From what I remember there was a means of seeing the
| world around you, either out the bottom or with transparency in
| the image. I can't quite remember. There was composite video as
| an input, which was in a cheaper variant of the product which
| had no head tracking, it really was just for watching video.
|
| This was in the late 90's when the big new thing was DVD,
| however, there were two competing formats. Some products such
| as the Virtual IO glasses were waiting in the wings for this
| market to take off, at a point in time where zero DVDs had been
| sold.
|
| Games did need to be written for it and I think the trick was
| interlacing, half the VGA went to one eye and half to the
| other. It would be up to the developer to write the rest. At
| the time Windows 95 was new and DirectX plus OpenGL as we know
| it on Windows was in version 0.1.0 with games being DOS.
|
| As you can imagine, this 'watch a soap opera whilst doing the
| washing up' market with an imagined vast mass of Americans
| ready to by the product never happened. Price was perceived as
| the problem to adoption, hence the Virtual IO product tried to
| address that by being competitively priced, with the 'TV
| watching' cheapo version available too.
|
| The product was compelling but the imagined mass market was
| never there. If you want to do stuff in the kitchen and have
| the TV on then you just put a TV in the kitchen. You don't
| think 'oh, I must get that expensive headset to watch TV whilst
| I am preparing dinner'.
|
| Another factor that is overlooked is that people have
| traditionally been adverse to wanting to be seen wearing a VR
| headset. There is that matter of losing peripheral vision and
| security, you are not going to wear anything that blinds you on
| the subway journey home. Second to that, and not appreciated by
| some, is that a lot of people put a great deal of effort into
| their appearance - make up is a thing - and being out and about
| is about seeing as well as being seen. Times have changed, but
| even still, Google misjudged this aspect.
|
| Imagine if you had a VR/AR headset that had week long battery,
| infinite resolution, zero latency tracking and only cost $50.
| Would your sister, mum or dad be wearing them? Or would they
| just be checking their phone every ten minutes?
|
| They probably would not have the use case of boring household
| chores as microwave ready meals, dishwashing machines and food
| delivery services have solved that problem for those that need
| it.
| akelly wrote:
| With transparent lenses and no tracking, how are these better
| than the non-transparent video glasses that have been available
| for two decades and never caught on? The contrast ratio on any
| transparent display is terrible since the pixels can't block
| light, only add light. The darkest black levels you can get is
| however much tinting you apply to your glass.
|
| Looks to me like Lenovo developed some display tech for AR and
| then couldn't get the tracking working and decided to ship a tech
| demo.
| huijzer wrote:
| I think these devices make a lot of sense. No big monitors
| anymore.
|
| Does anyone know how these glasses are for the eyes? Will the
| cause more nearsightedness?
| [deleted]
| lmarcos wrote:
| Wonder how comfortable they are for people who already wear
| glasses.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Site has no way to reject tracking cookies.
| dexterdog wrote:
| Too bad more sites can't be like that and leave it up to the
| browser
| tommyderami wrote:
| They are mentioned in the article, but I just picked up a pair of
| NREAL air glasses to use with my steam deck and I am blown away
| so far--the price point is about 1/3 of the T1s but most of the
| specs are very similar. The support for fixing the screen using
| the 3dof sensors is limited to their android nebula app for now
| but if they write a driver that allows it on a computer that
| would be helpful, but for now I find they are most comfortable to
| use in a fixed position (ie laying back on the couch). The
| technology to make compelling head mounted displays is finally
| here--I've owned various HMDs for drone viewing but nothing I'd
| want to relax and watch a movie/play a game on (the screens are
| usually too small and 480p resolution at best). More competition
| will only improve the space so kudos to Lenovo!
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| My dream gadget is seethru glasses/goggles that can embed a fixed
| screen in the corner of the FoV so that I can half-attentively
| watch TV or Youtube videos while cooking, running, etc.
|
| I'd give up half my FoV for it. Audiobooks are great but
| sometimes I want even more stimulation while I'm doing something
| else.
| loriverkutya wrote:
| How much I would love a world where most of the people were
| walking on the street, having conversation with you, etc while
| watching something on the glasses and how much it would mess up
| the last crumbles of attention span we have.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Eh, that world is already here in the form of smartphones. I
| must wonder if you realize that yet since it seems like my
| nonexistent device is what made you finally ponder it.
|
| I love the serendipity of meeting people and impromptu
| conversation, but that doesn't mean my entire day is spent
| around people. In fact, the examples I give (cooking,
| exercising) are specifically things I do alone on my own.
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| pass, will end up in electronics drawer in less than one year
| adultSwim wrote:
| I was really bummed when Intel shut down its smart glasses
| project. That seemed like really promising technology that hasn't
| been picked up elsewhere.
| drewg123 wrote:
| I want to trade my laptop for a set of glasses like these, plus a
| portable keyboard/mouse and drive everything from my phone.
| Imagine being able to code on a plane with a large screen,
| without having to worry about fitting it into the space in front
| of you..
| mellosouls wrote:
| You can already do that with Quest VR headset though the
| embarrassment factor is rather more sizeable.
| mbreese wrote:
| Hard to set that boundary zone accurately on a plane
| though...
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I have a friend who does this for productivity reasons. When
| all you need is a shell to write code in, a phone actually does
| extremely well because you can project it to your TV and
| there's just less opportunities for distraction compared to a
| full desktop PC where there's the temptation to aimlessly
| browse the web or play video games.
| FeistySkink wrote:
| Can you share his setup?
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| I like the promotional images, where all the people are sitting
| behind screens with those glasses on.
| andsoitis wrote:
| How do these "monitors-on-your-face" impact eye health?
| hbarka wrote:
| Light brightness and spectrum are associated with retinal
| damage. Blue light from LED overexposure can certainly do harm
| and can also affect your sleep cycle and hormone balance. I
| would not bake my eyes with these things anytime soon.
| crazygringo wrote:
| All of this is totally untrue for a device like this.
|
| The brightness is orders of magnitude less than daylight,
| there's zero retinal damage happening. They're not outputting
| UV so zero spectrum issues as well. There's also no "blue
| light overexposure", it's balanced.
|
| Yes, cool color temperatures late at night can keep you up.
| Which is why 'night mode' exists, even the Oculus Quest 2 has
| it -- it's trivial to solve using software alone. But that's
| no different from staying up playing exciting video games or
| watching too much TV because of the cliffhanger at the end of
| each episode.
|
| But nothing is "baking your eyes", sheesh. And using these
| for productivity during the daytime will affect your sleep
| and hormones precisely zero. Being outdoors on a sunny day,
| or even a cloudy day, is flooding your eyes with orders of
| magnitude more blue light than these dinky little screens.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Whether it's true or not, I know for me personally I prefer
| a much darker screen to most other people. My monitor for
| example is currently on 0% brightness. I find bright
| monitors uncomfortable to look at.
| hbarka wrote:
| You can't possibly say it's untrue because long term
| effects have not been studied for this device but it is a
| documented fact that screens aren't good for us. Having it
| literally an inch from your retina cannot make it more
| benign.
|
| https://health.clevelandclinic.org/are-led-lights-
| damaging-y...
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yes I can say it's untrue because it's simple physics.
|
| You can literally measure the light spectrum from
| sunlight and from LED screens. Daytime sunlight is full
| of blue light, far more than from a screen. It's
| physically impossible for LED's to do some sort of damage
| that doesn't happen from regular walking around outdoors,
| because it's 100% known what they emit.
|
| And an inch from your retina makes zero difference when
| the brightness is much less than daytime and the focal
| length is far. Because with lenses, as far as your eyes
| are concerned, the light _is_ coming from far away.
|
| You don't need to study long-term effects when the
| physics are 100% known here.
|
| Again, blue light _close to bedtime_ is the only thing
| that 's different, and that's trivial to fix.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Citation needed. The first wave of reports I saw suggested
| this, the second wave suggested the reverse (no damage, no
| hit to sleep duration or quality). What's the current
| consensus, if any?
| crazygringo wrote:
| The same as VR, which is to say... none at all?
|
| Obviously the lenses make it seem like the virtual image is
| several feet away, so in terms of focusing it's no different
| from an actual object several feet away. If anything, it's
| probably healthier than a computer monitor that sits up closer.
| Plus, these glasses would actually be better than a VR headset
| in that the lenses can be designed so that the focal distance
| matches the virtual screen distance perfectly. (In VR, there's
| a mismatch for most distances.)
|
| The only thing you might have to worry about is interpupillary
| distance (IPD) -- the space between the OLED displays needs to
| be adjustable to the space between your eyes. E.g. the Oculus
| Quest 2 has 3 settings for this, while the Quest 1 had a smooth
| adjustment. Adjustable IPD is essential, so I'd assume this
| either has it or they'll sell different versions for different
| IPD's?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > The same as VR, which is to say... none at all?
|
| VAC is not yet solved for VR, and while it can be mitigated
| it's still significant cause of eye strain.
| jrootabega wrote:
| I'd bet they're going to be overall better for your health.
| You'll be able to have a focal distance farther than a
| screen, without having to look up or down (causing eye and
| neck strain), while also choosing the healthiest posture for
| yourself.
| chrischen wrote:
| Can't possibly make the eyes in China any worse. But in all
| seriousness, if they cause you to be cross eyed like regular VR
| glasses, then it has the same negative impact on development of
| eyesight as normal VR/3D has.
| sp332 wrote:
| Crossing your eyes to look at something is normal. What's
| weird is that it's all at one focus depth, so your individual
| eyes don't need to refocus on things that should be at
| different distances, even though you're still getting the
| depth signal from crossing your eyes.
| numpad0 wrote:
| "VR gets you cross eyes and impacts development" has never
| been substantiated, so far only the opposites were reported
| online. That means there are unknown side effects, but don't
| seem like there are serious harms.
| aspyct wrote:
| On my camera, the viewfinder (the thing you use to look
| "through" the lens) is a screen. You can alter dioptry, which,
| AFAIK, is the equivalent of "moving the screen back".
| Essentially, you can have the screen visually as close or far
| as comfortable.
|
| Odds are, these glasses have that built-in. And it's going to
| be a lot better for your eyesight than staring at a screen 50cm
| away from your face.
| jfoster wrote:
| If this worked well enough, some "laptops" could become just a
| slab with a keyboard & touchpad on it. Screens are thin & light
| already, but perhaps there would be some power savings in that?
| swader999 wrote:
| Or mini format with a power brick when you don't want to use
| the plug.
| arberx wrote:
| This would be super convenient in tight, small workplaces like
| airplanes (as advertised in the video).
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Very useful for shutting out those chatty people who don't
| realize some of us have stuff to do on deadlines even if we're
| on our way to some vacation destination
| willcipriano wrote:
| Like headphones for your eyes, could see this being nice on a
| plane or something.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Neat! Now I can finally watch p0rn in public. /s
|
| But seriously, watching something private/sensitive in public is
| the only use case I see for those as they're not AV/VR capable
| and you already need a phone/laptop to use them, so you might as
| well watch your videos on that instead.
| fsckboy wrote:
| watching a PG-13 movie in bed while spouse reads or sleeps?
| watch a movie immersively on a plane, train, or long bus ride?
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| omar_alt wrote:
| I wonder what this will do for concentrating when using the
| terminal or writing code?
| LouisSayers wrote:
| It could actually be useful to block out some surroundings (if
| it can do this) in say an office - I find people walking around
| can be incredibly distracting, especially if someone starts
| pacing.
| jaimehrubiks wrote:
| I feel like 1080p is not enough to fit enough information in such
| a tiny screen. Even smartphones are sometimes too small for
| certain tasks, just a tiny section of my smartphone would be even
| less suitable for working, watching or gaming.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| This looks like it could be a fun companion device for the Steam
| Deck on e.g. a long train commute or flight. If the display is
| fixed in the center of your line of sight it may not be great for
| productivity work as that's fairly unnatural, but for gaming
| you're most often looking at the center of the screen anyway so
| it might be okay?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Finally, data goggles:
|
| https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Data_goggles/Legends
| seydor wrote:
| Also a monocle would work
| LinuxBender wrote:
| _Additionally, the glasses come with multiple nose pads that'll
| be helpful for extended use and a prescription frame if you need
| it._
|
| Would it be feasible to build slim adjustable optics that could
| allow anyone to _set_ their prescription dynamically and directly
| within the glasses or would that make the glasses too bulky or
| hideous looking?
| toast0 wrote:
| Adjustable optics aren't optically good. It's a challenging
| enough optical environment, being compatible with prescription
| lenses is a good step.
| dawnerd wrote:
| The NReal is better is a lot of ways and their support people
| seem active and open to suggestions. They just need to bring it
| to the states. Even importing it's still fairly cheap compared to
| the T1.
| dtx1 wrote:
| 1080p60? No thx
| andybak wrote:
| I presume these use 3DOF tracking - not literally just a fixed-
| in-place screen?
|
| EDIT 1: Oh no. It isn't. That's not very pleasant to use in my
| experience.
|
| EDIT 2: It's a good job so few people in the "early adopters"
| segment wear glasses /s
| solarkraft wrote:
| The price of these hasn't been announced, but the competitors
| cost 600-800$. That's a bit much for me.
|
| That they're a lot lighter and smaller than full-fledged VR
| headsets is nice, but they're also more expensive and lower-
| featured, so that's a tough sell.
|
| One thing I like about them is that they're really just dumb
| displays rather than requiring a connection to the Facebook
| servers or some other dumb stuff that will ensure a limited life
| time and limited user control about what they do.
| officialjunk wrote:
| $1499 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/smart-devices/virtual-
| reality...
| kfarr wrote:
| That's a different model with 6DOF head tracking for AR/VR.
| The op model has no tracking and is more of a "dumb display"
| officialjunk wrote:
| ah. thanks for pointing that out! i didn't realize it.
| cerol wrote:
| Whatever they do, let's hope they don't decide to stick a camera
| in it (for AR purposes), or it could be another Google Glasses
| fiasco.
| timmg wrote:
| I think that's a Google-specific problem.
|
| If Apple comes out with AR glasses with cameras, no one will
| bat an eye. (And if they do, Apple will already have a great
| story for why it isn't an issue.)
| cerol wrote:
| I might have been to young to actually have noticed it. But
| from what I remember, in 2014 Google didn't have the
| reputation it has now.
| timmg wrote:
| They had a reputation for great tech but not great
| products. Glass was not compelling (or, at best, not
| marketed well). No one wanted it -- except gadgets nerds.
| So it was easy to complain about one thing or another.
|
| If Apple does it, _everyone_ will want one. Apple makes
| great products and has the best marketing of anything ever.
| Even if it has a camera going 24x7, people will be able to
| live with it.
| GordonS wrote:
| These sound great - if they were < PS200 and lightweight, I'd buy
| them in a heartbeat!
|
| ...but I'm guessing they'll be >PS1,000 and weigh enough to hurt
| my nose bridge in mere minutes.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| They should make a hat to go with these to read your brainwaves,
| and an ear piece. We'll all look like we're undercover agents.
| swader999 wrote:
| The perfect gift for the back to the office crowd.
| blagie wrote:
| I feel like we're about 3 generations from "shut up and take my
| money." A no-brainer version would:
|
| - Allow AR, or at least not block my full field-of-view, so I can
| use them in contexts.
|
| - Have competitive resolution with my normal monitor. 1080p, as
| these are, seems like an MVP, but 4k is where I'd start to really
| use these.
|
| - Sci-fi: Support some kind of wireless protocol. A cable running
| down my shirt feels awkward. It's fine if I need a cable for
| 30fps movies, but for emails/coding/etc., I'm happy with much
| less refresh.
|
| - Less plastic. More metal (or carbon fiber or whatever).
|
| - Price point of $200 makes these a no-brainer shut-up-and-take
| my money. $400, I'd probably buy. $600, I'd probably /almost/
| buy, but wait for used on eBay. $1000 is a no-buy.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > Less plastic. More metal (or carbon fiber or whatever).
|
| I'm intrigued by why you feel plastic is a drawback. Especially
| as metal has IMO very few advatnages in this case (heavier,
| lower radio transparency, bends under shock etc.)
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| developers are not industrial designers; i would even argue
| the skillset is at the 'opposite side' of the spectrum
| Steltek wrote:
| > - Have competitive resolution with my normal monitor. 1080p,
| as these are, seems like an MVP, but 4k is where I'd start to
| really use these.
|
| When talking goggles, I would take a wider FOV over super high
| resolution. 4k smooshed into an image 30mm across would be a
| waste. That said, I can't find any mention of what FOV these
| glasses are.
|
| > - Sci-fi: Support some kind of wireless protocol. A cable
| running down my shirt feels awkward.
|
| I think I would trade a high quality cable over a heavier
| battery, necessary to support wireless at video bandwidths.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Depends on quality of simulated display, and how many.
|
| It might be the display bandwidth that gets in the way, but if
| I could get N simulated arbitrary resolution displays that can
| be moved in AR fashion, I'd pay a lot more than $1000 for
| portable 8k virtual displays.
| eunos wrote:
| Sword Art Online is supposed to be released this year
| mcwhy wrote:
| The general public is never going to voluntarily start wearing
| glasses, no matter the features people do not want to look like
| a nerd.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The "looking weird" is an argument that I find really
| interesting, as it is both completely true, but also
| extremely volatile.
|
| For instance wearing headphones in public 40 years ago had a
| strong social opposition, and you would totally look weird
| with headphone on. This was replayed with bluetooth ear
| pieces. Those ships have long long sailed.
|
| Same argument was also made for the smart watches. Every time
| there was a kernel of truth, but as this is only a question
| of perception, there just needs to be a switch in people's
| mind and we reach the other side.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| One could have said the same thing about mobile phones a
| couple of decades ago when the first primitive PDAs came out
| but plenty of people are glued to theirs now, even in public.
| Jcowell wrote:
| I say bull on this. The public has been consuming more and
| more nerd culture compared to 10 years ago.
| cerol wrote:
| Everything's a cycle.
| lolc wrote:
| Or a trajectroy in case of tech adoption.
| mertd wrote:
| Careful with that statement. General public seems very happy
| adopting wearables. Much more than anyone would have guessed
| in the early 2000s.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Normally, I'm not one of those "shut up and take my money" types,
| but... I think I really want these.
|
| Unless I'm missing something, it's too bad there isn't a wireless
| option. Maybe it's technological limitations of standard wireless
| technology, but I would think that wifi would be at least
| somewhat adequate. I could at least picture hooking a Pi Zero to
| it and using that either alone or to VNC into my other devices.
| crazygringo wrote:
| This is an intriguing idea, possibly much more convenient and
| ergonomic for productivity than a fully fledged VR headset.
|
| But the fact that these are 1080p internal displays suggests it's
| a "fixed" 1080p screen that moves with your head, not a "virtual"
| screen that appears to stay in place as you move your head.
|
| Does anyone here have any experience with how usable that is?
| When I start up my Oculus Quest 2 and it has the fixed startup
| screen logo before it switches to head-tracking mode, it's rather
| disorienting, since visual cues are totally mismatched with my
| sense of balance.
|
| I'm not sure whether I could get used to a big screen "tethered"
| to my head angle like that, or if you get used to it?
|
| Also I wonder about the brightness here -- the Quest 2 isn't very
| bright at all, but it's OK since virtually all surrounding light
| is blocked out and my eyes adjust. Whereas this device is
| basically large sunglasses that lets in tons of surrounding light
| -- does the screen brightness compete?
| trafficante wrote:
| >When I start up my Oculus Quest 2 and it has the fixed startup
| screen logo before it switches to head-tracking mode, it's
| rather disorienting, since visual cues are totally mismatched
| with my sense of balance.
|
| Since you already have a Quest, you might be able to
| approximate the fixed AR experience using a media player and a
| 1080p video file.
|
| Moon VR[1] is free and has a passthrough mode to overlay the
| video on your external surroundings. I haven't personally used
| it but I'd be surprised if it doesn't have a head-lock option
| for making the video track your head (if it doesn't, Skybox VR
| does, but it's a paid app) - in theory this should be fairly
| close to the Lenovo glasses experience only much heavier and
| with a grainy B&W passthrough.
|
| [1]https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/4304774742883035
| fsiefken wrote:
| Yes I walked around with a 640x480 monocular display tethered
| to a compactflash card in my toshibia e750 pda with usb host
| controller, around 20 years ago. Of course I didn't do desktop
| work with it, but I looked up offline wikipedia entries (in
| tr3/tomeraider3 format), read books, watched slideshows and
| played interactive fiction.
|
| I could do that lying on my bed or sitting in public transport.
| The only problem was that when I was walking I noticed that I
| was walking in a sinus wave. I never noticed that as I never
| had something to read so close attached to my eyes . The
| problem with this is that my right eye clear real world vision
| merged with the left eye 640x480 display vision creating an
| transparency effect on the virtual window. So in essence when I
| was moving I struggled to read the sentences on a moving
| background. If it was sideways it would be less of a problem,
| but it was up and down. Obviously you don't have that problem
| on a bike, but then it could be dangerous. But sitting and
| worknig should be ok, it would just take a little bit getting
| used to, but I guess it would a bit be less ideal then a fixed
| in space desktop like with the Oculus or Hololens.
|
| For brightness, I used it in broad daylight, I could still see
| the virtual screen brightly.
|
| Some time later I did the same with a eMagin800 HMD which had a
| 800x600 screen for the left and a 800x600 for the right. I used
| that for winamp stereoscopic visualisation. So for these types
| of applications it's for sure great.
| rwxsh wrote:
| I have the Avegant Glyph, which is fixed, and I it is
| uncomfortable. It's natural to move your head to change your
| view, but that doesn't work with these devices. In practice I
| use a Quest instead, but even Daydream was more comfortable for
| media consumption.
| NonNefarious wrote:
| This product has essentially existed for years:
| https://moverio.epson.com
|
| They're about $1000 and show the potential of this indeed
| seemingly obvious product. They do suffer from a lack of
| sufficient fit adjustment, and the image should be larger.
|
| I don't know why almost no one has explored this product
| category. One company stands above all others in failing to see
| the potential: DJI. Not only has DJI failed to put HDMI inputs
| on its FPV goggles, but it has released a string of drones that
| aren't compatible with them. Yes, most DJI drones are not
| compatible with THEIR OWN GOGGLES, despite having wireless
| video transmission that allegedly uses the same protocol.
| gfodor wrote:
| I would be surprised if it's fixed - gyro based head tracking
| is very well established tech now. It's probably 3dof tracking.
| (So no translation, just rotation.) the Oculus GearVR and
| Oculus Go took this approach which works fine for most people
| for sit and watch theater use cases.
|
| Edit: oh, yeah so I think you're referring to 3dof. I could
| imagine these being fully tracked but thought you were
| suggesting entirely untracked.
| crazygringo wrote:
| These do suggest being entirely untracked from the specs.
|
| Otherwise the 1080p internal OLED, if tracked, would result
| in a usable effective virtual screen resolution of more like
| 320x240, unusable for much of anything. Since the field of
| view would need to be significantly wider than the virtual
| screen to avoid clipping, and then there's effective
| resolution loss from resampling during virtual screen
| placement on top of that.
| Someone wrote:
| If the tech allows making the display see-through on a per
| pixel basis, they could simulate seeing the full display as
| a monitor hanging a meter before your eyes. Turn your head,
| and the virtual monitor would move out of view, with the
| outside world showing up.
| Maursault wrote:
| > This is an intriguing idea
|
| It is an obvious idea. AR/VR is hard. Dumb displays are not. I
| think we should have had similar products a decade ago, and if
| I'm not mistaken, these exist in cheaper SD versions from
| noname manufacturers.
|
| That said, I want this, and not Meta's thing or whatever Apple
| is cooking up, because I knew ahead of time that no one is
| going to get the VR part right initially. They are barking up
| the wrong tree, because as far as I know, no developer is
| paying attention to proprioception. From what I can tell,
| they're focused on the eyes only, and proprioception is
| essential for VR. AR is different, maybe they're getting that
| right. I'm just not interested in AR. It's great for a
| futuristic technology in a film, but in practice, it seems
| silly to me.
|
| But I don't know everything, hardly anything, really. What is
| the metric called that is the _distance_ to where the display
| _appears_ to be? It is not focal length, and I need really a
| word for what that is called. If the display appears to be,
| say, 10 ' away, I probably don't want it. It would be awesome
| if this apparent distance was adjustable. I am near sighted,
| hate contacts and correctable lenses cause me migraine. Thus, I
| prefer to view displays quite close, no more than 2', or to
| appear no more than 2' away when it is actually much closer to
| the eye and using a magnifying lens. Pads have worked well for
| me for consuming media because I can hold at the right (close)
| distance for comfort.
|
| Really hope I get what I want, have wanted it for about 25
| years and been confused why HMDs had only mostly been used for
| military purposes, for insane prices.
|
| It is about time someone has ignored the difficult to get right
| AR/VR tech, and just gave us a high quality, personal, wearable
| display.
| codeulike wrote:
| _They are barking up the wrong tree, because as far as I
| know, no developer is paying attention to proprioception._
|
| Not sure what you mean by this. VR headsets know exactly
| where your hands are and can infer most of the rest of your
| pose from head height, they rely pretty heavily on that for
| the immersion.
| Maursault wrote:
| While position tracking is important, what I was talking
| about was the user's sense of proprioception. Seems to me
| that too much attention has been given to tuning the visual
| response to the user turning their head or looking up and
| down, or turning around, and little to no attention being
| given to attenuating the user's sense of proprioception, to
| reenforcing the feeling that the virtual body parts are an
| integral part of the user's actual real-world body.
| toast0 wrote:
| > It is an obvious idea. AR/VR is hard. Dumb displays are
| not. I think we should have had similar products a decade
| ago, and if I'm not mistaken, these exist in cheaper SD
| versions from noname manufacturers.
|
| These products _have_ existed for decades. I can 't find the
| one I remember seeing ads for during the 2000s, but Sony had
| one in 2011 called the HMZ-T1, they had a much earlier model
| called the Visortron. I think the widely advertised ones were
| maybe iTV goggles, but I can't find any history on them.
| Typically advertised as equivelent to a large screen tv
| farther away.
|
| If you want a demo of a real product, call around to
| children's dental offices. Many of them have (or have had)
| these to help distract kids during exams and procedures,
| although mounting a tv above the exam chair is also popular
| (a lot easier with a lightweight lcd or oled than a crt or
| plasma)
| Someone wrote:
| Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasstron) says
| the lineage is Visortron (????), Glasstron (1996), HMZ-T1
| and HMZ-T2 (2011), HMZ-T3 (????, maybe also 2911)
|
| https://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/the-first-
| playstatio... claims the Visortron was never released
| commercially.
| NonNefarious wrote:
| There is already a current product that is essentially
| this: https://moverio.epson.com
|
| I bought a pair for experimentation as a viewfinder (about
| $1000). They proved the potential of that application, but
| suffered from some fit-adjustability issues and too small
| of an image. They could have been very good, however.
| 13of40 wrote:
| I had a Sony Glasstron in 1999 that was basically the same
| idea but TV-resolution instead of 1080p. It was fine for
| playing games and watching movies. A little bit alienating
| to anyone else in the room, though.
| kfarr wrote:
| Yeah these have been around for almost a decade as cheap VR
| knockoffs for the unsuspecting, albeit I haven't seen the
| direct USB c output option before. Not until you take it home
| and turn it on do you realize the resolution of 1080p
| strapped to your eyes is a pixelated mess and the lack of
| even basic 3DOF makes these things uncomfortable for most
| people.
| Maursault wrote:
| > Not until you take it home and turn it on do you realize
| the resolution of 1080p strapped to your eyes is a
| pixelated mess
|
| Well, that sucks. Thanks for the clue to never purchase
| without a personal demonstration. I figured SD would be
| like that, but really hoped that 1080p would be
| satisfactory.
|
| But doesn't this depend on pixel density? If the displays
| approach the pixel density of displays of high end
| smartphones, I'd probably be satisfied with that. Even
| though those pixels can be seen (at 10x magnification), at
| high enough pixel density, pixels can be ignored when
| focusing on the video content. I used to sit really close
| to CRT televisions, which have huge pixels, so there is
| bound to be some improvement from the way it was in the
| dark ages.
| trafficante wrote:
| I've repeatedly tried to get into virtual dev work on my
| Quest 2 (1920x1832 per eye) but the screen density still
| isn't there yet. Feels similar to trying to code on a
| classroom projector screen if that analogy makes any
| sense.
|
| Quest Pro is hitting in October (supposedly) with
| 2160x2160 per eye but I still don't think that gets
| density to where it needs to be for doing desktop work.
|
| I think Apple has realized this, which is why every
| screen resolution leak I've read has it pegged at 4K per
| eye or more. But who knows when that thing will even get
| announced?
| ajconway wrote:
| HP Reverb G2 has a 2160x2160 full-matrix LCD. I would say
| it comes very close to being usable as a virtual monitor,
| but the virtual screen still needs to be quite large.
| Extrapolating from this and older generation headsets, I
| would guess 4K per eye should be enough for a true office
| experience.
|
| On top of that, the headset itself must be comfortable to
| wear for sessions longer than 30 minutes. None of the
| current models are that comfortable.
| NonNefarious wrote:
| The problem is that Apple, if they ever do release such a
| thing, will not provide an HDMI input to make the product
| versatile and useful. It'll be gimped by Apple's fear of
| connectivity, just like all of their iOS devices.
| ben_w wrote:
| Regarding the Apple headset, I'll only believe it's real
| when Apple officially announces it -- it's been bouncing
| around the rumour mills as "6-12 months away" for at
| least half a decade, with whatever specs sounded good
| that year.
|
| (Also, I remember the initial rumours for the iPad;
| everyone I saw was saying it would run normal Mac OS X).
| extrapickles wrote:
| The Valve Index does 1440x1600 per eye and it probably
| needs to be at least double that before artifacts become
| hard to notice.
| Maursault wrote:
| I am starting to see resolution doesn't matter. According
| to the specs, Valve Index has a very low average pixel
| density of about 13-15ppi. Criminal. Compare that to the
| high end iPhone display's pixel density of 128ppi. So if
| we could have ocular displays around 100ppi @720p, that
| would look a lot better than that of Valve Index displays
| at its seemingly impressive 1440x1600.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Firstly a definition PPI: pixels in a single dimension /
| size in that dimension in inches.
|
| A nice high end phones screen is like 300 PPI a 20 year
| old laptop screen is around 100. A nice desktop monitor
| is 160-240.
|
| A calculator https://www.sven.de/dpi/
|
| It's hard to discuss a monitor being 100ppi@720p because
| those 2 variables are related via a third variable size.
| A 720p screen would be 100dpi at about 14" and indeed
| that is a common size for crappy laptops. A tiny screen
| with that PPI strapped to your face would look like shit.
| For instance a 2" square screen would be 200px x 200px.
|
| Resolution matters a lot.
| numpad0 wrote:
| A 20/20 or 1.0 visual acuity equals 1MOA(1/60deg).
|
| A 20/20 equivalent 360 degrees panorama image is has a
| size of 21600x10800px minimum. For a VR headset with
| 120x120 degrees H/VFOV(178deg diagonally), you need a
| 7200x7200px panel. 2 x 7200px x 7200px x 24bpp x 144Hz =
| 360Gbps, or worth 4x 100GE LAG'd, or one PCIe 4.0 x23
| link, or one DDR5 channel.
|
| That's a bit hard to put onto a face cheaply...
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Valve index has a PPI of 598. What I assume you are
| talking about is PPD, or Pixel per Degree. Iphone doesn't
| have a fixed PPD since the distance to your eyes is not
| fixed.
|
| An ocular 720p display at 100ppd would be be about an
| inch diagonally at 10cm from you eye balls. That's
| basically unuseable
| moron4hire wrote:
| > no developer is paying attention to proprioception
|
| That is not true at all. Proprioception is top of mind for
| every serious VR developer. Outside of poor software
| performance, it's the #1 cause of simulator sickness. Short
| of hacking the vestibular system, there's nothing we can do
| about the lack of virtual acceleration cues. So we design
| within the constraints we have. It's why you see teleport
| locomotion. It's why developers get into such arguments over
| "smooth movement" with gamers who think they know better.
| Lack of proprioception with virtual movement is a huge
| problem that we would love to solve, but laypeople have an
| irrational fear of a little extra electricity getting piped
| through their ears, so I doubt we're going to see much change
| there.
|
| Fixed-view, wearable displays violate proprioception even
| more than VR HMDs, because they don't even give you the
| _real_ acceleration cues you get from _actually_ moving your
| head.
|
| As for your question about distance, I suspect you're looking
| for "accommodation". Accommodation is the physical distortion
| of the eye to change the focal distance of the lens. Combined
| with vergence (the distance at which our binocular vision
| rays converge), the two systems work together to give you a
| sense of how far away something is (among other things, like
| atmospheric hazing, parallax, and trained memory of similar
| objects). Most modern VR systems lack the ability to account
| for accommodation, leading to what is called "vergence-
| accommodation conflict". It can be a source of eye-strain for
| some people, but it tends to be adaptable over time.
|
| Note that I said "most" modern VR systems. It's an active
| area of hardware research, as the solutions--light field
| displays and varifocal lenses--are large, complex, and
| therefore expensive. The latest developments in "pancake"
| optics, where focal distance for the lens is folded in on
| itself via a clever system of internal reflectance, has a
| possibility of bringing the size down, but unfortunately not
| the complexity or cost.
|
| So again, it's really not fair to say developers are
| "ignoring" these problems. We are all extremely aware of the
| them. There are just some things you can't do anything about
| without a major breakthrough.
| Maursault wrote:
| > there's nothing we can do about the lack of virtual
| acceleration cues.
|
| I think we're not talking about the same thing. I don't see
| how it could be a cause of simulator sickness, which I
| thought had to do with eye strain from focal points not
| being correct, and the inner ear.
|
| Proprioception is a sense like the ordinary 5 senses, the
| perception or awareness of the position and movement of the
| body. It is what makes our body feel like _our_ body.
| Dissociation, caused by dissociatives, can cause inanimate
| external objects to _feel_ like they are part of us, which
| could be considered chemically hacking proprioception. The
| wooden arm illusion is another way to hack proprioception
| using touch to reinforce the sense of it. But VR should be
| able to do this without chemistry or touch, because visual
| clues reinforce the sense of proprioception.
|
| VR can really be the wizbang killer app, but it isn't.
| Maybe they show you a virtual arm and you see yourself
| manipulate it, but it doesn't _feel_ like your arm (I am
| not talking about the feeling of touch). That is how they
| are ignoring proprioception. And it doesn 't have to be
| _an_ arm, because in VR, you don 't have to be human. It
| should be possible to blow the wooden arm illusion out of
| the water with VR, and have ten arms, and they all feel
| like they are distinctly _your_ arms. But we don 't see
| that, and no one is working on it. All we get is a stiff
| arm without natural reticulation.
|
| So it is fair to say developers are ignoring
| proprioception, because they are unaware of their own sense
| of proprioception (like knowing where your hand is without
| looking at it). Proprioception should be of primary concern
| in Virtual Reality. They should toss everything, and start
| all over again with inducing proprioception as the prime
| driver of the technology.
|
| > As for your question about distance, I suspect you're
| looking for "accommodation". Accommodation is the physical
| distortion of the eye to change the focal distance of the
| lens. Combined with vergence (the distance at which our
| binocular vision rays converge), the two systems work
| together to give you a sense of how far away something is
| (among other things, like atmospheric hazing, parallax, and
| trained memory of similar objects). Most modern VR systems
| lack the ability to account for accommodation, leading to
| what is called "vergence-accommodation conflict". It can be
| a source of eye-strain for some people, but it tends to be
| adaptable over time.
|
| Interesting, but complicated. Should be called "apparent
| display distance," or something simple and easy to
| understand. Still, gives me more information. Appreciated.
| satokema wrote:
| A non-trivial number of VR users experience phantom sense
| of varying strength, including myself. Proprioception is
| not the only thing being consulted here, seeing someone
| touch what visually seems like your face is a common low-
| level manifestation of this. It's possible to be in an
| avatar and have someone touch the avatar's tail and
| somehow weirdly you can feel like "your tail" is being
| touched (albeit you feel it in your tail bone).
|
| Maybe the technology to better integrate more brain
| variants will eventually exist, but current VR tech
| already has a niche to cater to and develop from.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Even this, what you are saying about "virtual arms", has
| been tried. Inverse-kinematic self-avatars were a big
| thing within the industry about 5 years ago. And it
| was... largely not that important. Without a tracking
| point for the elbow, it's nearly impossible to do IK for
| limbs. Remember, a double-pendulum is a chaotic system. A
| small perturbance can lead to dramatic divergence between
| simulated and actual state in chaotic systems.
|
| That said, it's still possible to get body sense in VR,
| for the head, main torso, arms, and especially hands.
| It's hard to do. And when things are hard like this,
| there are economics of scale to consider. For example,
| the Quest 2 has native hand tracking built in, but not a
| lot of other VR systems do, and the ones that do often
| have dramatically different APIs (though OpenXR helps a
| lot here, which shifts the problem to whether or not the
| system in question has an OpenXR-compliant driver). Do
| you go all in on one platform and support its input
| modalities to the maximum degree? Or do you try to target
| the common denominator between a broader swath of the
| market.
|
| Non-VR consumer software developers get to develop their
| software in an environment of operating systems that have
| well-established UI and UX metaphors. You make a button
| in WxWidgets or UWP or SwiftUI or HTML and that button
| comes with a LOT of functionality that you don't have to
| program yourself. We don't have that in VR. To make a
| button in a game engine for a VR game you basically have
| to implement that entire thing yourself. Oh, the game
| engine probably gives you a raycaster to be able to find
| objects, but you have to program up where that raycaster
| should be firing, which objects you should be interested
| in, and what interactions hitting the buttons on your
| controller map to how the button in the view reacts. To a
| large degree, every VR developer has to reinvent the
| world when they make something. We're working on the very
| edge of performance that these systems can eke out.
|
| We don't have shared UI metaphors, but not for lack of
| trying. There are several projects underway attempting to
| do just that. MRTK and StereoKit in particular have put a
| lot of work into just that. But they aren't for everyone.
| They can't do everything. It'd be like expecting Call of
| Duty to be implemented strictly in Win32 controls. And
| the input modalities are so much more diverse and non-
| standardized than desktop mouse-and-keyboard that I doubt
| there will ever be a one-size-fits-all UI toolkit for VR.
|
| I reassert that you are not being fair to the VR
| industry. Everything you have talked about so far has
| been tried and either found to not be worth the
| complexity or not possible to do within the current
| constraints.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| Trying to move around while you've got a screen like that
| active in a VR headset is a bad idea, but I love watching
| Netflix VR like that. Just find a comfortable position and
| chill.
| mungoman2 wrote:
| In a random video on YouTube the demonstrator person says that
| the screen can be fixed in virtual space, so that you can look
| away from it. https://youtu.be/6uOoS2EF4CI
| Duralias wrote:
| Well, all they would need is a gyro (because it doesn't seem
| to have cameras), it wouldn't be as good 6dof, but better
| than fixed.
| Closi wrote:
| It would need more than a gyro - if it's fixed in space the
| optics are very different and much simpler, and the
| required screen resolution is completely different.
| gurumeditations wrote:
| Streaming video will be a killer app of AR. Such a basic thing
| though is a huge challenge so far. There isn't even a good AR
| display yet let alone everything else.
| criddell wrote:
| For me, watching television or movies in AR/VR has very little
| appeal. Usually, I'm watching with other people and turning to
| them to see their face or reaction to something on screen is
| important.
|
| The short-term killer app of AR for consumers is probably a lot
| more mundane. I think things like heads-up displays on a car
| windshields or motorcycle helmet visor is a likely contender.
| But that could change if they get rid of the need for goggles.
| AR contact lenses could be pretty wild and a less anti-social.
|
| There are a lot more opportunities for AR in commercial
| applications (like surgeons, technicians, etc...).
| gurumeditations wrote:
| I'm referring to TikTok and Netflix etc where you can stream
| video content on transparent normal everyday glasses as
| easily as popping in your AirPods for music now, or a virtual
| shared display in 3D space so you retain 100% of the social
| sharing factor.
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| -- "With a vibrant and stylish design..." - uhmmm - uh -well
| -errr -hmm---
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| I've got a Oculus Quest 1 which I use for fitness it's perfect
| for me, because it gets me moving and my heart rate up and I hate
| normal exercise / gyms.
|
| The other thing I have used it for is to watch movies and sync my
| screen from my PC. It's a bit awkward for this so i've stopped
| using it (due to poor battery, being too large bulky, annoying to
| setup with the VR features getting in the way like boundaries
| etc).
|
| However, when it did work watching a movie on it was great. To me
| it seemed like this was far better in terms of the view/screen
| than a top end TV, so it seems obvious to me that glasses can be
| the future of watching.
|
| Why have multiple screens? I can have a laptop for portability
| and then at home, pop on my glasses and have whatever type of
| screen setup I want, better than any monitor setup, want to watch
| TV or a movie? Pop the glasses on and it's the same as being at
| the cinema, in your own home.
|
| No need to take up space with a desktop computer + monitor or TV,
| no need to worry about finding the right place to set everything
| up, can literally do it from anywhere with a touch of a button.
| Heck can take laptop to hotel and watch movies from there and
| have the same experience I would at home.
|
| I'm surprised there is not more focus on something like this.
| Perhaps this is something Apple are going to do with all there
| rumoured moves into this space.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| The number one issue with this is that it only works if you're
| alone.
|
| If you want to watch a movie/tv show with friends or a
| significant other, a screen is mandatory
| alas44 wrote:
| Or couple glasses synced together?
| [deleted]
| inawarminister wrote:
| There are some apps that offer synced watching with friends
| in the Quest, they've been working just fine. Having the
| ability to share a virtual screen in the same physical
| location would be a game-changer though. That could be a
| killer feature.
| aspyct wrote:
| I would love that. Provided the price is fair, I'll probably get
| a pair. Neat :)
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Not their target market, but I can imagine a world where plugging
| them into headless servers (like in a rack in a DC) might be
| simpler than having physical monitors hooked to KVMs (or more
| realistically the little fanless machine I have on top of my
| bookcase, which is just enough of a pain to pull down and hook up
| to a monitor and keyboard...)
| pintxo wrote:
| Think a QR Code on the server, scanned by the glasses. Confirm
| and then have a connection to this machine. That's part of the
| future I have been waiting for.
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