Please, anyone, desperately anyone, literally anyone, please, for the love of god, make a competing headset that doesn’t have this deep Facebook integration bullshit.
I do not want to see this become the Oasis.
I do not want to see this become the Oasis.
The original Oculus Quest is already really good, and was constantly sold out for almost its entire lifetime, and now Facebook are selling a near-4K resolution headset with a top-of-the-line Snapdragon XR2 for $299.
I have been considering starting an open firmware project for the Oculus Quest 2 (Snapdragon XR2), and too a lesser extent, the Oculus Quest (Snapdragon 835) and Oculus Go (Snapdragon 821).
All 3 headsets are Android-based devices. Clearly, most of Facebook's innovations have been deep in the stack. The sensor fusion involved in 6DOF tracking and the approach taken for Oculus Link PC tethering are non-trivial problems that have taken entire teams of people years of work.
It would be many man-years of work to reverse engineer and re-implement Facebook's work to the quality level seen in the Quest.
But it can be done, and it would mean liberating the best value VR headset hardware on the market.
A hardware platform that is poised to dominate over at least the next decade.
This is Hacker News. Is anyone else interested?
Honestly, I feel like you could position such a project as "Deconstructing Facebook's business models one step at a time: The corporation" and hire a lot of anarcho-hacker types while positioning the company as a social-good venture. I personally would love to get paid to gradually undercut and destroy facebook.
I worry that 2 things would happen:
1. The company would become what it set out to destroy (evil)
2. Anarchist hackers are passionate but you'd have a hard time getting funding from any of the big reputable players.
Still, that would be an awesome company.
I think now is different. I think crowd-funding has changed the economics of such projects from a few passionate hackers working in their spare time to now being able to fund people working on such a project full-time.
There's probably tens of thousands of users willing to pledge $100 into escrow on a Kickstarter-like service, paying out when somebody to creates an open Oculus Quest firmware capable of 6 degrees of freedom using inside-out tracking.
This funding model and skillsets are suprisingly close to what's required to provide Android security updates to older phones and tablets, so there's a broader business to be built.
Many of those users are probably willing to pay a few dollars a month so such software gets continued to be developed.
My go-to response is always "put Facebook out of business".
I've been thinking about it for probably 10 years, I still have no idea what that means, but your post here got me a little stoked it could be possible
Also, FB's core business is ads sold to businesses trying to reach users doing social networking stuff...how does this even touch that revenue?
At this point, I don't think FB will ever be put out of business given how old their core user base is, knowing that older people loath tech changes.
There is a lot of foundational hacking to be done around the Oculus standalone headsets. I don't believe the headsets have yet been cracked to unlock the bootloader to launch unsigned firmware.
It's probably worth moving discussion over to a forum and Wiki dedicated to such reverse engineering efforts (such as XDA developers) [1]
I do think that now is the time for such a project, and that crowdfunding has changed the economics to make this possible in a way that it never has been before.
How much of the accuracy of the sensor fusion algorithm comes from the inherent accuracy/calibration of the underlying sensors?
Has anyone tried bringing up a stock android distribution on the Quest 2?
He has often spoken about deeply optimizing virtual reality by peeling back all the software layers. From his annoyance at the Android's process scheduling on the GearVR to writing custom microcode for the Qualcomm chip's Digital Signal Processor to try and optimize playing PC games (over Oculus Link streaming) by encoding and transmitting video per scan line (instead of per frame).
He said that up until a few months before the original Quest launched they weren't even sure whether they could get inside-out optical tracking working to sufficient quality, but that they just continued to iterate on the algorithms until it worked well.
It's clear that most of Oculus' innovation are deep in the stack, seemingly pushed forward by the legendary John Carmack. Now that Carmack is merely the "consulting CTO" rather than working on these problems full-time there's real questions about whether Oculus' deep stack innovations will continue.
Oculus Quest is effectively a smartphone in many key ways, but it has several monochrome wide-angle cameras for tracking. Also unlike smartphones it has active cooling fans for improved thermals. It seems there's a million little things than come together to make Oculus Quest standalone VR way better than any phone-holder based virtual reality platform that I've used.
As far as an open-source custom firmware for Oculus Quest goes, I am unaware of any project that has yet cracked the bootloader to run unsigned code and then booted stock Android.
Or do you believe standalone VR headsets are doomed to being closed forever?
It does suprise me that Google effectively gave up investment in VR and effectively handed the entire industry to Facebook. Though Microsoft's efforts with Windows Mixed Reality headsets haven't made a splash at all (except maybe the HP Reverb G2).
I think they're doomed to being closed until quite a few patents expire.
Eh, it doesn't look clear at all to me. It looks like its main advantage is slightly higher resolution than Valve Index and wirelessness. On the other hand from what I read Quest 2 only now will finally get 90Hz - this is what even old Vive provided. And Index goes beyond that - up to 120 and 144Hz. Also I wonder how Quest's screen quality compares to Index, besides resolution and refresh rate - couldn't find any information about Quest's field of view, pixel persistence or fill factor. And with Facebook behind Quest, I consider Index to be cheaper - I'll take $999 any day over $299 + my data.
I'd say it's hardly a clear "win".
All that really means is you have enough disposable income that it's actually a decision worth even considering. For most people it's aimed at that's not the case.
This isn't Gmail for free vs some paid service for $5/mo, this is more than three times the cost for something that already costs multiple hundreds of dollars.
I'm sure many people in hackernews value their privacy above $700, me included, but that's clearly not the point here. We're just a blip in facebook's radar.
46% for all Oculus types 36% for Vive+Index
Well, Oculus does seem to be more popular and perhaps that is what the parent meant by Facebook "winning" VR segment. To me "winning" sounds more like total domination, where any competition is near a statistical error. This doesn't seem to be the case here (though I admit Steam statistics may be skewed towards Vive/Index).
When I see people talking about Oculus dominination technology-wise, they mostly talk about the Oculus Quest. More specifically, a wireless standalone headset that doesn't require static captors to have 6 degrees of freedom.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, as I only started looking into VR recently.
Oculus desktop software gives you a yellow mark, but games still work.
It may also be a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, but in a world where even seemingly innocuous data is used to find unexpected correlations and identify people, I certainly prefer to keep a safe margin of error and steer away from companies which live on our data.
Besides, knowing Facebook's hunger for data, I certainly don't trust them enough to install any piece of their software on my PC. Nor do I trust them enough to use a device which could potentially identify some unique traits of the way I move in VR (akin to gait analysis).
And comparing a 1000 dollar headset which requires a 1200 dollar computer to drive it, to a 300 dollar all in one unit.
It's akin to suggesting that Toyota haven't done well in the car market because they don't make Bugattis.
Facebook absolutely have won this generation in terms of market adoption. They've strategically withdrawn from competing at the higher end of the market. Which, at least today is a relatively tiny luxury segment.
As someone already pointed out, that's a nice problem to have! For me, I considered the Index but the cost of upgrading my PC + the Rift S still came out a couple hundred £ cheaper plus I don't have to dedicate space to it.
I've thought a little on this as well, from time to time. Hardware-wise, I don't see how the Quest 1/Lenovo Mirage Solo/Vive Focus were anything much more than Qualcomm's reference design headset (https://developer.qualcomm.com/hardware/snapdragon-835-vr-de...). Different strap designs, minor variations on display modules, removing ancillary stuff like the cellular radio and GPS, but otherwise the same CPU, same GPU, largely the same cameras.
With the Quest 2 running the Snapdragon XR2, a lot of the basic features of 6-DOF VR, with controllers/passthrough/voice control/etc, could be running straight on chip. (https://www.thundercomm.com/app_en/product/1584417287281447)
Qualcomm provides an SDK for VR on their hardware that touts all the things Facebook has always claimed were their own big innovations, like asynchronous time warp and lens corrections (https://developer.qualcomm.com/software/snapdragon-vr-sdk)
I can't find the link right now, but Qualcomm/Thundercomm are also providing a base Android image specifically for use in VR. Which is probably why you can build and install regular ol' Android APKs on all of these headsets and they map the controller to mouse actions.
My point is, I am starting to doubt Facebook has all that much "special sauce". I think it's mostly just marketing. I think Qualcomm has done the hard work here and is happy to let other companies take the credit because Qualcomm is about chip licenses, not consumer electronics. Other than tuning parameters for camera positions, there should be no reason why the OS image for any one of these headsets to run on any other one.
I think it's doable. I think you could probably root the firmware and get an open source OS running on any one of these headsets. And it'd also breath new life into systems whose creators basically got bored with not making a billion dollars overnight.
It would just negate a reputation that he has worked his ass off his entire life to build if he hasn't done valuable targeted work on the visuals of the device.
All I'm saying is that there is a path through which everything Carmack said could be true, and also the latest hardware doesn't really use what he built.
But I have a return volley for you...who on the Facebook/Oculas graphics programming team, knowing that jcarmack was your boss, wouldn't go full nuts on trying to create some slick tech to impress him with? I'm sure FB has the pick of the crop when it comes to hiring talent, and at least of few of those guys would have to be his fanboys and come up with very useful optimizations and enhancements to add to the Quest graphical stack, right?
The competency of FANG engineers in general is highly overrated. They are humans. They don't have access to some kind of forbidden knowledge. The idea that these companies are uniquely competent such that competitors don't even have a chance is largely a marketing story.
I accidentally bought one until I realized the mistake and bought a rift S a day after that. Want to buy it? It is as good as new.
Thought about selling it on ebay but got a bad conscience to sell it to some kid, even for a good price.
Jokes aside I think not needing to connect a PC has to be the future, but I would expect the device to be able to run a conventional OS. Currently I think it will stay a dream however.
Otherwise VR devices have amazing capabilities already. A few more pixels would be good, but you will quickly need a lot of processing power.
Why, given the opposite has proven true in the mobile space?
I wish they did, but consumers clearly do not value this.
I’d rather miss out on VR entirely than create a FB account and give that despicable company any data.
>Information about your environment, physical movements, and dimensions when you use an XR device.
Clearly FB is planning to extract value from this, and is why they can price this at just $299. They're betting customers will give up some data/privacy for that low price.
I would be willing to pay $400-$500 for a Quest 2 if it didn’t have the Facebook integration.
More importantly, I’d like to see Facebook FORCED to provide a monthly dollar value that they think my data is worth.
Valve is kicking ass, leading massive technical charged doing great & fantastic work with none of the typical Service-as-a-Software-Substitute slimeware that everyone else keeps falling to. Great novel hardware with very high bandwidth & compelling input, best if not only useful end user drivers out there as we see with projects like Monado XR that are practically unimaginable elsewhere.
You're damned right they don't have a killer business instinct. They have a nurture protect & help instinct.
They aren't on inside-out tracking, not yet, they are building far more reliable open systems for outside-in, & that makes them more costly. But you know what you are getting & you know the raw data right out of the sensor is going to be great.
They also did a good deal of the foundational work for VR working with HTC and Oculus. Then there's steam link, Steam controller/SteamOS/Steam Machines, Player created layers in Portal 2, Steak Workshop/Mod support (and paid mods) to name a few. There's a lot of not hits and a lot of not games, but they've been at least doing some stuff.
They aren't just a game development company anymore. Their primary product is Steam. If Half-Life Alyx was playable on any PC or console it would have been one of the best selling games of the year. Its only a niche product because, instead of resting on their laurels, they are trying to drive the industry forward.
Not only did they make the Index, which is by far the best VR Headset yet, they also supposedly helped HP develop the Reverb G2 that's coming out soon.
GabeN likes playing Dota but the idea that he sits around all day playing videogames when he's been building, improving, and expanding a billion dollar gaming empire is ridiculous.
There's also the massive progress towards making Linux a viable gaming platform. Really the only thing keeping me on Windows on my gaming system is the fact that most competitive multiplayer games' anti-cheat software can't run on Linux yet. If I played mostly single player games or casual multiplayer I could play almost everything I want to on Linux.
IMO they are plenty innovative. I wish they released more games, but aside from gaming they are doing a lot of great things for the gaming community.
* SteamOS, Steam Machine, Steam Controller, Steam Link (2015) hardware, porting Steam, Source, and tooling to Linux (and patching Linux to improve gaming performance). Cross platform and streaming features. Facilitating porting of games to Linux.
* Source2 (2015) wrote a new game engine and ported DOTA2 to it. Neither is a small undertaking.
* HTC Vive VR (2016) hardware, software, tooling, and VR content. None a small undertaking.
* Valve Index (2019)
* Half-Life: Alyx (2020)
In addition, there were a few projects and games that never made it to market and a few I probably missed. I'm really happy to see them trying things nobody else is, even when they fail.
It's not like they released Dota 2 and that was that. They've kept developing it to this day at a breakneck pace, including even swaping out the engine like pfranz mentioned.
They are steam's landlords and hat makers, that's pretty much it.
The only reason Valve is in business today is because DRM forbids consumers from transferring their owned games to another platform. If I could abandon Steam I immediately would.
I can play 60%+ of games on Linux because Valve cares way more than anyone else.
Big Picture works great for a console like experience far better than anyone elses.
Valve Controller let's practically any game under the sun be couch & controller playable.
Remote Play, then Remote Play Together, now Remote Play Tablet blow everything else out of the water.
I'm sorry the you doesn't meet your high pop culture desires? It feels much less glossy-plastic & more direct to me than Epic. That's just me I guess. The thing is, that is way way way way down my list of concerns. Steam is a technical juggernaut. No one else is even playing. Steam is super under appreciated. The lack of mainstream highly visible overwhelming successes doesn't bother me. Steam is innovating at the edge in radical ways, & they are always always always trying to spread the love, not steal the sunshine.
I'd give Valve money JUST FOR THIS ! Thank you Valve - Keep kicking ass. No I'm not a fanboy I didn't even play Half-Life.
The Steam Controller is dead.
>I can play 60%+ of games on Linux because Valve cares way more than anyone else.
Steam OS is dead. The open source community is more responsible for Linux gaming than Valve. Valve has supported Linux in the (hilariously) limited number of titles they've released in the last decade, and has added some support to the open source community. They are not the driver behind Linux gaming.
>Remote Play, then Remote Play Together, now Remote Play Tablet blow everything else out of the water.
Steam Link is no longer in production. Legitimately, have you ever tried other remote play alternatives? There is just no way you can say this with a straight face. The Valve apps are truly crap.
>Steam is a technical juggernaut. No one else is even playing. Steam is super under appreciated
What? This isn't a difficult problem to solve. There are a dozen game libraries similar to Steam that do the same job, but significantly better. The only thing Steam has going for it is the DRM stickiness that they acquired by being the only player in the PC space for so long.
>Steam is innovating at the edge in radical ways, & they are always always always trying to spread the love, not steal the sunshine.
Legitimately, tell me how they are innovating in "radical ways."
This is comically absurd take that is utterly divorced from reality. Half of what you mentioned to love about Valve is related to canceled or abandoned stuff.
Valve are not the only ones doing anything for Linux gaming, but they are a pretty fucking big contributor: - Releaseing Steam for Linux, which has encouraged many games to be ported. Yes, the Steam Consoles are cancelled (or on hold), but even the promise of a new market (and the convenience of not having to have a separate distribution channel for the Linux version of your game) has changed the Linux gaming landscape from a handful of titles to more games than anyone can play (depending on your tastes ofc). - Employing/contracting people working on different parts of the Linux graphics stack (SDL,radv,dxvk,more). - Developing Proton. I mostly play native games, but Proton has been huge for many. Yes, it's based on Wine (that is a good thing, NIH syndrome is way too common is bad) but Valve have improved the parts needed to get a good gaming experience and packaged it up in a nice way that is dead simple to use for anyone. Just click a button to play your Windows games. - Lots of other small things. For example Valve's Plagman has been working on https://github.com/Plagman/gamescope which is godsent for thos of us with ultrawide monitors or other uncommon resolutions and aspect ratios that gamedevs like to pretend don't exist.
And best of all, most of those improvements have been open source and available even to those who don't want to use Steam. That's surprisingly open for what is esentially a DRM company. So saying "The open source community is more responsible for Linux gaming than Valve" doesn't even make sense when Valve are part of that opensource community.
Steam's only other potential competitor was GOG, and it seems those two have had a fairly friendly relationship over the years. Remember that Valve gives away Steam keys to developers and resellers at very little cost, and that there are thriving third-party markets because of that.
You could argue that they have been stagnant in terms of game development, but everyone knows that isn't exactly true since Alyx was released. I don't really know what state VR was in before its release but from this outsider's perspective it seems to have raised the bar considerably.
Save for GOG, the DRM war is effectively lost, and so I'd rather be living under Gaben's benevolent dictatorship than some of the other more corporate-minded masters.
That sometimes over-cancelling willingness I think is also part of what makes the end result great-TF2 took 9 years and several versions similarly to Alyx, but I think both were worth the wait.
Price aside, tethered is a different market. I like powering VR with a gaming PC, but a standalone headset with inside-out tracking like the Quest is where the mass market / oasis will be.
They've now announced some kind of developer accounts for businesses that won't be tied to personal FB accounts.
EDIT: i guess you’re right. They are that draconian: https://www.roadtovr.com/fake-facebook-account-oculus-headse...
It’s no wonder they were banned in China. They’d rival the Party in big brother power.