Comment by jaaron | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jaaron | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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