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Comment by pyrophane | Hacker News Reader

Seriously, stay away from Oculus. I know they currently have the most versatile/best value headset in the Quest 2, but needing to have a FB account linked to it should be a deal-breaker for anyone who doesn't already have an active FB account (and perhaps even those who do). It isn't just an auth system shared by multiple products. It's Facebook, and the ban-hammer can come down swiftly, especially if, like the author, you are just creating an account to link to your Quest. I'm also not confident, as of right now, that FB is gonna fix this in a meaningful way.

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There's been a lot of talk about antitrust investigations and regulating big tech. I think one really useful step would be to require multiple methods of authentication with devices like this. Oculus shouldn't require a Facebook account to use.

How about, no authentication to use the device and an open platform of app stores and/or sideloading?

good idea...but less profitable, though Facebook will continue to track these "banned" users as they roam around the network and trade on their information anyway.

So sick of "but that's less profitable"... these companies should exist to serve their customers, not shareholders

I'm not sure if you're serious about this, but it seems very short sighted. If this were the case, I don't think the word "company" would still apply.

However, capitalism doesn't leave consumers with no options - vote with your wallet!

So you're saying that modern capitalism has completely supplanted the original reason for starting a company in the first place?

I did not write what I wrote as a parody. Shareholder primacy is the foremost blight on this modern existence and is responsible for an innumerably large portion of the negative externalities that cause so such much suffering today.

I would vote with my wallet, but that will accomplish exactly jack shit. There are few who will stand with me if it means threatening their pathetically precious creature comforts which our modern capitalism so dutifully provides.

Also, it is worth noting that the entire goal of capitalism is to eliminate those options, using "free-market economics" as cover for its seemingly insatiable lust for competitors to gobble up or otherwise drive out of business. Some of the very first things they teach you in b-school, about moat building and competitive advantages and all that other crap, is an outright attack on the marketplace model

> However, capitalism doesn't leave consumers with no options - vote with your wallet!

That really works with monopolies! /sarcasm /are-you-serious

Oculus doesn't have a monopoly on VR headsets. They have the most popular offering, but there are still plenty of others to choose from

less profitable wouldn't matter if the law would dictate that every device needs to support multiple vendors with feature parity and the user/owner of a device is legally entitled to use it in whatever way they see fit.

Yes, this would cause price increase. But a lot of people would gladly pay for it. The ones who don't want to, could accept a "discount" in exchange for becoming a glass citizens.

> Yes, this would cause price increase.

Actually, it wouldn't. Facebook makes obscene profits. Rather than be uncompetitive, they'd keep the same price.

If it's not profitable, then that means the market can't solve it, ergo we need regulation

> but less profitable

If we gave Facebook the choice of stopping stealing from people like this, or getting shut down, they'd do this in a second.

In a sane society, Facebook would have been shut down years ago, after the 2016 election.

Why do "apps" even need to be installed on it. Isn't it just a sensor array and a couple of displays?

I used to think everyone should learn a programming language just so they can experience its expressive power but more and more I wish they would so they wouldn't get duped by really dumb marketing.

Because Quest 2 is a stand-alone VR headset. It is not a display device for a computer, it is an all-in-one. So you install games on it to play them.

The camera based tracking is a marvel of modern engineering. Making something seem simple is really really hard.

That might already be the reason why the Oculus is not available in Germany and Belgium https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24375652

It seems like they're pushing FB as an authentication method for everything. Try and comment on a local news article (yeah, I know) and it wants to authenticate you with your FB account. Same thing with trying to buy something from a small independent web vendor. "Log in with your Facebook account" is becoming the default everywhere and it sucks.

I agree that’s not a great state to be in, but think about it from that locals new org’s point of view: comment spam is a major and hard-to-solve problem, and by tying commenting to the real-world identity and enforcement of bots that Facebook provides, the news organizations get to solve that thorny problem for free. Plus news orgs are already using FB to syndicate/share, so it’s really a no-brained for them.

I wonder what the world would look like with a independent, trustworthy, non-advertising-based company/organization which provided a similar anti-spam service for free, with the option to publicly tie to verified identities as well. (For all the flack that real-name policies get, they do reduce spam and hate speech by a big margin, so any service which doesn’t verify identity isn’t really a drop-in replacement for FB as far as that news org is concerned)

> (For all the flack that real-name policies get, they do reduce spam and hate speech by a big margin, so any service which doesn’t verify identity isn’t really a drop-in replacement for FB as far as that news org is concerned)

Did we not see the same studies?

As I recall Google+/YouTube's real name policy came under fire because a large minority of people received substantially more hate speech.

I've been writing about and pushing for a decentralized system that doesn't require centralized services or verified identities - because any centralized system will have biases and flaws, and having real identities tied to your online comments has can have serious real world consequence.

https://adecentralizedworld.com/2020/06/a-trust-and-moderati... - With this, a site or users of the site can choose many trusted moderators from the network and as the system grows it gets better over time.

What about to use DISQUS? I rarely see spammed DISQUS comments.

If you want to be authentication for everything then you definitely can't intermingle the authentication part of that (who is this person) with the authorisation part of that (what are they allowed to do). In other words, Facebook deciding I don't have the right to use it's service should have no bearing on whether I have provided evidence that I am who I assert to be, and whether other services should choose to service me.

My sentiment exactly. It’s crazy to think Facebook can simultaneously ban me from their platform and essentially steal whatever $X amount of dollars I spent on the oculus store. What makes it worse is they’re not even letting people who’ve made an oculus account in the past escape from this as they are now forcing ALL accounts to be linked to Facebook in the next couple years.

FB sounds like it's trying to be an multinational version of WeChat by becoming the operating system of life. There are many cultural reasons why this is feasible in China but not in the US (and many other places)

What are these cultural reasons?

I'd guess for starters that an extreme authoritarian centralized state is already normalized in China. USA is creeping that direction but there's still a ways to go

Facebook sounds more like the communist party, where they are requiring your real name, web activity, or get banned and have all your things taken away (Oculus usage, paid apps, can’t message friends, etc).

I think we need full separation of hardware and software. One company makes the hardware, others make the software. And let's not forget that it was like this for a long time (IBM+clones vs Microsoft, OS/2, Linux).

Today, the distinction between hardware and software is murky. Hardware can't even be tested without co-development of software. Even making these things happen in separate departments of the same business, by people who eat lunch together, is inefficient when trying to move fast and create new things. I often have hardware and software development tools open on my computer at the same time.

FB ownership is definitely an instant deal-breaker regarding the Oculus for me. I've heard that the Valve Index is a good alternative. Does anybody with VR experience have any input on that?

I have owned about a dozen VR headsets at this point, including the Quest (not the Quest 2) and the Vive Index. The Index is fantastic, but it's difficult to compare to the Quest which is truly in a category of its own.

For headsets, there are several properties that segment the market:

1. Tracking: outside cameras/emitters vs inside-out tracking

2. Tethered vs wireless (including PC powered, but using wireless transmission)

3. PC powered vs standalone device

For each of these, there are multiple vendors to choose from, except for standalone devices. In this case, the Oculus Quest is unique. There's no other competition.

Moreover, the Quest is the only device that can be run without a corresponding high end PC. If you don't have a PC like that, then the cost is prohibitive. There's also the space factor. VR needs space, which is already an issue. With the PC powered headsets, you also need that PC to be close enough to your open VR space. Otherwise, you need to rearrange your living space or invest in a VR dedicated PC.

In summary, the Vive Index is fantastic and arguably the best headset in the market right now, but the Oculus Quest fills a different niche of that market.

(And as to the topic of the article: I'm done with Oculus based on Facebook's policies).

> For each of these, there are multiple vendors to choose from, except for standalone devices. In this case, the Oculus Quest is unique. There's no other competition.

The only VR headsets I've seen so far in stores around here (a major metropolitan city) are headsets with only the lenses, in which you slot your own smartphone as the screen and CPU. Wouldn't these also count as standalone devices in your classification?

As the others noted, those platforms are all deprecated now. Even when they weren't, they didn't give anywhere near the experience of other headsets.

[I've had the Google cardboard, DayDream and the Samsung Gear headsets.]

Google has killed daydream, Samsung also killed GearVR and their VR video stuff. I don't know if there are others that will still work in this kind of headset, so not sure how relevant is anymore.

These are so crappy in comparison that i wouldn't even call them VR. The Quest is several generations ahead.

Its like comparing a pre-model-T car with a car from 1950. You might argue that for some purposes both are equivalent but that doesn't capture the qualitative improvement that has happened almost everywhere. Everything is improved and some areas feel perfected in comparison.

They’re kind of gimmicky, and don’t give the 6DOF you get with the Quest.

> Vive Index

Do you mean the Valve Index or the HTC Vive?

I strongly suspect the parent is talking about Valve Index, because HTC Vive is pretty much an old-gen inferior version of Valve Index.

Yes. My bad.

If you don't my asking, what do you consider to be the best VR headset for sitting?

Best headset for sitting is a inside-out, tethered VR headset.

Until recently, the Oculus Rift S would be a great pick for that.

I don't yet have an HP Reverb G2, but I expect good things out of that headset. The HTC Cosmos would also be a good choice.

The Valve Index (yes, I mistyped before) is an awesome headset, but the lighthouse emitter based tracking system isn't great for seated. Not only is it a hassle to setup, but it's easier for your chair or monitor or whatever to block the laser grid from the lighthouse units. And if you're seated, you aren't taking advantage of the highly accurate room-scale tracking the lighthouses provide. I'd stick with the convenience of an inside-out headset if you're primarily doing seated VR.

For example, I tended to prefer my Rift S for sim games (sim racing, sim flight) for all the reasons listed above.

> I've heard that the Valve Index is a good alternative

They're not even comparable. The Quest is a headset and two controllers you put it on and pick the controllers up, draw a room boundary and you're in. Works in any room in your house, completely stand alone.

Index requires you to install multiple sensors in a specific room in your house, and requires a connection to a desktop PC tower and fiddling around with Steam to play.

I think the FB account requirement is incredibly dumb from Oculus (Don't understand why it couldn't just be a shadow account like Insta/Whatsapp which everyone seems fine with weirdly) but really the product their offering is entirely in a class of it's own for a fraction of the price a normal VR setup costs and a fraction of the hassle.

I think if the market was different and what they were offering wasn't unique I think far fewer people would care and we'd all just buy different headsets.

Facebook might be sensing that their market is dwindling as other vendors catch up. They might be trying to extract value why they have the lead.

I honestly have no idea though. I don't get why they're in this space as it doesn't appear from the outside that they're trying very hard.

Maybe they think the entire market is drying up? The AAA blockbuster everybody thought would make VR mainstream (Half Life) seems to have fizzled with great reviews but not many sales. Maybe Facebook now believes VR will prove to be a bubble and they want to juice it for all they can while they still can.

Not sure this makes much sense. All the top end VR headsets are constantly sold out and require waiting months to get one (Index and soon the HP Reverb G2). People want to play Alyx but they can't.

Also a PC only game is niche enough, no PCVR game will ever make VR mainstream. Really, the mainstream VR game is Beat Saber - that alone has probably sold more VR headsets than any other app or game combined.

The only way to make VR mainstream imo is to offer it at console prices or less and make it standalone, which is exactly what the Quest is doing. It's really unfortunate it requires an FB account. I guess they justify it because Xbox and PS5 both require online accounts too.

>Really, the mainstream VR game is Beat Saber - that alone has probably sold more VR headsets than any other app or game combined.

Ironically, Facebook also acquired Beat Games (who makes Beat Saber) last year and effectively ruined it by intentionally breaking all the mods and custom songs, leaving it a shell of its former glory.

According to steamcharts [1], player counts peaked around July 2019 and have only dwindled since the acquisition (with the exception of two small bumps when the acquisition happened in November). Average player counts are have been cut in half since then, in less than a year.

I have almost 200 hours in Beat Saber, but I haven't played it for almost a year now, now that it's just the same two-dozen songs over and over.

[1] https://steamcharts.com/app/620980#1y

That's really sad to see. I also found the included songs pretty boring, and without custom beatmaps and scoresaber it's not really very good. I wonder what FB's strategy is here - why cut out the enthusiasts?

Wait, we can’t do custom songs any more? Then what’s the point of the game?

Modders (luckily) keep finding a way. It's just unfortunate for the player that having Facebook as an owner means they need to show more good will in preventing the distribution of custom songs so they don't get held accountable for piracy.

I paid attention to the dev discord servers for a few months after the acquisition when they were churning through new mods when the old ones broke and people gave up on trying to maintain them, but haven't checked it recently. I would expect there's probably working mods still, but it's also probably a lot harder to keep them working over time.

FB's official stance on modding is that they will support mods that don't engage in "piracy or illicit modding, including mods that infringe on third-party IP rights". [1]

[1] https://www.oculus.com/blog/welcoming-beat-games-to-facebook...

Because the official beatmaps are pretty damn good?

(Are custom songs really broken? Haven't tried in a month or so)

No doubt about that, but I still enjoy playing to my favorite music much more.

I dunno, I feel like it’s reaching saturation. Those that want VR are getting it, but then there’s those of us who are gamers, but forget it’s even a thing until someone mentions it. I am a gamer myself (have a 2080, sitting out the 3000 series), and I honestly don’t want one nor see how it can make gaming more enjoyable for me. So to me it seems like it’s going the same route attempt #1 did in the 90s, there’s some market but not enough.

Well, you need to be open about new experiences. And until I got my first VR headset I didn't know what I missed. Now I feel that having a powerful GPU and playing a 3D game on a flat screen is such a waste.

I have tried VR before

I want to like Alyx, but the hassle of connecting my VR headset to the computer every time I want to play is just too much of a pain.

Simple. Leave it connected.

Joking aside. What headset have you got that takes more than a few minutes to connect?

It’s the Rift, the problem is more that I like to store it somewhere when not in use because headset + controllers + trackers take quite a bit of space on my desk.

Then have to dive behind the computer to connect a HDMI and 3 USB cables (not enough ports on front).

Quest + VirtualDesktop is great untethered experience.

Selling a loss leader to build mindshare and market share isn't my idea of value extraction as compared to building the base for future value extraction.

If you don't think they're trying very hard though, I'm not sure if you've been following VR particularly much.

I have experience with the original pc tethered oculus, the htc vive and the valve index.

The valve index is a very nice upgrade over the original htc vive and the original oculus. The 'screen door' effect is all but gone the new controllers are very comfortable and the tracking is stellar. The index is heavier than the original oculus but the way the weight is distributed and the way the strapping works makes it a non issue. My only complaint is also a problem in the 'gen 1' headsets. Reflection off the fresnel lenses can cause some banded 'flare', especially noticeable when most of the screen is very dark but there is some portion of very bright light.

Sadly I have no experience with the 'upstart' headsets from Microsoft, HP, etc.

Untethered is a game changer for VR.

Index is awesome but you also need a well spec'd PC, have $999 on hand, and wait a few months for one. I believe the waiting list is 2-3 months now. I missed my reservation the first time, so if you really want one be vigilant in checking your email and Steam account.

Pros

- Knuckles controllers, still nothing like them

- External base station tracking, the only option that opens up full body tracking and makes it easy to do feet based movement

- High Refresh rate

- Good FOV

Cons

- Knuckles still isn't universally supported

- LCD screen and no OLED

- Reverb G2 has a much better screen

- Wires

I would recommend the G2 but its tracking and controllers just aren't as good as the Index, unless you're just going to use it for driving and flying games.

Don't forget the revolutionary off-ear audio. It's fantastic, and as far as I know, there's still nothing out there like it.

The Reverb G2 apparently uses the same audio hardware as the Index

Current wait time for Index is 12-14 weeks (got mine in 12) - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10CTIAd7OzNJhzkimpCFD...

The Valve Index is hands-down the best headset.

But it's also $999, requires a beefy gaming PC, and the setup is slightly more involved. But if you already have a beefy gaming PC (I'm a PC gamer, so I already did), don't mind spending 10 minutes attaching the lighthouses to the corners of your room, and of course have the $999 to buy the full kit, it's worth it.

HP Reverb 2 is coming soon with much higher resolution, though lower refresh rate. Whats better depends on if you're planning on playing sims or action games really.

I'm playing tons of simulation games with my Oculus Rift and starting some weeks ago looking around for an upgrade. HP Reverb 2 is certainly an alternative, anything else I should check out? Playing mostly flying simulators, but also racing and space.

I was thinking of maybe upgrading to the new Oculus' but after announcing it will require a Facebook account I started to rethink that. This submission really hit the nail in the coffin and will absolutely not get another Oculus now.

I wonder how good Pimax 5K/8K actually is, selling point is super wide FOV but seems a bit finicky to use or something.

According to another user [0]...

> All the extra angles of FOV are very distorted, and there is a red static constantly fuzzing away in the display.

> Plus, you have to deal with the Pimax company, which has to be one of the most incompetent companies I've ever met when it comes to taking money and delivering product without stepping into the realm of actual fraud. When I bought mine, it was 3 false "it's shipped" announcements, 2 months, and a threat to reverse my credit card charge before I finally received it.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24496969

Confirming the confirmation that the Index is a good collection of hardware. I don't have experience with an Occulus or Vibe, but the Index fell squarely into the "works out of the box" territory.

The only thing I really did to improve it was to 3d print a stand for the hand controllers. More an aesthetic choice than anything.

Ohh! Would you be willing to share your files for the hand stands?

I picked something off Thingiverse, and it's no longer up there. They do have some (IMO better designed) stands on there, however. Many of which support using the magnetic USB-C charging adapters, which I'd personally recommend for the controllers.

It's not really an alternative in that sense since it's tethered, needs a computer and a completely different ballpark price wise. If you have the money, a good gaming PC and the possibility to set up a dedicated VR space I would definitely buy an Index or HTC Reverb 2 though.

I have an Index. As long as you have a solid PC, the experience is great—it single-handedly convinced me VR was more than a gimmick. Great quality picture + audio, reasonably ergonomic and I love the controls. Overall, I've been super happy with it.

Downsides to consider:

• You need a solid gaming PC (with a 2070 or better).

• Expensive ($1000 for the kit)

• Connected to the computer by a wire, awkward for "room-scale" VR

• Base stations provide great tracking but require setup (mounting high up in your room) and mean that the setup isn't very portable.

• Limited/janky access to exclusive titles. (You can hack around to get Oculus-only titles to work, but it seems rough and I haven't tried it myself.)

If you're not budget-constrained, I believe the Index will give you the best overall experience.

> You need a solid gaming PC (with a 2070 or better).

As a counterpoint, I am using Index together with 1070 Ti and the performance is flawless.

As more anecdata, I had a pretty satisfactory experience with my Vive on an old R9 290x from ~2013. Some more demanding games would occasionally stutter, but everything was generally smooth (based on the performance graph not dropping below the HMD's refresh rate).

The Index is higher resolution/refresh rate and will require more hardware, but if you just want to get into some VR and dick around, the Vive is more than enough to get started, can be found for <$200 used, and a ton of the popular games (e.g., Beat Saber, SuperHot VR, etc) just really aren't that graphically demanding.

The Vive is also compatible with the knuckles controllers and those can be purchased separately, so you're not totally locked out from some of the more game changing stuff either.

I've had a Rift for 3 years (not a Rift-S). I've used a Quest. I bought an Index in August because of this FB account crap but ending up selling it 2 days later.

I'm not a fan of the Index. First problem, it has horrible black levels. Everything looks like you're in a layer of fog compared to the Rift. Maybe if you've never used a Rift before you won't notice but it was shockingly bad for me.

The headphones are utter crap. I don't get whoever thought headphones that hover 1/2 inch away from your ears would work. Take whatever headphones you have now that you're listening to music on and pull them 1/2 inch away for each ear. The sound goes down, it sounds tinny, less full, bases are missing, etc. The Index sounded exactly like that. Some friends said you have to get them perfectly lined up but if that's true the moment you move your head suddenly in some game they're no longer going to be aligned.

This also means the sound leaks into the room far more than it would with on ear headphones. It's not going to be loud but it is going to be annoying for anyone within a room if they aren't making some louder noise.

Next up, Steam VR is just not as good as Oculus Connect (or whatever Oculus's home screen system is called). In part because Oculus has built in "pull up your desktop and/or multiple windows" at anytime in anytime game and pin them to say up. Apparently there's a 3rd party app that will provide this for Index/Vive but I use that feature all the time. Inside a game want to look up a walkthru just pin in there in my view.

Now for some things that no one will admit to but I will...

The Index Controllers didn't feel as good to me as Rift Controllers. I get they have fanciers sensors. I get they grip your hands. But, probably the #1 use for VR is porn. Controllers that require 2 hands to put on are not good for things that require one had to be free.

I have lots of friends in the industry, I see none of them using an Index and plenty of complaints.

As for Quest/Quest 2, even if there wasn't the FB issue it's like choosing an iPhone instead of a PS5. iPhone has tons of great games but it doesn't have PS5 level games. Similarly Quest has tons of great games, but it doesn't have PC level VR games and it will never have any porn games being locked up by Facebook. (and even if it did, do you really want FB knowing which porn games you're playing?)

I'm praying the HP Reverb G2 gets good reviews and solves most of those issues. It's apparently a month or 2 from shipping so I'm crossing my fingers I can get rid of this Rift.

I can confirm that, uh, the Index exists and is good. Not sure what else you want to know.

How could anyone expect anything they use the device for to be private when it is owned and serviced by Facebook?

Apple’s investment in Privacy is going to pay off so big.

I wonder if Facebook can spin off a company that includes Oculus and competes with Apple on Privacy.

I’d guess no.

Because when facebook bought oculus they claimed that it would never require a fb account and tracking kept at a minimum. That lasted all of maybe six months and finally totally fell apart with the announcement of the 'facebook only' login.

I was aware of this, I had meant going forward.

Why would Facebook spin off anything? I see that happening only if congress forces a break up. Spinning Oculus out of FB seems like a low hanging fruit of a forced break up.

This is why I went Vive back when there were only two options for desktop VR

> for anyone who doesn't already have an active FB account (and perhaps even those who do).

This. Unless you have built up sufficiently high profile Facebook fame known inside and out of it, beyond just having a moderately active account, I wouldn’t consider it safe to spend a penny on this.

Really unfortunate that virtually no competitor exists in mobile VR segment.

HTC Vive?

No, that requires a PC. There isn't much in the all-in-one space other than the Quest.

Some sort of Android box that can bolt onto Vive or Index would be great

Not standalone. Last I recall, they _do_ have one, but it's much more expensive than Quest, and didn't have very good reviews.

It needs a PC in addition to spending another $500 - 600 for the headset.

More like 900 USD if you want to use it the way it was meant to be used with the peripherals.

What do you mean? The HTC Vive, non-pro version only costs $599 with base stations. Where are you getting $900 from?

I agree with the high total cost though. Most people pushing PC VR, will forget about how much a real VR ready PC will cost. It's easy to spend close to $3000 even when people loathed to admit it.

If you add the controllers, how much more does it cost?

Controllers were always part of that $599 package (at launch, 4 years ago). The only other peripheral most owners consider almost a "must have" would be the Deluxe Audio Strap which goes for another $99.

My Vive cost me £400 for the whole thing, for reference.

A deal-breaker indeed. I am not buying any device I can't use to reasonably full extent without an online account and a cloud connection.

I recently made the mistake of buying an iPad because I was excited to use Side Car with the Apple Pencil to draw in Mac apps.

It turns out I can't use the advertised features of the Apple devices I bought because Side Car requires 2FA with a phone number and my phone service is data only.

Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all. They're just intentionally crippling their expensive devices.

Man, I really hope this is just a temporary peak of insanity in the industry history and a total change is going to happen soon. You know, there were times in history when horrible, bizarre things were norms, and somehow the societies overcame those. This is our only hope.

> Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all. They're just intentionally crippling their expensive devices.

I believe they just want to make you get used to that so one day you would't even think about using any of your devices/apps without iCloud. Their vision probably is to make all the devices merely interfaces to iCloud and to make "offline usage" sound as ridiculous as using a toaster without electricity.

That's pretty fucky, especially since their 2FA doesn't go through SMS for me (it's a system popup). FWIW, there are (or were) other apps which provided similar functionality without going through Apple's hoops.

> Side Car requires 2FA with a phone number

Note that once you have at least one phone number added, you can switch it to be device-based instead, where it will send 2FA codes directly to any Apple device you're logged into (there's a little system popup) and the phone number becomes strictly a backup for if all devices are unavailable. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915

> Given that I connect the iPad to the Mac via a USB-C cable, it's not clear why iCloud is required at all.

Sidecar is primarily designed for wireless usage, and there's something behind-the-scenes where it's using the iCloud account to sync identity info so that that user doesn't have to manually set up any cross-device authentication stuff.

I don't find this a convincing rationale. I already had to jump through hoops with an authentication code to make my iPad "trust" my Mac before it appeared at all in Side Car.

Now that it does appear, I get a pop-up when clicking on the iPad income, saying I can't use it because the account doesn't have 2FA set up. Nowhere in the advertising for the device was there a disclaimer that a legacy phone number was required to use the features.

Your data line still has a phone number. I know on T-Mobile they only block sending SMS on data lines, it can still receive. Maybe your service works like that.

Sounds like that would work for services that send a verification code via SMS and ask you to enter it elsewhere, but not services that demand a reply. Luckily most 2FA is the former, but I've seen the latter with things like verifying flagged credit card transactions (although they have non-SMS alternatives).

With this new MagSafe charger it looks like the end goal is to remove one more port. Plugging in may not be an option soon. The 2nd gen pencil charges without plugging in for instance. If you can set up a US Google voice number you cold try to receive SMS there or hangouts. Maybe set it with a unique Google email to prevent hacking attempts.

Continuity - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204681

Apple Wireless Direct Link - https://owlink.org/wiki/

I have an iPad that sat on a shelf for several years, and now I can't use it all because Apple deleted the account that it's linked to.

You can put in the number of any cell phone you have access to, and get the code form the screen.

Would I later lose access to all my purchases on all my devices if I didn't have access to that phone number anymore?

I was so excited for the CV1 after I loved my DK2, but I now own a Vive. The Facebook acquisition was a deal-breaker, for privacy reasons and it bring patently obvious it would eventually result in this type of garbage.

Yep, the way we fix this is to avoid Occulus products for now.

Can’t this user return the item as defective? You paid for a VR headset and it doesn’t perform its primary function.

Yes, and if you have trouble getting a refund for your defective device, there’s a bunch of state attorneys general who are interested in anything Facebook right now.

It seem that it is exactly what this user is going to do (https://old.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/japo1j/faceboo...):

"No need for chargebacks, I purchased it from John Lewis in the UK so they wont have any issues refunding me. All my previous Oculus purchases on their store are now unplayable on my CV1 though so I might have to pursue a small claims court claim to get any money back on those."

It's a shame that John Lewis are probably going to have to eat the loss on this; it would be interesting to see what the effect of suing Facebook in the UK small claims court will be.

Also if you buy it on a credit card, the CC company is usually your friend.

But the issue is that in having his account terminated, he's also losing access to all historical purchases made over the years. The CC company may be willing to accept a charge-back on recent purchases, but what about the application/game purchased four years ago that's tied to the account. It's no longer accessible, but is the CC willing to refund for a purchase made that far back?

I honestly don't know, but if I had to guess it would be no.

but you existed and broke our ToS in the first place! /s

I am sick of verifying my FB account periodically after deleting the account and re-create with same email. Then, the weirdness came up, such as timeline only shows a couple of posts or nothing even I visited friends page and showed recent posts. And first a few months, FB asked me to upload the verifiable ID to unblock my FB account. (What the hell they need my ID ? I already enabled 2FA but kept complaining suspicious activity.)

Blizzard is asking me for government ID before they'll DELETE my account. It makes no sense. I feel like there should be some government agency that is interested in this misuse of their ID's/info, but I haven't found it.

Probably their threat model is black hats hacking into an account and requesting a delete.

Once upon a time this issue was resolved by not really ever actually deleting anything - just soft-deleting it and moving it off into an archive somewhere from whence it could be restored... unfortunately not-really-deleted stuff was insanely abused by marketing so that consumers no longer trust it and it's become illegal to retain this information after an account closure in some jurisdictions - so now we can't have nice things.

I'd guess gaming companies have to have more robust processes than most companies. They have to deal with bullying, siblings, sore losers and scammers (people have mentality that it's a game so it's not a real scam).

I don't have any addresses, pictures or names associated with my account that my ID can verify. Plus, if someone deletes my account at this point, they'd be doing me a favor :)

If only we had some sort of bureau of protecting consumers - the tech companies are bad but the people I really want to see fines for bad UI are credit companies. Trying to un-enrolled from once free-of-charge credit reporting is insanely difficult.

That's just it... generally speaking, there's no law against using federal IDs in any way that companies desire. There's also no laws against aggregating data that gives corporations too much information about consumers, and no laws governing how such data can be used, a right to deletion, and other protections.

The laws in the US governing privacy and data use have never been updated for the computer age, because the people who have been in power for the whole computer age generally don't understand computers.

I got a quest 2 (yesterday), and I did not have to use a Facebook account to login. I was able to use my Oculus account.

I did receive a notice that in 2023 the Oculus Account would be deprecated however.

Totally agree. I have a Quest 1, before the forced FB integration. I'll be waiting until something better comes along before upgrading my VR setup.

I couldn’t agree more. I had the fun of a 30 day ban on PlayStation because my kid sent something inappropriate to his friend. Now I imagine a scenario like this happening but the consequences are my Facebook account shut down permanently. Definitely a huge turn off.

While I agree doing anything with a Facebook account is gross, it seems rather, err, trusting to think that Facebook wasn't already linking accounts anyway and are essentially not just getting rid of the system that does that and forcing users to do it for them.

I have an active FB account, but I would never use it to log in to anything other than FB via a sandboxed browser profile, and if I had to, I wouldn't use that service.

Yea - I'd be unwilling to use Oculus unless I could specifically tie it to a fake FB account (or no account at all). I barely use my FB account but I never want gaming integrated with social media in a manner I can't control simply due to personal preference and privacy.

I thought about using a fake, Oculus-only account but that's a false sense of separation as FB would see connections from my accounts coming from the same source IP unless I was going to separate them via anonymizing proxy.

How is that different from roommates/family that share a computer?

We have smartphones now with a pretty wide rollout - I wouldn't be surprised if people that legitimately all share the same computer do have problems getting flags on their account from facebook.

Honestly though, the real answer is who knows - it's entirely proprietary information and all we can do on the outside is observe the fact that is does seem to be a pretty flawed detection system and guess at why that is. Does facebook use sentiment analysis of posts or post frequency to ban users they think are fake? Do they look for similar content of posts from different users to try and detect troll farms? I don't know and FB really doesn't want to talk about it.

Anyway I need to buy some games from Oculus Store so I should provide real information. So I believe that fake information account isn't an option.

Realistically if you don't want to manage hundreds of separate logins then what are your options? On the whole it still seems much easier to get reasonable behaviour and human involvement out of Facebook than out of Google.

Yeah, I feel that it's easy for the majority of HN to stay away. I do feel bad for people who can't afford anything else at the moment.

The quest two barely counts as VR. You will only have mobile titles, which are terrible compared to PC. to run quest with PC you need to have a VR ready PC in the first place.

Hey, let's not get stupid here.

The content on the Quest may not be "desktop fidelity", but my time with the Quest 1 was VERY much enjoyable (especially compared to the Oculus Go), and often preferred over my desktop VR HMD simply for the convenience. And the content was quite good.

By this same metric, the Switch is also plagued with "mobile titles" given it's Android base and Tegra X1 mobile GPU. But most folks DON'T think of it like that, and for good reason: the Switch can keep up just fine in it's own market.

And if the Quest 2 has improved specs in every area over the Quest 1, then it's completely FINE for what it is.

It's just the company behind it fucked up a good thing.

That’s what I did. Haven’t had any issues.

The shrill of millions of nerds realizing they have to choose between the best easiest VR tech and facebook knowing what porn they watch.

Do not stay away from Oculus.

The Quest 2 is amazing and an important leap for VR. If you care about the state of VR, it must sell well.

Frankly, this is not the hill to die on. If you plan to own a smartphone or really use any kind of service or internet browsing in the modern world going forward you’re going to be faced with these kind of privacy dilemmas. Better to just accept it and move on with your life than to basically live like a Luddite for the rest of your life. Facebook will not be the first or last corporation to ask you to relax your absolute anonymity.

Are you a Facebook employee or something?

This is absolutely the hill to die on. Oculus has competitors. The answer to save VR isn't to buy Oculus, it's to buy other headsets and hope Oculus dies unless they reverse their decision to require a Facebook account.

> Oculus has competitors.

I wish that was true. If that was the case, I would've bought a headset from a competitor in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, while there are many competitive VR headsets out there, I cannot recall a single other VR headset that works standalone without a PC.

Not even mentioning the price point of Quest and the fact that it can be used for both PCVR and standalone, thus bringing a superset of features of other headsets. No need to set up lightboxes and being able to just buy the headset and play without anything extra is a value proposition that I don't see any other VR headset can provide.

Hopefully, the success of Quest will provide a kick in the ass to other manufacturers to make their own versions. Imo, the standalone+PCVR combo with no lightboxes is the future, with lightbox PCVR-only headsets being reserved for highly niche uses.

The masses need to buy VR headsets. If people can’t buy an amazing VR headset for $300 VR is dead in a shallow grave.

The masses should probably be buying PlayStation VR anyway. The VR market might honestly be better off without Facebook's image attached to it.

Excellent, better it be dead on FB's terms than create yet one more technology we turn into a horror show.

Nobody needs to buy a VR headset, let alone Facebook's. It's an expensive toy.

Mate, if Facebook actually cared about the VR scene they wouldn’t have broken the best VR headset to date by _requiring_ a fb login. Without a fb login the device is broken. If _they_ wanted VR to succeed they wouldn’t have done this. Take it up with them.

A wild false dichotomy has appeared !

If only there were other companies with competing products which would assuage one’s concerns regarding privacy and/or anonymity and guard against Luddite lifestyles.

“Must sell well...hill to die on” feel a bit extreme, particularly given everything that has transpired in 2020.

Other VR headsets are far more expensive and some require tethering to expensive gaming computers. Oculus Quest 2 has no true competitor at its price point, and some might say any price point.

> Ethically challenged software engineer working for a major tech company

Well, at least you know yourself, but I don't appreciate this attempt to normalize your moral bankruptcy and ridicule others who haven't sold and don't want to sell their soul.

Maybe one day you'll be forced to confront the consequences of this lack of ethics. Until then, kindly fuck right off.

> If you care about the state of VR, it must sell well.

Isn't the opposite true? If I care about the state of VR as a product free of social media lock-in, I want Oculus to fail hard.

Getting locked out of your brand new device worth several hundred dollars is not a "privacy dilemma".

I have a Gear VR and I've been on the fence about upgrading to a real proper mobile VR setup but thankfully Oculus required this Facebook integration and made this decision a lot easier.

I will put my money somewhere else.

It's funny that you are talking about Luddites because those were basically beaten into submission by police.

I sense a shill.

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