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Comment by jiggawatts | Hacker News Reader

The physical distance from the glass to your eyeball is irrelevant.

What is relevant is the distance to the focal plane.

For typical screens, the focal distance and the screen distance are obviously identical.

For VR systems, they're very different. The last one I tried had a focal plane that was about 4 meters away. This makes it better than typical screens!

However, the low resolution is an issue. I've found that I get sore eyes if I use a low-resolutions screen. This is because my eyes try to focus, fail, and keep "hunting" by changing focus back and forth looking for the point of sharp focus -- but it's never there. This is why all of my displays are 4K.

For VR because of the large field of view, the required resolution is at least 8K per eye or equivalent. Ideally a "fake" 16K using foveated rendering.

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Focal distance is only part of the issue another is is consistency. Using a headset for 8 hours means your eyes are constantly focusing within a very narrow range of distances for 8 hours which isn’t good. Your brain might be somewhat fooled when looking at a wall vs a VR window, but your eyes don’t change focal distance.

Similarly VR has a narrow range of possible brightness, this is less of an issue but can also cause problems long term.

Isn't the focal distance to your monitor also static? Well mostly static, since you do move around a bit.

every time your eyes look outside your monitor (even for a fraction of a second), they get a little rest. EG.:Looking a your coffee mug before you grab it, looking at the window, adjusting your keyboard, looking at your colleagues, your 2nd/3rd monitor that's a bit further, moving back and forth on your chair, etc. You never spend 100% of your time starring at the center of your monitor.

On a VR headset, your eyes will always focus at the exact same distance until you remove the headset.

Hi! OP here. It absolutely can cause issues, and the same occupational hygiene and ergonomics apply in VR as they do for sitting at a desk.

So while I spend 8-10 hours a day in VR, I don't do it all at once - I do take breaks, which means walking the dog 3 times a day right now, in addition to bio breaks or just stretching my legs a bit.

Why not just walk the dog in VR?

Pardon and I believe that I am futurist .. forward thinker like AR Glasses apps I want to make...

- Keep track of real life ping pong game score via AI & show each awarded point in glasses view (can do similar for fencing, card games, etc)

- AR location history (show me how this building looked decades ago)

- AR turn day into night & vice versa

- AR zoom in ... Apple just added their Magnifer app .. put that in AR/smart glasses

AR/smart glasses (really should call them that "smart," it makes more sense to regular consumer) will be revolutionary for sure as it enhances and innovates something millions and millions already do wear glasses. People will pick them up by the millions to billions and possibly because some of the app ideas I listed above.

VR has been around for 30 years .... why would millions to billions want to strap on a headset to talk to memojis of their co-workers for hours each day. It's isolating vs. AR ... AR glasses will enhance social behaviors ... VR i never see becoming anything like the iPhone. AR glasse are no doubt the next iPhone especially where developers create revolutionary apps for them.

I'd be interested in hearing the perspective of a forward thinker such as yourself on the Google Glass.

Google glass was the very first of such a headset and not a good experience. It's probably still a little early for smart/AR glasses but they make a ton more sense to be the next big thing vs. VR. VR requires everyday people to do something unusual ... something they havent done before .. that is isolating ... that is uncomfortable for long periods of time ... maybe it will make sense for videogames but not working 8 hours a day with a headset strapped to your face (lol).

Ask those outside of your VR circle ... are they excited to use VR ... strap a headset on their face and work in a virtual world with their co-workers' memojis for 8 hours or would they prefer to wear their sunglasses or prescription glasses that are smart & enhance the world around them like never before. If my AR ideas are not good ...not ground breaking ideas that get millions to billions of regular people buying them im sure other developers ideas will be even better and prompt billions to adapt and buy them. But i am excited to be able to play real life games like ping pong (card games) and have my glasses keep/show me the score in my glasses view. I guess that is a stupid completely void of innovation type idea..... not changing how we do everyday things

Maybe out of all this work in VR things will be learned and used to create smart prescription or sunglasses.

Yeah, but again, that's an issue that is shared with physical computer screens as well.

It's obviously easier to look up from a physical screen and look around to change up your focal distance, but frankly, this is something that people already forget to do -- and it's just as easy to do in VR if you've got something in the far distance to look at.

Looking at something “far away” in VR doesn’t change your eyes physical focal distance. You need to physically remove the headset to rest your eyes.

Huh, okay, after some very cursory googling it looks like you're right. I was misunderstanding how VR focal distance worked.

Then your point definitely stands: taking off a headset in order to mix up your focal distance does sound like a pain.

There are lightfield displays that can synthesise arbitrary focal planes, but they're still experimental afaik.

There are consistent rumors they'll appear in the Quest 3.

I rather doubt it, but if we're lucky it's something they're working on. A generation or two after, maybe?

It's not just the resolution. Lenses get dirty, and you get other optical artifacts (god rays, chromatic aberration, screendoor effect) that mess with the quality of the picture and create eye strain.

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