I was disappointed that "commuting" was not on the list, because it's up there for me.
That is: a gym is a laboratory (workspace) for improving the physical condition and performance of your body.
That's not to say you can't make poor use of a gym (or a laboratory, for that matter). Or that all conditioning must occur at a gym (labs are complemented by fieldwork). But well-used, they're a vital adjunct to a fitness regimen.
That said: if it's possible to get there under your own power (walking, cycling), so much the better.
Just to put some numbers on this, walking 4mph (a mile every 15 mins) is unusually quick. Most people will work up a real sweat. A normal pace for many people is 17 minutes per mile.
If you walked 100 miles at 4mph, that comes to 1500 minutes or 25 hours.
25 hours/month walking is a sizable chunk of time. This is fantastic if you consider it time well spent.
Any recommendations?
I owned a Xybernaut and a bunch of other HMDs throughout the years. Few were practical for reading and walking at the same time. (Interestingly, I've had several solutions that allowed me to do cardio on a machine while watching a movie.... and watching a movie, even a regular 2d movie in an occlusive HMD is, at least for me, super immersive and fun. None of the solutions I've tried were very robust, and they all end up breaking. If someone has a recommendation for something robust-ish that is easy to hook up to the major streaming services, I'm all ears. )
That said, I haven't looked at the current Microsoft solution; I thought it was tethered to a serious PC like the oculus. I own an Oculus and haven't yet setup a rig that lets me use it on a cardio rig.
As an aside, there is a lot of focus on the various two degrees of freedom treadmills look cool, with the 'teflon dish, felt shoes" design looking the most practical, of course, but I haven't even setup one of those yet; I don't know if there is a useful game ecosystem for them yet.
But, yeah, if there was something in the neighborhood of a kilobuck that would let me walk and read with reasonable safety, I would be super interested. I already live in an area/live a lifestyle where the 'dork factor' isn't an issue, which I think is the hardest part of solving this problem.
I'll probably be buying an oculus go (or one of the competing 'all in one' HMD products) for treadmill use, and using them for watching movies on the treadmill (watching movies on a HMD is way better supported than reading on a HMD, but that means being on a machine)
I remember that I was out drinking late with my friend (and now working at google) Orri Erling, he was blind and had a white stick, I held his arm on one side while on the other side I had a monocular on my head and a twiddler in my hand. We got some stares.
What I ended up doing was switching to an audio desktop (Emacspeak) and text-to-speech the articles or books I wanted to read.
I have tried the rowing machine with my GearVR, but putting a monitor in front of it is more comfortable. Even so I could try it with my Oculus or MR for a Bigscreen :-) or 360 view with some rowing video's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XCrq6ytQeE
And you say that it's compatible with the jock monocular displays? This is actually... pretty exciting.
As a bicyclist I've felt hyperaware compared against a large fraction of drivers who are clearly distracted. I imagine this is even more apparent to motorcyclists due to the higher speeds. Phones are bad, and audiobooks can clearly be distracting as well.
My suggestion if you have a long driving commute is to reduce the length of the commute, not do anything which endangers other road users. Alternatively you can switch to public transit or carpool and rotate drivers.
> During simple drives, people listening to audiobooks braked faster in response to hazards. Audiobooks also helped reduce speeding, a common driver response to mental underload, the study said.
> The findings, said Trick, are particularly useful for people with long daily commutes on familiar routes or on long stretches such as rural roads.
> During complex drives with various hazards, listening to audiobooks can be an added distraction for people who are poor at multi-tasking, the study found. People able to switch easily between tasks are not negatively affected, it said.
https://news.uoguelph.ca/2018/02/audiobooks-improve-focus-lo...
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/22/the-a...
Mode: If you're commuting by train or bus point-to-point and the ride takes five minutes longer, you're not going to be much bothered. If you have to transfer or connect between multiple modes along the route, the journey is far more stressful. Similarly, highway driving with radio or audio material (or a phone) is relatively productive time, vs. stop-and-go city traffic.
Conditions: Having space to work (say on a commuter bus or rail) vs. being sardined into a city bus or urban subway makes a difference not captured in time alone.
Outliers: One pattern that likely has emerged are "marathon commuters" -- people with exceptionally long commutes. You'd need to compare the mean and median commute times to see what this trend is. It might well be that most people have the same time, but a small number have much longer commutes.
How to lie with statistics and all that.
For example: I’d hate to be stuck in a train carriage for two hours, packed in with people I don’t know, maybe Underground with no internet, all because my job requires me to be in a certain place at a certain time.
That’s two hours I could have spent sleeping; with a loved one; sleeping with a loved one... you get the idea.
So, like most Americans and thus most of people reading and commenting on HN? Also, while a train commute is way better than a car commute, being home is better than both. I read during my 40 mins subway commute and I would never want to be driving instead but I'd prefer to be reading at home for that time.
I personally agree, but having taken commuter rail for several months a few years ago, I noticed that quite a few people with longer commutes (~1 hour each way) seemed to really enjoy their (evening) train commute, treating it basically like a social hour at a bar. They frequently had beer. (Never saw anything like this in the morning.)
I didn't know enough people on the train to get into that, but I can see the appeal.