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Comment by metalliqaz | Hacker News Reader

My own experience with VR was that it is held back by an extremely clunkly interface. Nobody wants to wear those huge headsets for long periods of time, and you can't even move around in the virtual world because of all the claptrap that is connected to it.

I had much better luck getting people to try things like Daydream, which have extremely limited processing power but could do cartoony graphics just fine.

I think the industry really missed an opportunity to start with lightweight AR. Let the users walk around by showing them where they are and overlay things on top. There are plenty of useful applications; many require precision sensing that phones don't have, but there are others that can be done with just an accelerometer and a camera.

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I think it's been well-known in the industry since the early days of VR that people don't like clunky headsets. But it's not like you can just will into existence a small, lightweight, standalone headset that delivers a smooth VR experience. There are hard technical problems to solve: inside-out tracking, battery life, heat management, optics, etc. The Oculus Quest is a step on the way there, but even after spending billions of dollars, they still have a long way to go.

The problem with lightweight AR is that with current technology, it's not that useful. If you've ever tried Google Glass or Focals by North, there's not much you can do with them that couldn't be done better with a smartwatch [1].

And if you try to pack a larger FOV display or more processing power into the glasses, you end up with something like HoloLens, and then you've got a similar problem to the VR headsets -- it's probably not something that you'll want to wear for long periods of time (you can't anyway due to battery life), and certainly not something you'd wear walking down the street.

It's not that these are missed opportunities. On the contrary, there are a lot of people who have been working on them for years with billions of dollars spent in the process. But they're hard, and it will take time to get there.

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[1] The one exception was being able to capture quick moments with the Glass camera -- but of course, that raised privacy concerns.

> Nobody wants to wear those huge headsets for long periods of time, and you can't even move around in the virtual world because of all the claptrap that is connected to it.

This is part of why I find Facebook's Quest so compelling.

Also a Quest owner, and find it incredibly compelling. Very good content overall. Still a long way to go, but as a standalone headset there are some great capabilities that I'm seeing that can't be done with a tethered headset. Check out the new space pirates arena videos. I've already modded the headset , look up frankenquest ( makes a huge difference IMO ). VRCover added. Also unlocked and sideloading.

Ya, the Quest has been one of those lifestyle changing devices for me. Still, you are kind of stuck with limited mobility even without wires, but at least you can setup the space you use for VR almost anywhere.

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