I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR | Hacker News Reader

I Spent Hundreds of Hours Working in VR

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I wanted to love VR. I dreamed of having a headset when I was younger and kickedstarted the oculus rift. I imagined a million worlds that would be within virtual reach. It would be the coolest!

VR has been nothing but a complete disappointment to me. Motion Sickness, headaches, sweaty headsets and detachment. Never played a VR game that wasn’t better without it, somewhat like 3D movies. I have my doubts this will ever be anything other that a use once toy for most.

Seeing Facebook further latch onto our faces fills me with dread. I don’t think we will interact with each other in VR with business or pleasure outside of some fringe groups. More fads, more ewaste…

AR on the other hand, either as a small projector or special glasses — that is exciting.

Things I like:

Immersed.com (second computer screen): I wish the Quest 2 had 4000x4000 per eye to make this work beautifully but I suppose that will be the future.

Eleven Table Tennis: I practice smashing in this game, the skill transferred. Now I am beating all my friends with real actual table tennis (at an amateur level).

Thrill of the Fight: awesome shadowboxing on steroids workout.

Walkabout minigolf: feels like actual minigolf, except the courses are more fun [1].

Space Pirate Trainer DX: I haven’t played it yet but seems like an enhanced laser tag [1].

What I would like to be solved:

- Excellent passthrough: I want to interior design my rooms with VR

- Excellent screens (i.e. 4000x4000 per eye), it opens up applications/games that are mediocre at the moment

- omnidirectional treadmills fully solved (super hard to do): I want to be able to strafe in place, jump, side jump, duck, crouch, make almost any movement in place IRL and for it to be translated to actual movement in VR. I sometimes muse about how to solve this but I wouldn’t know how.

[1] The biggest benefit that VR/AR has are two things: one, you can make virtual hardware, and in some cases that is about as good as real hardware (e.g. virtual screens). Two, you can make experiences that are as almost as good in real life (e.g. table tennis) but then you can enhance them since a developer has much more control to bend physics than any other engineer does in the real world. The coolest application I saw for that is this model train game, you could scale down and be inside of the train, you could construct train tracks on very small orbs, etc. If I’d be a fan of trains, I’d buy it.

Eleven is an incredible game. I never particularly liked table tennis, probably because I was not good at it. Being able to practice in VR made it a lot more fun for me. The dev is extremely responsive. I even 3D printed a paddle attachment for the Oculus controller which is supported in-game. I recommend it every time I can because it's as much fun as I've had with a video game.

Where can I get more info about the paddle attachment? Someone on Reddit also talked about it.

There are a bunch on thingiverse and also available to buy on amazon and elsewhere. I think this is the one I printed:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4623428

I used Eleven to learn how to play table tennis during the pandemic and have also become fairly competitive with my friends and family that already played. I now have a real table in my home and my wife and I play regularly. Certainly got my money worth out of that used Oculus.

> Excellent passthrough: I want to interior design my rooms with VR

This is a tangent, but i wish this was a thing now, even without VR. The last few years of iphone and ipad have lidar, which has led to pretty solid 3d scanner apps. In five minutes, i have a whole 3d model of the interior of my house. I wish there were good consumer apps to use that and design in.

The lack of resistance and extremely fast feedback loop give me really bad RSI—which I'm not particularly prone to—if I play Wii Sports for more than a few minutes and try to do the motions as if they were real, rather than just waggling with my wrist. Is that not a problem with VR rigs and "real" sports activities? I've yet to use one.

I wouldn't know, I haven't played Wii sports much. The speed of your movements is tracked, so that's tougher to fake. In your case, if you'd be in The Netherlands, I'd recommend you to buy a Quest 2 at the store with the clear question if you can return it the next day if you do not like it. Create an account, if you have FB issues then make sure you use a Facebook account you don't care about, buy Eleven Table Tennis, play for an hour and then ask for money back for the game (can be done through the app) if you don't decide to buy a headset.

I don't know how the US is.

Table tennis is a great fit here because the physical game isn't reliant on feedback from the ball, either, since it weighs so little. Swinging a bat as hard as you can will easily tire or hurt you in VR, but table tennis transfers really well.

Great list. I would also recommend checking out some movies in Bigscreen. It supports 3D movies.

I have tried Bigscreen and will definitely use it in the future. The problem that I have with it currently is that the pixel density of the Quest 2 is too low. My friend that I watch movies with regularly has a plasma smart tv (or whatever you call them) and the detail is much more crystal clear.

You've not played the right games, then. I mean, take Robo Recall, which is one of the first things that came out. Sure, you can do a shooting game without VR, but then you don't get the experience of tearing a robot apart with your own hands and punching another's head off with a torn off arm.

Or Elite Dangerous is quite the experience in VR too. Less so than Robo Recall, but it works out extremely well if you have a HOTAS. You work as if you were sitting in a cockpit.

Or Subnautica, which in VR gets even more terrifying.

Or VR Chat and similar, where you get to interact far more personally than you would just looking at an avatar on a screen.

Now of course it's not like it solves world hunger or anything, but the tech works extremely well within the right scenarios.

The tech works extremely well at making me feel sick. I enjoyed subnautica sans VR. ED is less interesting than Euro truck simulator. :-)

I get the physical games like table tenis and beat saber, but how is this not a fad? The wii was cool at the time too. Nintendo didn’t retain the ideas in later hardware.

VR chat is about as interesting as second life, and any metaverse that follows will follow the same path.

Well, in that case you've got to make adjustments to your setup (wrong IPD maybe?), or you could just be unlucky and get sick far too easily.

Consumer VR of course involves a disconnect between what you feel and what you see, and that makes people sick when it gets bad enough, but most people can enjoy at least some VR experiences.

By my account, I've managed to spend days of real time within Subnautica exclusively in VR.

If you get sick, what I'd recommend is something like Beat Saber, where you're never moved without physically moving in reality. If that doesn't work something is definitely wrong. The next easiest experience is cockpit simulations. I'd say Subnautica comes somewhere after that, being in the intermediate range.

The worst I've personally tried is Half Life 2 in VR (as in, HL2 just rendering to VR without further changes), and that is indeed not a nice experience because the FPS mechanics just don't work in VR. The acceleration, the need to constantly rotate your view without moving in reality, the need to make very quick and frequent changes in direction are all very hard to tolerate.

> I get the physical games like table tenis and beat saber, but how is this not a fad?

Who cares? What matters if it's fun or not. I enjoy the exercise, I don't do it to fit in. And it's surprisingly good exercise. I lift weights, and Racket NX still is capable of making my arms sore. Then I suppose I have a rather violent play style.

I wish there was some database where users can report comfort level of each game. Oculus rate comfort levels but I find many games rated "comfortable" still make me sick.

Also I love VR and have no major issues with games like Beat Saber, Thrill of Fight, The Climb, Eleven, The Plank Experience, etc.

Whenever there is something that might cause nausea like falling, I just close my eyes.

“Far too easily?” You Sir are being rude, and I feel like you are trying to justify your VR experiences to yourself.

However If you enjoy it, that’s all that matters.

One small tip I'd offer is... try chewing gum next time you're in VR.

I have almost 3,000 hours clocked in VR according to Steam and there are still a few games that can make me nauseous (mostly those with poor locomotion and/or bad frame drops). Weirdly enough, chewing gum seems to help a ton; in some games, I feel like I'm less nauseous next time I play, too. Not sure how scientific this is, but friends say the trick generally works for them too.

Perhaps could be phrased as “more easily than other users”? Dropping in as a quest 2 user to add anecdata of not feeling sick in most games or for extended periods of time. I’m not used to moving around smoothly using controllers though, flying a racing drone is kind of similar in being vaguely disturbing to begin with.

Quest 2 sales over the last few weeks would hint this might not be a fad, though.

Well, I apologize if it came off as rude, wasn't the intention.

I was just trying to say that different people have different amounts of tolerance for VR, and it could just be that your isn't that high for whatever reason. Nothing wrong with that, but that it doesn't work for you specifically doesn't really mean much for VR as a technology.

There are pills you can take against motion sickness, it is a known problem that some people get motion sick easier and throw up from situations normal people handle just fine.

>Nintendo didn’t retain the ideas in later hardware

bruh, have you ever played a Nintendo Switch? It's essentially the culmination of Wii-era motion controls + the WiiU's console/handheld split.

Every fucking shooting game on the Switch is nowadays released with motion controls (for gyro aiming). The joycons are basically sleeker Wiimotes with better motion sensors. Saying that the Wii's revolution was just a passing fad for Nintendo is hella disingenuous.

I own a switch.

It’s not the same as the wiimotes or the physical game gimmick ala wii sports. The physical movement was a big part, similar to what VR is trying to do now.

I think in generally the switch is awesome but it’s closer to a traditional console GBA or DS. Nintendo threw away what was a gimmick and what parts were making good gaming experiences.

Ring Fit Adventure or Just Dance is a very Wii-like experience.

Other games use Switch controllers in a very similar way to wiimotes.

I think what has happened is the platform has opened up to more non-Nintendo games and diluted the focus on movement that was in a lot of games for Wii/WiiU. Motion control has gone mainstream too, all controllers have tilt sensitivity, so that doesn't seem as big a thing. Maybe your right that people choose to use stick controls in preference to macro-movements of controllers.

That's because the motion controls largely didn't work for that kind of thing outside of a few gimmicky titles. Their use in the Switch is far more natural and integrated, so of course it doesn't feel like a gimmick.

So Switch combines DS/Wii/WiiU style game in one hardware. Well done.

The hard thing with VRChat is finding "your" people and particularly people that aren't screaming/younger teens. But it is funny, I still feel anxious talking to a stranger in VR. It's wild though... I mostly spend my time alone (moved to a random state) and I can just dive in somewhere and talk to random people. I do feel old in general though on VRChat ha.

I suffered with motion sickness too it gets better over time.

I will say I'm not a generally all-around likeable cool guy either so you do have to vibe/give something (be interesting). Ultimately as far as making friends or something... that's hard. I'll get invited to discord servers and then it dies off in a few days.

There is one thing I have to try still Fo4 VR.

Come join the other introvert techies on Helios[0][1] Fair warning, it's still under development and the meetups generally operate on a schedule but that also means it isn't overrun with annoying first time Quest owners. The founders are very active and responsive on Discord.

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1047640/Helios/ [1] https://www.helios-vr.com/

That looks interesting I'd be curious to see how it's doing now at least 4 months + later from most recent reviews. I can understand how hard it is to start something from nothing regarding userbase.

I will give it a shot, the game seems too cheap (cost to own) just my opinion.

> but how is this not a fad? The wii was cool at the time too. Nintendo didn’t retain the ideas in later hardware.

Hand tracking (via controllers or cameras) isn’t comparable at all to the Nintendo waggle/point/swing tech.

I guess every "you sit in a cockpit" game works very well with HMDs ... there was an early demo of a Mechwarrior style game that worked very well (for me) in VR.

For me the problem is that the resolution was always lacking. With my glasses I have "better than 20/20"-vision (visus of 1.2-1.6, 120-160 visual acuity). I have not tried the newer HMDs, but with the older Oculus Rift and HTC Vive I could clearly see the individual pixels distracting me from the experience.

The so called "screendoor effect" is not there anymore with the Quest 2 high res HMD's. My HTC vive had it and it was annoying but a good game could rule it out, with video it was visible. But on the Quest2 you can't see it.

For people not into sims in general, I would recommend Project Wingman as a fun gateway to this. It's arcade to the point of your typical space sim, so it's easy to get going.

The physical games are barely VR games imo. Everything is in front of you. You don't physically move where you're standing too much. Beat Saber is great fun but it can be done pretty much the same without VR, and is done, at arcades.

No it can't? There are other rhythm games at the arcade, but they're not Beat Saber.

There's literal beat saber cabinets. In retrospect they may have had a helmet, but it's all rendered in front of you on a screen anyway. Aside from the wall dodging which is pretty minor, you don't need VR to play beat saber at all. All of the action happens a meter in front of you in a constant direction.

What are these cabinets called? I've never seen them anywhere. Do they have a VR helmet or not? If so, they are probably just clones trying to ride on the success of Beat Saber which continues to rank very high in charts of best VR games.

I personally find the best Beat Saber levels are 90 degree and 360 degree, where you have to spin your body around and which wouldn't be possible in such cabinets.

Also the immersion of VR is where it's at - the fact that you feel like a Jedi with your light sabers and you're cutting blocks in time with the music, while the controllers vibrate as well giving you feedback that makes your brain believe you are a Jedi.

> The tech works extremely well at making me feel sick.

But you realize this is a you problem, right? Outside the handful of people who get motion sick with VR, the tech is rock solid. Everyone who tries an Index is blown away by how immersive the experience is.

> VR chat is about as interesting as second life, and any metaverse that follows will follow the same path.

You couldn't be more wrong. There's a reason Facebook rebranded to Meta, and Microsoft just purchased Activision with designs on their own metaverse. Big players are putting serious money behind this, and I like those odds.

The literature says it's 22-80% of people get sick using VR. Much more than a handful https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91573-w

"Sick" is definitely a relative term. I've given literally thousands of demos to people--some of which were pretty janky, back in the early days--and I've yet to see anyone throw up from VR.

There is a very small minority of people who put on the headset and immediately can't stand it. I've seen maybe 2 or 3 people in the last 6 years, so it's definitely less than 1%.

Depending on content, I've seen about 50% of women and 25% of men experience mild discomfort after using the headset for about 30 minutes. Studies on simulator sickness include that in "feeling sick".

My current project is not able to use every single sim-sickness mitigating strategy available, due to the sort of source data we're using (a lot of flat, 360 imagery in a multi-user tour-like scenario), but even there, we've only had 1 out of 100 people express actual feelings of nausea after using the headset. If people report any discomfort at all, it's on their first time, after they've not heeded our warning to limit their first interaction to 30 minutes, and then they only mention feeling a little light headed.

People report feelings of nausea after playing 1st-person shooter video games on large screen monitors or watching shaky action movies at movie theaters. This is not a problem unique to VR.

The study was designed to find factors that correlate with VR sickness, and as such, only studied 83 people, all "highly stressed", and showed shaking videos as their methodology. I think it would be a statistical mistake to generalize from this study.

Anecdotal, but a lot of people seem to be able to get over their VR motion sickness. I personally did by just playing the janky Rocket Mode in Richie's Plank Experience a lot. Same goes for heights in VR, at first it's terrifying but if you repeatedly expose yourself to it it loses its effect. There's also a story of a VR dev who built a demo to get rid of his motion sickness, it involved just repeatedly dropping his POV from a height and then looping back to the top. Granted, some people will probably never get rid of their motion sickness for whatever reason but I think those will be in the small minority.

Zuck rebranded because Facebook has a bad rep. Microsoft bought AB for their IP and lib, I don’t believe they do any VR stuff. They do online gaming well and will be very successful with Xbox.

I don’t think we will be seeing competitive esports in VR, as we don’t see competitive Wii Bowling as an esport.

> Microsoft bought AB for their IP and lib, I don’t believe they do any VR stuff.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/967490/Microsoft_Maquette...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/altsp...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh

It would make more sense that "they" refers to Activision Blizzard. They do very little VR stuff compared to Microsoft.

IMO Elite Dangerous is so good in VR I stopped wanting to play vanilla flat E:D. I’d play it more if it wasn’t such a hassle to boot to Windows, haul out all the HOTAS gear and the VR gear, unplug my external monitors, plug everything else in in the right order, find there are 5 mandatory Windows updates and an Oculus update to sit through, etc. You kind of need a dedicated desk and PC for VR.

Quest 2 with a link cable (or wireless link if you have great wifi) makes all this a lot easier!

Virtual Desktop Streamer (https://www.vrdesktop.net/) works amazingly well for my Quest 1 as a wifi solution.

Tip: you can use a spare wifi router as a dedicated link for oculus air link. Plug your PC in with ethernet and your HMD via wifi. I get 200mbps with a very old router.

Subnautica in VR is broken beyond playability without mods. I've tried it and I would disagree with any suggestion that VR enhances the experience of the game.

I'm exactly the opposite. I love VR and I now find non-VR games boring and old like trying the play NES or C64 games (which I used to love).

Half Life Alyx is arguably the best Half Life experience to date. No Man's Sky is amazing in VR but zero interest outside of VR. In VR I'm actually in a spaceship or actually on another planet. Outside VR I'm just looking at someone else's travel photos. Seeing vista's in VR is like the difference between looking at a picture of the Grand Canyon and actually being at the Grand Canyon. The first is a pretty picture. The second you actually feel it's 20 miles the other side and a mile deep. Seeing a smoking volcano in Farpoint, again outside vR is just a picture, inside VR the mountain actually feels 1-2 miles high with 7-10 mile plum of smoke. So now non-VR games that don't get then sense of presence fill like something is missing.

Further, well made VR games (which is definitely not all) are often way more intuitive than non. The 19 buttons on a dualshock or a mouse and 101 buttons of a keyboard, a good VR game you should reach out and touch stuff in the game.

There are also experiences like Jet Island or Eye of the Temple you just can't have outside VR.

VR Rhythm games actually force me to dance, vr non-VR rhythm games which rarely do that.

As for AR, I used to be more excited, but I suspect reality will be tracking, constant ads, and distractions. And further, it's kind of hard to turn reality into any setting, something VR can do easily. In AR, in my living room, maybe I could have an AR pet that runs around my furniture. In VR I can escape my living room for another planet, an underwater adventure, a dragon's lair, a space station, a secret lab, a zombie infested factory, etc...

The biggest problem with VR is just lack of great content. Looking forward to Horizon Forbidden West as the next true AAA VR title.

One of my biggest hobbies is sim racing, and I can tell you that putting on the VR headset is akin to putting on a helmet and setting off on the track. The sweatiness and discomfort is nothing more than a real driver would experience, and turning a wheel feels real without hand tracking.

What you're experiencing with disorientation does tend to go away for most people if they're careful about it. And for me, I literally can't remember the last time I've felt disoriented in VR. Even considering that I've had shunts that have caused me to roll 20 times or more.

I agree, there is waste involved (as with anything), but as a comparison to racing it's much more friendly for the world than burning fuel. I'm in full agreement that Facebook on our faces sounds terrible, and concerns me, but VR can be a very good thing.

> that putting on the VR headset is akin to putting on a helmet and setting off on the track.

It depends on what your brain is used to. If you've never felt the acceleration, you don't know what you're missing. But I've done a lot of skiing in my life, and my brain will not accept VR skiing as the real thing. I feel queasy and have to stop.

I know what I'm missing, and have experienced it. I see this as an environmentally friendly way to do something I love literally whenever I want, and it's wayyyyy cheaper to boot. And the racing quality (competition) is better than any real-world thing too. The skill ranges are so tight in online races, especially iRacing.

The feelings you had with nausea is common for people, and it's possible to get over it if you are methodical. Lots of people I knew couldn't do more than 1 minute when they started, and slowly worked up to it. Trick is to stop the moment your stomach feels unsettled, and try it every day. Don't push though it.

Any racing games you can recommend? I couldn't find a good one (without trying them out).

You could try Project CARS - Pagani Edition on Steam; it's a free (sponsored) version of the racing sim Project Cars "1". Whether you like the controls is up to you, I found the VR experience quite good. Without any Gs however, it is lackluster even in comparison to my not-so-powerful "real" car.

Assetto Corsa's complete edition often goes on sales for ~$5 and can be modded like crazy, and also has reasonable controller support. Wheel and pedals will always be better though.

VR is already an excellent expert tool. VR based visualization of digitally designs - products or houses, is becoming a very pragmatic tool for designers to review their work in 3D, instead of just a flat screen (3D HAS more information).

As a trivial example - when designing our new office, some people reviewed the auditorium design in VR and figured out the screen was too high for comfort, and it was lowered.

Extreme examples go into virtualized surgical training where physics and graphics engine specialized to tissue simulation is used to teach surgeons new procedures.

AR displays such as hololens can be used in construction yards to compare the as built with a digital model for quick review.

Etc etc.

I don't know how good toy VR or AR will ever become, but it already is an indispensable expert tool.

Designers and surgeons would die without it. We have to introduce this unnatural thing to life or FB would lose money and humanity will suffer.

I think young surgeons would get a trauma moving from this nonsense to real surgery. Or maybe they will try to press a button in the patient's stomach.

> Motion Sickness, headaches, sweaty headsets and detachment.

I've bought a Vive when Half Life: Alyx came out and was completely blown away by the first impressions and immersions of that game.

Since then however and after the first "whoa!"-effects faded, every game was exactly what you've just described: Pure disappointment, and my body completely stressed out/sick after half an hour, at best. The only exception is beat-saber, which is a lot of fun for quite some time, but not the kind of game I'd want to play for hours on end.

So far, VR seems gimmicky, and quite frankly is way too much of a hassle to set up to enjoy it often (so many cables!, and I don't have the space for a permanent setup).

The cable thing is pretty solved with the Quest 2. Zero cables there.

Yeah, if you want to play a subset of games that Facebook has deemed you can play. Still salty that Pavlov isn’t native to quest.

Air Link solves this, but boy is it annoying in practice. Setting down the headset always pushes the floor just out of reach when you come back to it. Which is frustrating in a game that makes you pick things up, like shooters.

Not sure if you are aware but you can get Pavlov Shack for free through the AppLab for quest2: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/3649611198468269

I've had some good fun playing it.

Why is SideQuest and AppLab not sufficient for “unapproved” games?

I was pretty disappointed with Alyx. Little manual interactions like the healing stations and the markers and the reloading felt novel. But the actual meat of the game, the combat, was just not very good. Teleport movement breaks immersion. The hardest enemies in the game were the electric dogs. They did this thing where they drastically over commit to shooting in a specific direction and all you needed to do was click to move somewhere else and you were fine. It was super lame, but, at the same time, not actually super easy to execute. It's like we've taken a step forward on graphical immersion and three steps back on game design immersion.

Valve did a good job working with the constraints they had, but my takeaway is that the constraints are just too vast to make a game that isn't clearly hand holding you because your controls and situational awareness are just kind of bad.

I played on an index and would do multiple hours at a time, with no sickness.

I’m sorry. I have very high VR tolerance and I experience no sickness at all even in the most intense games and VR has been an almost magical experience over the last few years so I’m sorry you’re not able to get that same enjoyment.

Calling it a fad though seems incorrect. We’ve already passed the point of Quest 2 headsets being in over 10million homes and that’s up from 5 million a few months earlier. At this rate it’s following the same trajectory as consoles and because of the headsets general availability a whole generation of kids are getting a Quest 2 instead of an Xbox or pS5.

I bought Oculus Quest 2 about a month ago. The games I play the most probably wouldn't be even possible (or at least fun) without VR - Pistol Whip (you need to evade slow-moving bullets) and Thrill of the Fight (boxing simulator). It's more of a fitness device for me now.

I agree, VR absolutely provides an experience flat-screen gaming can never deliver.

With the Covid situation being what it is and sports halls are closed, I’ve replaced live table tennis trainings with Valve Index and Eleven Table Tennis VR game. It has stunningly realistic physics and the immersion is so good that I don’t miss the real thing much. This wouldn’t be possible in front of a flat screen.

I returned mine after a month but apparently I didn't do enough research into how to get out of the little walled garden that is set up for you. I had the Samsung Gear a few years back and felt like it was the exact same environment.

In both cases one of the most interesting experiences was the movie theater. It somehow works. The social aspect was creepy, i'm an old guy and all i could hear was voices of young children...i felt like i shouldn't be there haha.

I've had a similar problem, I like the tech, enjoy the single player games but when it comes to anything online the number of shrill voices makes me feel like I'm the outsider in their space.

The new oculus quest 2 solved a lot of those issues for me. The only thing that remained was the fogging up part, but I have acquired a fan for that. 1) No cable anymore, streaming it or playing on it directly works fine. 2) Weight is not so heavy anymore. 3) Battery time is also good, just as with the HTC Vive and Wireless kit, minus the bulk of the battery.

The problem for me is the games on it. A few are really cool, but even then I get bored. And to buy another game, sure, but then you get to spend 20 dollars again, way to pricey for just a few hours of gaming.

SuperHot and Half Life Alyx are the games that I like the most.

Tip: if you find the HMD pressing into your forehead or face, make a counterweight and attach it to the back of the HMD. It's completely changed things for me.

I got the elite strap partly for this, but it didn’t help. What does seem to help is to physically rotate the headset up or down. The quest 2 is deceptively rigid, so it’s easy not to realize you can do that.

Does the strap include a counterweight? I see the battery elite strap weighs 179g, but from memory the HMD weighs over 500g.

I wrapped a couple portable batteries (they're dense) in a bag and tied it to the back of my basic strap, and I don't even need to tighten the strap anymore, the weight is mostly pushing down on the top of my head now. It's an incredible difference, to the point that I'm offended they don't include a counterweight by default. From memory my counterweight is around 350g.

Maybe you can try it out by loosening the strap and using a finger to tug down on the back of the strap, and see if it balances on the top of your head and feels good.

Hmmm. Thanks for the tip.

Maybe a dumb question, but how would I even make a counterweight for it? I guess I’ll try tying random things to the back of the headset..

I bought $1 250g soft weight and velcro tape. Just tie to original strap.

> Motion Sickness, headaches, sweaty headsets and detachment.

You can try another headset in a few years.

Lower headset weight, better audio, larger field of view, >= 120 hz refresh rates, frame interpolation, eye/face tracking - not all of these are possible right now, but I think we can expect them in 2024 - 2026.

I find that right now many games are not optimized for VR, which brings FPS drops that kill the immersion and give me a headache after a few minutes. The weight of the headset doesn't help too.

I agree that for business VR may be not as useful as the companies would like us to think. If you jump in and out of meetings, respond in chats etc. the UX should be on par or better than on traditional platforms, otherwise everyone would fallback to their laptops.

But for a casual moviegoers or gamers this may be a good product

My son pushed through his VR sickness, and now doesn't really suffer from it. He plays at least a couple of hours of VR each day. Boneworks, H3VR, Onward, Pavlov, RecRoom, Blade & Sorcery, Half-life Alyx, and other games he just loved. I can go maybe 15 minutes in it, and VR isn't really something I'm that into (despite it being a fantasy of having it since I was a kid). Although VR shooters have kind of ruined 2D shooters for me now :( Thing is, when I play a game, I don't want to move around - as an adult, I've been busy all day, now I just want to sit on a couch and chill.

VR was key to my son making it through the pandemic with his sanity intact. But he does seem to be a rarity - he has a couple of friends that have VR and they just play Beat Saber, if that.

If there was an updated Garry's Mod for VR - we'd never get him out of there!

Facepunch is working on the next iteration of Garry's Mod using Source 2 which will have VR support! https://sbox.facepunch.com/news

One thing that just occurred to me: Maybe the headset was not correctly positioned in front of your eyes or the interpupillary distance was not set up correctly. If these are not perfect (but good enough) you can still get depth perception and immersion but the fatigue will increase a lot.

Also, the headset must basically be “glued to your face”, so it does not sway when moving the head. A high-performance PC is also very important, every FPS drop will induce nausea.

I can play HL Alyx for hours on end but still get dizzy when I become dehydrated or hungry. I only have first-hand experience with an HTC Vive (1st gen) though, which uses room-scale laser tracking. I also only ever played room-scale.

Immersive experiences are primarily a content problem. We've got a big empty room with current hardware solutions. You can play games or mess around in some big corporation's walled garden. That's it. Not very compelling. The games are nice of course but mostly they work without VR as well.

Creating content for these empty rooms is actually a problem as there are no open standards, the tools are complicated, there are lots of hurdles, and a lot of gate keepers with dollar signs in their eyes trying to tap into any value you might create that are actively frustrating each other's attempts to do so. You end up with these exclusives for some proprietary hardware. And that hardware changes all the time so it is time limited as well.

The only people that bother with going through the trouble for this so far are game studios.

Even 3D movies are largely not accessible via VR because that's a different proprietary content silo with misaligned financial incentives. So, even though there is a lot of 3D content in the form of a decade plus of 3D action movies that were released by movie studios, exactly none of that can be enjoyed via VR goggles. That's how hard it is to target these things. I guess movie studios could do it but then they'd be haggling with the likes of Steam about just how large of a cut they would take. Likewise, Netflix is not a Steam VR experience. They are not producing material in 3D and you can't sign up for a 3D Amazon Prime either. If there were open standards, this would be a no-brainer thing for them but there aren't.

IMHO, any content that works in VR should be trivially accessible using a normal 2D screen as well. There is no technical need for any content to be exclusive to VR/AR goggles and if you are the owner of that content, you'd actually want to maximize your audience rather than artificially limit it. You lose a bit of immersiveness but we've been playing 3D FPS games on 2D screens for decades so that does not seem to be that big of a deal. In other words, there's nothing stopping us from building a metaverse right now. You'd buy the VR goggles to enhance the experience in the same way you might invest in a bigger TV or better sound system.

So, why don't we? Well very simply put, it doesn't solve a problem we actually have. We can already immerse ourselves in game worlds (with or without goggles) and we can already communicate with people. And more importantly, 2D UIs are actually pretty nice for a lot of things; especially when it involves text. And in so far some things might actually work, excluding most of the planet that does not own any goggles yet is not a great plan for creating a mass market.

I don't really have a strong stance on the topic, but its worthwhile to consider maturity of technology, 3D virtual interfaces are in relative infancy. Developers are trying out things and figuring out how to do things in this completely new environment.

30-40 years ago UI were quite terrible.

Its natural that we are trying to implement analogous 2D interfaces in 3D as we were train to use those hyper optimised approaches.

What is clear to me is that the VR is new medium for new content. Trying to ram 2D mediums into it and expect it being better is not a way to go.

> Creating content for these empty rooms is actually a problem as there are no open standards, the tools are complicated, there are lots of hurdles, and a lot of gate keepers with dollar signs in their eyes

I have to disagree, most 3D models can be used in VR. There are millions of assets out there that have been produced for the games industry. Both Unity and Unreal Engine have huge communities with lots of tutorials both official and independent on VR development. OpenXR is an open standard supported by many of the big players.

> The only people that bother with going through the trouble for this so far are game studios.

This is wrong, there are plenty of indie studios and individuals building VR experiences. It's actually the other way around, the big studios want to make games that essentially just have VR bolted on whereas the independents are the ones experimenting with the medium.

> 3D movies

I don't see how 3D movies would be compelling in VR. They are still fixed POV so you'd have to watch them on a screen like any other movie. You wouldn't want to have it replace the feed going to your headset since you'd have to keep your head still or risk disorientation and motion sickness. Netflix and Prime are on Oculus btw.

> IMHO, any content that works in VR should be trivially accessible using a normal 2D screen as well.

I'm sorry but that's not feasible unless you use VR controllers with the display set to your monitor. Even then having to control the look direction with a joystick would be terrible compared to just moving naturally and you'd be lacking the ability to dodge, duck, aim, etc. Sure you could make those actions trigger from button presses but then you've just got a bog standard FPS which is not a good VR experience. VR is a new medium, saying that all VR content should be accessible via 2D is like saying all movies should just be filmed stage productions. It doesn't work. Great VR games make use of the full 6DOF, they have you physically push buttons, throw switches, dodge bullets and swords, punch your enemies, walk across narrow ledges. Having these be real physical movements is a radical difference from tapping buttons on a keyboard or controller. It'll only get better as things like full body tracking and haptics improve and come down in price to the point that they are part of the purchase of a headset.

> there's nothing stopping us from building a metaverse right now

Also disagree, I've played Second Life and other 3D chat programs and they can't hold a candle to VR Chat (and VR Chat is put together with bailing twine and bubblegum so I'm not a big fan of it). Presence is a real thing in VR. Our brains really are that dumb (or that adaptive) where chunky polygons presented stereoscopically with a few other tricks really does make you feel like you're in a room with other people. It's weird but also fun. The VR goggles are necessary for any version of the metaverse to get off the ground.

I don't think that our current media will go away any time soon but I do think that VR is here to stay. 10 years down the road I think most households will have more than 1 VR headset. I think it will probably compliment our current UIs, you can put 2D UIs in VR after all and probably make better use of them by having them laid out in virtual space the same way you arrange things in a physical office. Speaking of offices, I'm pretty sure VR will be the default for work from home folks, at the very least for meetings if not for the whole work day. VR is just better than video calls for talking to people and as time goes on we will have a lot more social VR experiences and there will be a lot of people that exclusively socialize in VR.

I've played a few VR games that were better or could only really work in VR that I thought justified it, but I keep my Rift around pretty much just for Beat Saber. Generally speaking I'd agree that VR is pretty disappointing. The best experiences are room scale and need, you know, basically a whole room dedicated to them. Movement is a problem because of motion sickness, tracking tech is still a bit dodgy, and unless you are ok with patronizing Facebook the tech is expensive and requires you to deal with cables.

In a few generations I'd say it might be worthwhile, but for now it's a pretty expensive gimmick.

Watch vr immersive video. Game changing. VR’s perspective makes the actors more life like.

I can totally see VR be the future of tv. Not the 360 vr video, but more like 100-180 degree VR video.

Strong agree. It baffles me that Meta/Facebook isn’t putting up more of that in the media section of the Quest software. Well, there are a lot of videos but most are 2D and/or very low resolution, and just not interesting content.

The best I’ve seen on there are the “Ecosphere” videos (best quality by watching through the actual app). It’s sort of otherworldly feeling like you are standing next to an actual elephant. Awesome use of the medium and totally convinced me of its viability.

I've got the Index, there was definitely some acclimatisation required to dampen the motion sickness (especially for free movement) but for the most part I've had a great experience with it. Half-Life Alyx is an incredible game, although I would like to see more narrative/story driven games for VR. There are a lot of arcade games that are fun to pick up now and again (Beat Saber, Robo Recall), and shooters like Pavlov are great fun to play online

Yeah I had the same problem too at first. I could only play about an hour max before I had to stop. Got better over a few weeks then was able to play like 4-6 hrs straight one time.

I had a similar experience, could only go 30 minutes at first until motion sickness set in or the headset became uncomfortable. After some time and headset strap adjustments though I'm comfortable for a couple of hours or so at least. Although I still struggle with some games like Boneworks which for whatever reason still makes me a bit motion sick

Have you played Lone Echo and “Blade & Sorcery”?

Really think those are the benchmarks for me, vr isn’t about the headset or 3d it’s about rich hand tracking/interactions.

That's really sad. When VR works, your brain totally believes the illusion. I hope better screens and hardware makes it accessible to more people.

Seems that the problem is the hardware, not the software then.

Yeah, major VR fanboy. I have umpteen headsets. Meh. It's just been eye crossing eye candy, who needs it. Even the kids who enjoyed it at first are pretty meh about it.

Still, the idea of working in VR is actually good, not the 3d or VR part, but the efficient use of physical space and replacement for multiple monitors.

But I highly doubt it's there yet, FOV and resolution.

Shades of nomad / lame at this point.

Agree that Facebook being involved is a very bad thing, but don’t overestimate their ability to build something entirely new.

No doubt in my mind that VR will change everything - it’s simply a matter of “when”, but I’m willing to bet that we are now on a slow and steady path of improvement, but that path may be far longer than Zuck imagines.

Pavlov VR is amazing and wouldn’t work as a non VR game. The custom games are really fun and everyone has a sense of humor I haven’t seen elsewhere. PavZ is a blast.

Your distaste for VR is due to genetics. I’m sorry you got the short end of the stick with the motion sickness.

Totally. Why do you need a virtual screen if you have a real life one. I could not imagine myself working in VR, I like to look around from time to time when I'm working, I also like to have some space/depth before me to be able to look far away and I love working from cafes especially. VR seems like a way to get even more cut off from the body / trapped in head (losing body awareness) when working - a problem that is going on which most people are not aware of.

It may make sense for some games, but desktop will be the king of work for a long time - until we get brain-computer interface with some AR glasses, then maybe that would be an improvement.

> AR on the other hand, either as a small projector or special glasses — that is exciting.

Is it? All I have ever seen is floating stuff lagging behind or jumping around. A "proof of concept" level experience, at best.

I look forward to a HUD mapping overlay and other info widgets that would enhance my travel.

It could provide real time info without needing to look at a watch or phone, without distraction. I hope the slab of glass phase ends soon. Too many people looking at their hands and ignoring reality.

Reminds me of Horizon Zero Dawn's Focus gadget.

But I think that technology is still way far off.

My car projects stuff onto the windshield. Is that a type of AR?

Yes and I think this is the most useful kind. This tech is going to get much better this decade.

It would be useful to include what headset you tried in your comment. Consumer VR has progressed a lot in the last few years wrt resolution, refresh rate, and form factor.

Try the Quest 2.

$399 price point for a standalone unit. I didn't experience any motion sickness even though it was my first time with a real VR device.

Games like Superhot VR + Beatsabre + thrill of the fight, are awesome. and can't be made without VR.

Also, it has a passthrough mode - which I'd love to see improved - because it basically trumps AR. By adding high quality cameras in front of the headset you hit 2 birds with 1 stone.

I also kickstarted the original Rift, but have the opposite perspective. It took a while, but VR in the Quest 2 is taking up more and more of my gaming time these days - especially playing Demeo.

What was the last headset you picked up? I can see this critique being valid for early headsets, but a lot of the issues you mentioned are less pronounced/eliminated in recent headsets.

Ever tried it with dramamine? I get motion sick in less than twenty minutes but medicine completely eliminated the problem.

Yeah having to take drugs to game sounds like a problem IMHO. Oculus Quest 2: with included Dramamine subscription from FB marketplace. Yeah opt out pls

It's routine for folks that get on a boat to go SCUBA diving or snorkeling to take Dramamine. Many people take it to go on a car ride or fly in an airplane.

I think we see that as "just fine" partly because boating, driving, and flying are seen as "normal". But maybe it's also because if none of those are normally happening that often, so taking the drug is a special event, in some sense. VR might be an everyday thing, so that starts looking pretty dicey - who wants to take a pill before every gaming session, forever I wonder if folks that are trying to gain their "sea legs" could take it as a stop-gap until their body adjusts. I certainly saw this with folks that had extreme sea sickness when they first joined the Navy.

What, you never thought about taking a chemical sacrament to enter a parallel digital universe? It's cyberpunk as hell.

> and kickedstarted the oculus rift.

Did the kickstarters get some juice when Facebook bought Oculus? Or just a big thank you?

I got a retail kit as well as the DK1, which was nice.

I did feel shafted by Palmer when he took both my and zucks money, but looking back now, it was buying a devkit not equity.

Obviously you were not buying equity but at the same time you were funding the actual creation of a new product, taking a part of the role of an investor. If you do a successful exit I think it would be nice to at least refund the money obtained by the kickstarters. But probably I'm just naïve.

If there is any hope for this space it's in VR, the technology necessary for a quality AR experience is so far away from what is currently possible that it's basically DOA as a product.

>> Never played a VR game that wasn’t better without it, somewhat like 3D movies.

Many people say that VR adult movies are fantastic, and one could find that non-VR ones are not even close.

I like the PSVR headset design because the screen is not glued to your face it is suspended before your face and the whole thing is supported by your head.

Of course if you use garbage hardware that is sold at cost to get you to make a facebook account, it'll be a shit experience

If it isn't tethered to a computer with a 3090, is it really VR? You won't get motion sickness with a index running at 144hz

Correction: majority of people who didn’t spend their lives gaming get motion sickness pretty quickly anyways. This is coming from someone with an index running at 144 Hz on a 3090.

I’ve actively been encouraging friends and family to try it and my experience is that motion sickness hits about 18/20 people within 30 minutes of play, depending on the game.

However I’ve noticed that my friends who have played a lot of computer games (in particular fast paced FPS) tend to fare better, and also that the sickness goes away with practice. I used to get it too but now I can beatsaber for literal hours without discomfort.

The headset does make a difference, (my friend’s Vive was particularly bad), but it’s not as great as you suggest. Time and practice are far more important.

And that's why I have a vive tracker on a bucket at all times. It's my VR bucket, for when I throw up

This is such a strange article. It doesn't present anything or explain how a VR workstation can actually work.

Has anyone actually worked this way?

I spent about an hour with a Vive headset and it was the most obnoxious experience I ever had. The lack of feedback, the requirements of a large room free of obstacle, the awful screen door effect, the poor precision from the dual wands.

Overall, I was exhausted after just 30 minutes. That's not to mention the physical portion of using a headset + the wands.

There might a middle ground where you are sitting or lying down. But that still doesn't solve efficient input. As far as I see it, nothing really beats a keyboard.

I got into it thinking that we had passed the hype cycle, but it really felt like I was still in the tech demo hell.

The article is pretty low effort except for the short optics physiology section there is not much detail. This reddit thread from a couple months ago [1] was more to the point although they contend 5k is where the text gets clear enough however in my experience the Quest2 works fine wirelessly in PCVR mode for getting things done in ImmersedVR or iSpatial.

Input has been the main constraint, but using the Logitech K830, which was specifically integrated by Oculus as a proof of concept, with the latest passthrough hand positioning in Infinite Office mode -- there is no difference to typing at a normal keyboard anymore. Its amazing. The Oculus Web Browser is pushing what you can do with things like PWAs (Miro has one) and support for SaaS tooling like Office 360 for example - so you dont even need the PC.

The experience of working in VR is definitely rough arround the edges today but my expectation is this will improve to the point where XR (VR/AR) is just as normal as sitting at a desk today -- but with the additional benefits of a 3D space made open to imaginative enhancement.

[1] https://redd.it/r1kfd7

They called three different experts and incorporated their answers. I don't remember any instance of, say, some blogger actually calling someone. The tactic seems to be completely unknown outside of traditional media.

So, yeah, it's a style people here don't like. It doesn't quite get the bit-per-sentence ratio of, say, a phone book. But there's more effort in there than meets the (strained) eye.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think traditional media is keeping up with the dozens (or maybe hundreds) of podcasts and YouTube channels that bring in hard experts.

The experts traditional media typically find are frequently kind of "soft" experts that are strong in charisma more than expertise. But that's just my informal take on it.

(And I know you said "blogger", but I think it's fair to include podcasters and YT in that category given that's more likely where you'd find a former blogger these days.)

This blog post goes into one person that claims they've spent 1000s of hours working in vR

https://blog.immersed.team/working-from-orbit-39bf95a6d385

And when it hit HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041

For me, the Vive is too heavy for this. I have not personally used a Quest 2 more than 5 mins (not willing to use an FB account) but it is arguably slightly more comfortable than a Vive headset (not saying it's comfortable enough, only that it's less uncomfortable than a Vive)

I have a Quest 2. It's definitely a massive improvement and I really wanted to enjoy it, but I can't spend more than 15 minutes wearing it without feeling ill. It seems to be getting worse with time rather than better. I played 3 Beat Saber songs in a row yesterday and felt slightly sick for an hour afterwards.

The idea of squinting at a text editor using a fraction of a VR screen for hours at a time feels insane to me.

I had the same issue until I got a headrest/noseguard that actually blocked everything off. Before the noseguard didn't fit right and would show a little bit of the floor and I would wanna vomit within 10 minutes, but after everything was fine. This is the one

https://smile.amazon.com/Interface-Replacement-Accessories-B...

I tried the exact setup of this 1000+ hours person, having been excited by the concept of a monitor-less office for years.

My current setup is multiple 4k monitors in pixel-doubled resolution. It is relatively easy on the eyes and not too expensive ($300ish/monitor + VESA). I am working remotely and when I travel I have to work from my laptop and I would love to have a headset to replicate the multiple monitor experience on the go.

I have been hoping for this since the HTC Vive.

HTC Vive - simply too low resolution. Screen door effect visible. Also software such as Immersed was not available.

Replicating this 1000+ hour setup went as follows:

1. Buy a Quest 2. Meta has its issues however I have an account so no real issues on the Meta side other than Meta itself. Resolution is clearly superior to HTC Vive, with no obvious screen door effect. As the original poster mentions - the strap that comes with the Quest is terrible, and you will have to spend at least $100 to get the Quest to the point where it can be used continuously for long periods without the device itself being a distraction.

2. Immersed - Major issues with this software. Thankfully they give you a "pro" trial so you can try this without paying. Main issue was painlessly delivering what I wanted: screen closed multiple 4k-equivalent virtual monitors. On mac (preferred), there were issues with HDMI spoofing that I probably could have fixed with dongles had I desired. On windows the situation was better, but still finicky with resolution setting and seamless disconnect/reconnection. Would like to see more focus on integrating better resolution control as I imagine most users of the program want to use it as I do - without regard to attached monitors.

Turns out I should have done my homework before hand because a little math demonstrates why I was fooling myself that I could work with this setup:

via https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/comments/99s1yr/what...

Measure the width of the monitor with which you usually work, call it W. Then measure the distance your eyes are typically away from it while you work, and call it D. Finally, determine the horizontal pixel count of your monitor when you work (like 1920 for a full HD monitor), and call it HPC. The resolution of your monitor in the center is then R = 1 / (2 * tan-1 ((W / HPC) / (2 * D))), in pixels/°. This resolution is the one you want. (For example, my resolution is 66 pixels/°, given I have a 28" diagonal 4k monitor that I view from 24" away.) The OG Vive's resolution is 11.4 pixels/° in the center. That's the resolution you have. To reach my monitor's resolution, the Vive's pixel count would have to be six times higher, or 6480x7200 per eye, everything else being the same.

Quest 2 resolution per eye is 1832 x 1920.

There is no way I could enjoy doing my job which consists of reading all day with such poor resolution, and I think we are a ways away from a solution.

Foveated rendering is a possible solution, however I don't see an easy answer.

Yes, I worked with a Quest 2 and Virtual Desktop for 1 month while my monitor was being repaired. I personally had no issue with the resolution. 1080p looks good to me and I worked with that or worse for 35 years anyway. The major issue was not being able to see the keyboard. I can touch type the alphabet only. Vague feelings of discomfort arose after a few hours. All in all it was effective but I was very happy to have my (1440p) monitor back.

The keyboard passthrough works good enough, in Horizon Workspaces. It's completely usable for me. As far as I know, they haven't opened it up the ability to do passthrough to other developers yet, which is unfortunate since I much prefer Immersed. So, this is also my biggest problem with it, so much so, that I'm trying to transition to a CharaChorder keyboard, where the concept of looking at the keys doesn't really exist.

Passthrough is available for all apps for a while now

https://youtu.be/Qd6cTbm_HDE

But I don't think that includes keyboard passthrough only. So it would be trivial to make a fully passtrhough app but not one where only the keyboard is visible. Unless you make that static and ensure that the keyboard does not move

> But I don't think that includes keyboard passthrough only.

It does for certain keyboard models[0]. You can bring them into VR without bringing anything else, and their position will be tracked in VR even if you move them.

0. https://support.oculus.com/articles/horizon/getting-started-...

>The major issue was not being able to see the keyboard.

I came to the conclusion that this was THE issue holding VR productivity (and gaming) back, after a few weeks of using the Quest 2. The passthrough feature they have is like a v0.1 of what's that's really needed for this tech to excel. Haptic gloves look like they might nudge things along a little bit more, but ultimately being able to see your actual keyboard and mouse projected into the environment is essential if you're going to come off the controllers and start using high-productivity inputs.

What would really be needed for this is a digital twin of your input devices, and some kind of simple tracker you can physically attach to them so that the VR headset can overlay into VR like it does with the handsets.

You could try switching to a ZSA Moonlander, a programmable keyboard with an orthonormal layout and blank key caps.

https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/

Is it relevant?

This is already possible with the Logitec K830 and the Apple Magic Keyboard

https://uploadvr.com/best-wireless-bluetooth-keyboards-for-m...

That looks awesome, had no idea. Thanks for the link!

In my own experience, the biggest hurdle to not work more in VR is headset ergonomics. When we will have lighter and more comfortable headsets, it will be a great experience. As you mentioned, screen resolution is already good enough and keyboard passthrough is pure magic.

Logitech has a keyboard that is "VR ready" - it will show up in VR just like the Quest 2 controllers do

> Has anyone actually worked this way?

Yes =] ptom describes what this is like here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678041

Nice! Thank you, much better than the Wired piece.

Interesting that both choose to work from an 'orbital' view.

If you work with Immersed (which I do every day) you just work on your laptop while you see 5 large monitors (virtual desktops) hanging over a large planet in space (for instance). It is really nice and I have been doing it for months; I kind of forget where I am as it is very good for focusing, especially with the right sound on as well.

i find that whenever i look anywhere in the vr visual field that isn't straight ahead, i see blurring/artefacts/etc. does it work better for younger people/people with better eyes?

I am almost 50. I don’t really notice it when working.

No it doesn't, but you get used to turning your head more than moving your eyes.

Just curious how it works: do you touch type and never use mouse?

I use a Magic Trackpad, but I've used a mouse before and it was also acceptable. You figure out where things are pretty quickly.

But also I switched to Vim and TMux so that I would need to take my hands off of the keyboard less.

I just use the MacBook trackpad; works fine for me. And yes I touch type. If I couldn’t I would struggle. When I was in primary school (in the 80s), I had a choice from our municipal in the Netherlands between learning to touch type and something else (I forgot) or nothing as extra curricular. I am still happy I picked touch typing! Gift that keeps on giving.

Nice -- thanks for replying! I mostly touch type, but I sometimes need to glance at the keyboard to find infrequently used keys like Insert.

Not sure about mouse operation, but the touch typing is mentioned in two separate sections:

1. Yes, you have no vision of the keyboard, so learning to touch type is essential

2. Lying down position, right hand on laptop keyboard, left hand on external USB keyboard (two-handed touch typing).

They've committed wholly and solely to pursuing this solution.

Horizon Workrooms offers keyboard passthrough, which works amazingly well. You just see your keyboard in VR along with your real hands, when you look down. No more touch typing!

Is this basically AR then? Or do they create a virtual representation of your hands/keyboard?

Not the parent poster, but I'd assume that most developers who are working with a laptop keyboard+touchpad can do it without looking down. A mouse would be more difficult, that's for sure.

I've worked 8+ hour days in VR for weeks/months at a time over the years on an original Vive. There are a ton of benefits over traditional monitors (physical space, infinite monitors, text/output scaling, more interesting work environments, isolation from distractions, etc), but there are also some sizable drawbacks too (resolution, battery life, mad thirst, being unaware of your surroundings, etc). I imagine a lot of those tradeoffs have improved in newer headsets, but I definitely enjoy working in VR over just sitting in an office 90% of the time. FWIW I sit, use the wireless adapter, and just touch-type on a real keyboard though; I definitely don't try to type with wands on virtual keyboards!

Many people got a very bad impression from Oculus DKs and the Vive. Vive basically was a half baked tech demo compared to the new hardware. Terrible lenses, very heavy and uncomfortable, possibly the worst controllers ever made. VR (Quest 2, Index) is actually good now, 5 years on from that - give it another shot.

> Has anyone actually worked this way?

I tried with the Samsung Odyssey+ a few times. I used the counterbalance and extra support kit (it is a bit heavy), and it's quite nice with those. Still some pressure on my nose bridge, so have a bit of adjustment to do. Touch typing takes a bit of getting used to, but it works well enough. I already am using a trackball 100% of the time (I know, I'm a monster), so I don't have to worry about knocking stuff over with my mouse.

The real problem is that since I have a WMR headset, none of the really good virtual desktop softwares people use are available. The ones that are, aren't that great, for various reasons.

Then there's the issue that my laptop is a surface book 2. Powerful enough to run VR smoothly, but while the system fan is blasting at full volume the whole time. Also it seems to slowly drain the battery. So it's really not an all day affair regardless of usability.

I don't want to use my gaming PC (which is more than up to the task), because then I have to basically let my company own it, in order to meet the security policy requirements. I'm concerned if I do that, that I'll never really get all the bits off again short of a reimage. I haven't ruled out buying a dedicated HDD to swap out (I have a hot swap bay).

I tried to with a Quest 2. Immersed VR was the only option I found for getting multiple virtual monitors with my non-VR-ready work laptop (it has to encode and stream the virtual monitors to the headset), but performance was not good enough for more than two screens at a reasonable resolution.

I did see the promise of it though. Input was not a problem as I'm able to touch type without looking at the keyboard. Being able to position additional screens all around your main screen was amazing -- with physical monitors I only have space for two.

Using a VR-ready machine to directly run the headset and some headless monitor emulator adapters might result in a better experience right now. With this kind of setup you can use other VR desktop software, e.g. Virtual Desktop.

Yeah in the end, this may be the only killer app for VR. Replacing multiple monitors.

Think about all the space multiple monitor desk environments takes up in the real, and how little space a VR replacement takes up via the virtual.

The other cool thing is the separation between home and work. Once the headset is off, work is done. That separation is actually very important, and ironically it's actually the worst thing about playing in VR while being the best thing about working in VR.

Financially, we're possibly talking up to a $100K if you think about how much a fully separated and furnished home office can cost. That's a real value prop.

For now, and I think for the next several years at least, if you can afford to purchase and drive a headset which comfortably replaces multiple monitors, you likely already have the space and resources to use multiple monitors already. I spared no expense on a fully kitted-out home office and didn't spend anywhere near $100k USD.

Yeah, but if you've got the choice, would you want to? I can have a dedicated room with lots of black boxes and wires that's a pain to clean and reconfigure, and which I have to work in, or I can not. Frankly I'd trade some resolution for that.

Well, depends where you live. But my house is about 250k per non commons area room. If I had another child, there would go my office most likely

It’s $420 for headset and 1 year subscription. You can’t buy 5 comparable monitors for that price. Or 3 like I use.

>that still doesn't solve efficient input

The phone was an input downgrade from keyboard+mouse and VR as an even more severe downgrade.

Anyone talking about VR, especially in the context of work, without mentioning the glaring lack of input bandwidth is engaging in marketing.

Which is why the Quest 2 and Horizons Workrooms can track supported keyboards[0] and the next gen headsets will have full color passthrough. These problems are being recognized and solved as we speak.

[0] https://support.oculus.com/articles/horizon/getting-started-...

>the poor precision from the dual wands

Even the original Vive is pretty accurate. Are you just complaining about the fact its not a keyboard? You just won't be able to type on anything better than a keyboard. You can always just use a VR tracked keyboard and have it show up in VR if that's what you need.

That said, whats nice about VR is the spacial and non-digital input you can get from that a mouse and keyboard do not do as well.

If your job is modeling or level building for a game it can be pretty neat. Not sure I'd try to program in it just yet.

I have worked like this on the Quest 2. What I found:

- lower screen resolution to make HN readable

- your IRL GF will react differently to you because she can’t see your facial expressions

Note: n += 1

This is the issue to me as well. It needs to be so much better than my already awesome monitor, keyboard and desktop to make it worth wearing a ridiculous headset.

I just don't know if it is really possible to improve on this setup enough. Monitor size is not an issue at this point. Input is not an issue.

If work gave me a VR headset only I would just bring in my own monitor and keyboard.

Take a look here> https://blog.borodutch.com/i-moved-my-workspace-to-vr-heres-...

Curious why you would compare a first-gen VR headset that came out more than 5 years ago to one released last year. Also, no one's typing using wands, they're all using standard keyboards.

I work in Immersed every day as a developer. It's a fantastic experience.

Primary work goes on an IMAX sized 2880x1800 screen in front of me divided up with TMUX and Vim. Slack in a vertical 1440 x 900 to my right, and media + reference on a drawing table oriented 1440 x 900 below where my lap would be.

Instead of a boring room in my house, I'm in a nebula that's beautiful but non-distracting.

what headset do you use?

is eye strain / head strain a problem from extended wear?

how do you deal with tracking peripheries? as mentioned in the article KBM, coffee etc.

I think neck strain was a bit of an issue at the beginning, but not any more. Aftermarket prescription lense adapters are critical if you wear glasses. With those, there isn't much eye strain. Not more than staring at a computer all day would cause anyway. Also an upgraded strap. I use the Oculus Elite strap, but I think there are plenty of cheaper and probably better third party options.

For coffee/water I use a closed tumbler with a metal straw and I just reach carefully. Double tap the side of the quest for pass through if you get lost.

The Discord is full of requests for solutions for seeing the keyboard. It has a pretty impressive virtual overlay for the keyboard, but IMO that is an unnecessary handicap. Instead of demanding a skeuomorph, it's much more pleasant to really learn to touch type. It took me about a week to get flawless. I'm even pretty good at the function keys since I started debugging in Vim.

The eye strain is what worries me the most. The Wired article dismisses it, but I'm not convinced.

If you make the screens "far" and big, it's pretty pleasant. I think the real focal length is like 2 meters with the Quest 2. That means you can't really use the indoor environments, but that doesn't matter to me, and the photospheres offer better performance.

The lenses focus the screen image about ~20m away from you, and so your eyes are far more relaxed than when focusing on a monitor 1m away.

I am pretty sure some VR headsets have a "passthrough" functionality to see the real world. Although judging by my Quest 2, it's not that good.

> what headset do you use?

Immersed only supports the Quest and Quest 2.

Which, from the point of view of my wallet, is a saving grace: if it ran on the Index I'd have a small hole in my savings right now.

Same here. Surpassed 100 hours months ago. It is very good for focus and I don’t need a massive setup, in whatever room I am in.

how long have you had this set-up? how often do you switch back, and for what reason?

About two years. First on the Quest 1. I switch back for Zoom meetings because I think the Immersed Avatar is silly.

SimulaVR [1] is introducing a new class of products (virtual reality computer or VRC) that aims to develop a full linux desktop in a headset. I'm excited about using this with Stardust XR [2] and my NixOS configuration.

We're obviously in a very early stage of consumer VR hardware and I agree with most people that AR (passthrough or glasses) would be preferable to VR. There are a lot of open problems in this space - a lot of these problems spoil the user experience, right now. But, engineers are solving them slowly over time and I don't predict a future (say 50 years from now) where people are still using their fingers to peck at keys and are still stuck with a 25" monitor (at least in the majority of cases).

Happy to be an early adopter - maybe I'll even discover some problems that I can solve and benefit from the inevitable deluge of capital.

[1]: https://simulavr.com/ [2]: https://stardustxr.org/

> full linux desktop in a headset

Is the intersection of people who like VR and people who like the Linux desktop big enough to support a commercial product?

Given the way people wax lyrical about Immersed.com on the Quest, you might find that anyone who does a lot of terminal work gravitates towards it. That's not a small market. I can see the attraction: if both the computer and the screen are head-mounted, that's a lot of boxes and wires that can just go away.

It does depend on the environment implementation, mind you.

Whenever I read dismissive comments about new tech I think that this same people would have dismissed the internet in the early days.. who needs all this complicated stuff when you can just go to the library ???

I'm kind of a perpetual skeptic and I probably would have been one of those that dismissed the internet as a toy in its early days had I been old enough to have an opinion.

That being said, by being a skeptic, I think I'm right more than I'm wrong. For every "internet" that I've called wrong, there's a "3D TV" or "Segway" that's I've correctly predicted would fail to live up to the hype.

These revolutionary technologies that shift our daily life come along far less often than people like to predict. Even if the technology is superior to what most people are using there are still a ton of factors standing in the way of mass adoption (see VHS vs Betamax). You know that Tolstoy quote "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way", I kind of feel that way about new technologies. There are a million reasons technologies can fail to catch on, but they have to walk a very narrow path to succeed.

So, as one of those type of people you're asking about, I guess my reaction would be "oh well". I'm right more than I'm wrong and the downsides of a false negative and less than the downsides of a false positive. If thought the internet was a load of crap and I hop on the band wagon a few years late, oh well, it's not like I've missed out on it for ever. On the other hand, if I bought a 3D TV when they first came out, I'd now be stuck with an overpriced TV with a feature that has almost no support.

Totally valid to not be an early adopter, but I feel like you're just "predicting" it won't rain in the desert every single day. Most things fail, so you're going to be right most of the time even if you don't have any special insight.

> I feel like you're just "predicting" it won't rain in the desert every single day

I mean... yeah, that's my point. When we talk about most of these things we're trying to predict how the world will look years or even decades into the future. Even if you know the technology inside and out, there's too many unknowns to really make an accurate prediction.

If I asked you whether it was going to rain in the desert tomorrow, you could find a bunch of information and come back to me with a fairly informed guess that would probably be right. If I asked you whether it was going to rain in the desert on Jan 1 2030 what would be your answer. You don't know and I'd argue that you can't know, so the best thing you can do is play the probabilities and say "no, it will not rain".

> the downsides of a false negative and less than the downsides of a false positive

As a consumer, yes. As a founder, there is an opportunity cost to not founding the next Googlebook.

Even if just a consumer, buying unnecessary expensive 3D TV just costs like max additional $1000 once, meanwhile missing Internet is huge.

There's also an opportunity cost to building a business around a technology that doesn't catch on. Looking only at companies that created "the next big thing" is survivorship bias. For every Elon Musk/Tesla story, you've got multiple people who bet big and lost on something like hydrogen cars.

Also, I'd argue that most business aren't founded on some bleeding edge technology. It's a false dichotomy to think that all successful founders embrace new technology and all skeptical founders are doomed to fail. There are plenty of businesses built around doing the same thing everyone else is doing, just faster, easier, or cheaper. Sure a skeptical founder may not create the next Googlebook, but I don't think that really matters.

Yeah but a broken clock could do the same thing

Yea that was said by no one ever.

I notice this bullshit narrative this past year for every over hyped technology.

"X is just like when everyone was dismissing the internet" even though that never happened.

In the early days of the internet, people were either excited by it or had no clue what you were talking about. No one would ever say they would just stick with the library. Just total nonsense.

Someone saying this is probably too young to have used a card catalog at the library.

I can point you to David Rackhoff saying just that. I admit the number of people who understood on some level what the internet was and rejected it is small, but remember what people thought after the dotcom bubble burst - they thought the fad was over.

Whenever I read dismissive comments about dismissive comments comparing the dissenters to people who dismissed the internet, I think it's the same people would have defended Google Glass from criticism. "Who cares there's no real application for it yet, that'll be figured out later".

I am a big naysayer, but compare the cost of a fully separated home office to this. To a lot of folks it makes sense

Interesting. I’ve been idly speccing out a Linux workstation from System76 to replace my 8-year-old PC but maybe I should look into the Simula One. An evolution of form as well as function. Thought oculus would be too low-resolution for this sort of thing. I’m pretty finicky about my keyboard height/monitor height/monitor distance ergonomics and this would take care of a lot of problems that are quite difficult to solve in meatspace, especially if you want to lie down.

At this point it’s a race for who builds the first sensory deprivation tank VR workstation I guess.

I think Oculus is too low res, but Simula One seems to be doing what is necessary. I’m on the wait list but it sounds like it could be a while.

It's such an exciting new wave of technology, I just wish it wasn't being spearheaded by Facebook. On the other hand, I can't wait to see how they further corrupt humanity with yet another tool in their pocket

I second this. Huge Neal Stephenson fan. I remember trying VR with a huge bulky headset in the Air and Space Museum in DC when I was 8 year old, back in the 80s. I bought an Oculus Rift when it first came out and really fell in love with it. But I am vehemently, violently anti-Facebook and social media in general, and refuse to have an account. To be locked out of the Rift for awhile just because of that... what a terrible play on their part. They're basically a trash/spam organization focused on spreading fear and conspiracy garbage among demented old people like my 80-year-old father, who should just be left alone, not manipulated into a state of rage and hysteria every day by his news feed. Zuckerberg is the world's biggest POS, and I say this as a similarly aged son of a Jewish lawyer, as opposed to a POS dentist. Zuck's not even a fucking dentist. And he has less than no right to try to claim the Metaverse.

Apple, at least, is smart enough not to try to claim the technology. But I'm sure in the next few years they'll try to wall off their own garden in VR/AR.

Neal's whole idea in Snow Crash, although it wasn't explicitly stated, was that the heavy processing was happening client-side, so different clients saw different things (a vague semi-transparent blob on a cheap headset would be delicately curling smoke rings on an expensive one) and it was easily degradable based on connection speed, and the protocol was essentially open source, and infrastructure was distributed enough that there were no vertical monopolies operating in that space unlike the rest of Snow Crash where pretty much everything from the franchise restaurant to the police force protecting it were vertically organized. So any attempt to vertically create a metaverse within a particular stack or corporate ecosystem is likely bound to fail, and VR as a popular technology will track with that until someone builds a portal-to-portals. I'd put my money on a new startup if it ever were to happen, because they could at least build something platform agnostic.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2Fstory%...

This reads like a prequel to E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops#:~:text=%22T....

This article is bullshit. It's strange that the article faked the header image using Google's Daydream View but shows the user using hand tracking. The article doesn't go into any technical specifics about the headset or setup.

If you're really interested in coding in VR, I suggest looking at https://www.reddit.com/r/hmdprogramming. I've experimented with programming in VR using Vive + Virtual Desktop, GearVR, Daydream, Quest and others, and you can find some of my notes in that subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/comments/fc5sfr/oculus_qu...

The biggest limitation of current headsets is the resolution which is ~20pixels per degree on consumer headsets and needs to get closer to ~60ppd to match real world resolutions. Furthermore, there are multiple layers of blurring due to the VR composition passes so you lose ~50% of your headset's resolution if the app doesn't implement proper text rendering.

Maybe this article isn't supposed to be a review of a specific product with a sidebar giving you tech specs.

Go crush it!

Not sure where people are getting tripped up about this. Seems perfectly reasonable that an article the headline of which begins with "I" would be an account of the author's personal experience.

I had problems trying to read text with a Valve Index have to look at it just right to not have blurry edges. That's 1600 resolution, newer headsets are in the 2500+ range.

But it was neat using my desktop through VR although I did it briefly. I could not see myself working in it. It took me a while to get used to motion (not get sick) but that's not as problematic when you're looking at fixed screens/sometimes moving your head.

Edit: will add I work on a 34" curved monitor so space isn't a concern for me

For the question around headset weight and potential postural issues arising from prolonged usage is interesting to me

Anyone used a headset for 8 hours a day for multiple days in a row?

I use immersed on the Oculus Quest 2 and it's pretty fun to code but not super productive!

It is somewhat functional if I don’t change the settings more than once.

The problem is there is no reason to charge a monthly subscription for me to have virtual monitors in VR. And co-working in VR with strangers is creepy as fuck so the other premium product has no pull.

I found it pretty funny to sit outside with five virtual monitors and my macbook but I'm aware I looked like a twit. I haven't seen the co-working bit yet!

I really want it to be good enough and socially acceptable. It does feel like going somewhere else. But I have checked back on five versions now and each time it loses my config or drops or rearranges monitors.

I got sold by that blog post some months back but it’s still just a novelty — that dude’s tolerance for suffering to put in 40-50 hours is unreal (or sponsored).

So they think people will put on a headset in order to shop.

Versus me picking up my phone and ordering something within a minute. Or texting someone a simple message.

What VR and metaverse miss is that they haven’t solved the asynchronous problem.

You know, I always found it stupid that people thought I would ever use my phone to type messages or worse to write blog posts.

I would not rule out radical change of use patterns.

People will not put on a headset to shop, they will shop as they play, as they watch videos, etc.

I take it you no longer find those things to be stupid? One of the biggest benefits of Signal over iMessage/SMS for me is that I can use a desktop client for messaging 99% of the time. Is it really remotely common for people to write blog posts on a phone?

Well, I will certainly not find the premise absurd if a business plan assumes people will do that.

Micro-blogging is what Twitter-like platforms are typically called: a picture, a move, a small paragraph, do that 4 or 5 times a day, you have something that looks like a blog yes.

So yes, right now I would not see me putting on a VR gear just to inflige myself the pain that is Amazon, but if you tell me that in 10 years 20% of the online shopping is actually done in-game in a VR environment, I would not be too quick to say it is impossible.

Why would I need to shop on my phone when I can call and order something? (when sales reps were common enough at retails stores you didnt have to be on hold)

Why do my parents still avoid buying stuff online? People have preferences. Mine, and it sounds like yours, is buying quickly from my phone. But I still go to retail stores most of the time if I want to buy clothes, shoes, hats. Anything physical. I'm not saying VR would replace that need but being able to try something digitally on rather than just see a photo online would be at least one use case.

> I have Facebook's Oculus strapped to my face

I know many people call their Quest 1 or 2's just "my Oculus", but I didn't expect a large site to do the same, really shows how dumb it was to scrap that name.

It is also a smidge funny that they used both Facebook and Oculus when "Meta" doesn't want you to use either anymore, in the context of VR.

It's weird because it's Wired.

It's incredible the amount of, "VR was bad for me when I tried it" comments that show up on every VR post. It's an emerging technology. Desktops now vs desktops 40 years ago ate ass.

I'm not ready to spend all day in a vr headset but I'm glad some people are.

I think when people have this big game changing ideas around VR, what they're generally imagining is actually is still not there. Low friction experiences that still allow freedom of movement. It is possible that VR tech evolves to the point that it can be a low friction experience (this is a bit debatable, but from my experiences I'd still call it a pretty big hassle).

Freedom of movement is the large one. Omni treadmills are one way of dealing with this, but anyone that has tried them knows that they are an awkward experience on their own (you can definitely get used to it, but you'll never mistake it for walking normally). They also massively increase the friction in using a VR headset.

If the virtual environment you were in was able to be dynamically projected over real world obstacles, then you'd be able to move freely... and you'd no longer be using VR but AR. The one thing I think VR is really accomplishing right now is pushing technology development that will allow AR in the future.

I do think that AR is going to be a defining breakout period for these technologies and VR is effectively dead in the water. Even a small whiff of AR in the form of Pokemon Go got people seriously jazzed and met those basic requirements I set out... Just without the immersion people are looking for out of VR.

I bought an Oculus a couple of years ago out of curiosity and because I wanted to support the technology. My disappointment is that it essentially a gaming platform. I've never been attracted to games, not IRL, not in early PC's and now not in VR. There are 360 degree videos on YouTube, but accessing them is awkward and they aren't that good. The screen door effect and view not extending to the periphery detracts from the experience. But once in awhile, when "immersion" hits you like a drug, it's amazing. I think it's still too early unless you are a gamer. ymmv of course.

The biggest problem with most of the 360 videos on YT is their resolution. They have to be a certain minimum otherwise it looks horrible, like not just bad, but horrible and not watchable on a VR headset.

I've only found one great video so far, and it is unbelievable.

I would pay money for great 360 content like that.

How is the experience with porn and VR Headset. From the past track record porn decides the direction of every new technology.

It's an interesting experience. Sometimes it's amazing. Videos usually include different angles, so you might feel like changing your body's position (though not necessary). It's very different than watching porn on a monitor -- the performers can be 'in your face' (very close) which may be unpleasant to some people. It's certainly something worth trying with at least a couple of videos (some videos are 3rd person view which is nice). Pro-tip, consider VR porn with mind-altering substances (e.g. weed, MDMA, LSD, mushrooms).

I bought an Index recently and love it. Lots of fun games and to be honest a lot of hours logged are in the free valve demos and the Steam VR environments (quests which award items for your avatar). That being said I have zero desire to do work in VR. I don’t experience motion sickness (except momentarily in Pistol Whip), but I can’t imagine VR doing anything but hindering my ability to focus. I personally have moved to just one screen and although there is a lot of cool customization that exists in the VR space I don’t need a bunch of other screens bringing distractions.

Self promote: primitive.io is an IDE designed for VR

https://primitive.io

Just curious, what’s the reasoning behind naming it “primitive”? It’s not exactly reminiscent of the tech at play lol.

The aspiration is to represent structure in the most elemental form. Some definitions of the word "primitive" refer to a time before words existed. Shapes, motion, and relative positioning are the modes of communicating ideas and knowledge.

Also as mentioned in another comment, primitive types in programming languages lend themselves nicely to visual representation.

Hope you have a chance to try!

VR for apes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yD4KQGZUs4

Probably a reference to primitive types, which are highlighted / represented differently in many IDEs.

Watching the trailer reminded me of "It's a Unix System... I know this" :)

The future will be a lightweight headset integrating VR and AR, so that we can switch from one to the other easily, and even switch everything off.

With this headset, we won't have to carry anything else: no screen, no computer, no keyboard, etc.

We will even be able to share virtual contents with one another when needed.

We won't be isolated from the outside world.

I definitely agree with your sentiment. Being in VR all the time seems exhausting, but being able to switch between the two seems pretty awesome.

This sounds awful. I already feel disconnected from the world around me, my community, nature, fresh air. Why would anyone want this for themselves? To be productive? If this is the next step in productivity, we need to start looking at how to be less productive.

Some of us don't work in such a privileged place as you with a community and nature. Some of us work in cramped apartments, with roommates and partners clicking and typing nearby. With noise and light pollution to add to the distraction. It's overwhelming and we can't focus but we can't afford to go anywhere else. Sitting in the Oculus opening lobby is like a dream.

If you live in a polluted dystopian hive, alienated from those around you, tuning it all out by strapping a facebook appliance to your head sounds maladaptive even in the immediate short term.

I don't think setups like I described warrant "a polluted dystopian hive, alienated from those around you". I'm a human being. Not sure how to respond in a way that moves the conversation forward though. A VR workspace can be a huge relief from distractions. Perhaps a more relatable setting is an open office, surrounded by colleagues, and being able to instead flip a switch and be in a remote work setting in VR.

If you go back and read what you described and don’t see the dystopia, your standards are probably too low.

This starts to sound a lot like The Matrix.

If in the matrix you could only look at food, or listen to the wind.

I see it more as the wfh version of going to the office; when the headset comes off, I went home.

Actually there is a forest scene with sounds of fresh air. Now you can be more productive and more connected to nature at the same time.

I can’t even tell who is joking in this thread anymore.

It's not forced on you. It's for those who can make themselves better by the use of it. A tool.

This is an article on HN specifically because it's a new application of technology, another alternative working style.

Go outside, talk to a stranger (through a mask), walk in the park. These options aren't removed by the addition of this technology to the world.

> These options aren't removed by the addition of this technology to the world

The willingness of the strangers to engage may be though.

Either way, I find talking to strangers about as engaging and meaningless as talking to people online.

Fortunately, I’m married and no longer need to date, but everything I read about dating today suggest that online/app-mediated dating has become so dominant that old style “meet in a bar” scenarios are essentially no longer much of a thing. If true, this would be an example of technology removing previous non-technology options, even though nobody is mandating it.

I wonder, if VR ever gets good enough, is there a future like the dystopian sci-fi stories where everyone stays strapped to their Facebook-mediated realities and nobody goes outside to walk in the park anymore? How good does VR have to get?

Even before the pandemic our local playgrounds were empty (kids are all staying home playing Roblox and Minecraft).

I find that it's all about how much of yourself you inject into the interaction.

I'm a misanthrope from way back, but I've found (over the many years grinding my way out of misanthropy) that the more I open myself up in a conversation, the more meaningful the interaction overall; the more it encourages the other person to do the same.

I don't mean this personally critically, but:

> I find talking to strangers about as engaging and meaningless as talking to people online

Says more about you than it does anything else.

I think that's that panacea type thinking that a metaverse will help solve. If you're unhappy with your meatspace version of you, create the you that makes you happy in metaverse.

I've consumed too much sci-fi to actually think that'll be what actually happens.

tristran harris spoke about this on a podcast recently.... the meatspace is what holds up the metaverse. With the declining mental health of our youth nowadays, with social media etc... how will the 'metaverse' be this utopia in the 2030s,2040s?

A more concentrated version of the distillation the internet enabled: idea-driven anxieties rather than physical ones.

Which, pre-Internet, ideas versus physicalities could sound somewhat utopian, except we now know that crazy and outrage-inducing ideas dominate the discourse, and the metaverse does not and cannot offer anything to stem that tide and is likely to 'deepen the rut'.

> I already feel disconnected from the world around me, my community

By all means, I see your point and agree in general. But VR is not different from sitting at a desk.

I think we already live in some, not so healthy, virtual realities: online echo chambers, search engine/filter bubbles, ideologies perceived as normality.

In more extreme cases, anti-science and anti-intellectualist movements and so on.

But this is not a tech problem.

> nature

You can still go out for a hike. VR is not different from being inside a building.

> fresh air

No snark intended: you can open a window or have a heat exchanger with filters that is better for your health, comfort and energy usage.

It seems different to me. To be completely visually (and maybe auditorally) detached from your physical surroundings for hours each day? That's a step beyond working at a desk, even one in a drab office building. Though point taken, being stuck at a cubicle isn't much better than being strapped into a headset.

People don't seem to understand that VR was always an element of dystopian fiction. It's one of the things we do when we are confined to Earth. The others are gambling (with apes?), drugs, mindless hedonism (there's an app for that), following cults and crazy ideologies (Qanon? flat Earth?), pointless political intrigue, and war both physical and cultural. There will be a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Starship is the most important project at this point in human history. Without a frontier there is nothing but meaningless conflict, repetition, and stagnation. We will sit here on Earth and basically masturbate until some black swan event destroys our civilization or even our entire biosphere. That event could be something stupid we do, an asteroid, a gamma ray burst, who knows... but it doesn't matter. If we stay here intelligent life dies.

I think Starship is even more important than fighting climate change, since winning that battle still leaves us trapped in a cyberpunk dystopia that just happens to be a little more sustainable. That means instead of global warming trashing our civilization we might get a few more centuries of pointless masturbation before something else kills us.

Edit:

Keep in mind too how frontiers work. Novelty is imported from the frontier back to the old culture. The frontier revives everything. It's like going for a hike in the woods or a trip to a new city, but at civilization scale. Even if only 0.001% of humanity ever goes to space, I predict a civilization-wide effect.

As an added bonus as far as we know there are no natives in our immediate region of space. The "new world" of Europe's great age of frontier exploration was not a pure frontier, and it came with the moral baggage of war and displacement. The new frontier is pure. It's all exploration, no conquest. It's going to be more like the settling of the Polynesian archipelago (by the original Polynesians) than the European age of colonialism.

Anyway what a crazy rant from an article about VR... but I think it's relevant. Every time I hear about the metaverse or NFTs or some other bit of wank this is the thought that runs through my head.

We must have very different thoughts about the timescale on which settlement of other planets is likely to happen. To have a complete civilization that is not dependent on earth, means many tens of millions of people living elsewhere - you just can't have a self-sustaining space-faring civilization without a base that large. I'd guess this is at least several thousands of years out, and thus nearly completely irrelevant because our civilization won't last that long on its present course; we really have to solve the energy and carbon crisis because we can't run from it.

VR may actually be part of that solution, though in a very dystopic fashion - reducing energy consumption of individuals could maybe be more tolerable if everyone is jacked in.

The best argument I know against expanding into yet another frontier is expressed in the Eagles song "The Last Resort". The basic message of that song, as I understand it, is that we ruin every new frontier we conquer. Or as the closing words of the song put it, "you call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye." So maybe the universe is better off if our damage is limited to our own little planet.

Then again, that song also said, "there is no more new frontier," seemingly ignoring space, so maybe Don Henley was just being overly pessimistic.

I think the pushback to that is basically the philosophy of The Big Lebowski, which ends up being some flavor of Stoicism (John Goodman's character has a strong opinion on both the Eagles and nihilists). Attributing evil to man for thriving and expanding is a bit strong; of course it's more fun to be the first one in a new territory, but we're not bad for striving to do it.

Not so crazy actually. I mostly agree with you. I can’t be bothered to work in IT anymore if it isn’t directly attached to something physical that makes our ecosystems better.

There is also the frontier of transmigration to the digital realm which opens up whole new possibilities for mankind, especially immortality.

If this were isolation in a digital universe you'd end up with eternity in a questing/grinding RPG or something similar. That sounds like hell if it's even a form of consciousness. Eventually something happening in the outside world would destroy this system and everyone would die.

There are open, growing, learning upward ascending futures and closed, repetitive, conflict-ridden downward spiral futures. Some kind of consciousness uploading without expansive contact with the real universe is the latter.

A variant of this hell is described, sort of, in Iain M Banks’ book Surface detail. Recommended.

> If this were isolation in a digital universe you'd end up with eternity in a questing/grinding RPG or something similar. It's not set in stone that the digital universe with trash content for the lowest denominator audience (MMO RPGS), the same way that Mars colonists aren't doomed to spend their time on the red planet sucking Elon Musks dick.

PSA: You can no longer buy a business-class Oculus Quest 2 from Facebook/Meta.

Presumably while sales reworks the product line for Metaverse pricing.

If you don’t want a Facebook account for your VR device, the only other option for Immersed looks like a Vive Focus 3.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

It used to be possible to buy a Quest 2 without the requirement of a Facebook account, but that freedom came at a premium cost.

They announced that they're dropping that requirement.

And the alternative is that you sign up for a Meta account so your info will just be shared anyway. It was a while ago they made that announcement and it hasn’t happened. I was going to get the Quest 2 but I came to the realization I don’t want to support that company so went with the Valve Index. Sure it doesn’t have wireless but I’m not going to take it anywhere anyway.

> A VR headset is just like a stereoscope from the 1800s, except the image is on screens fixed just past your nose, and you're in space. Your eyes are free to change angle as the images on the screen move, but your lenses are accommodating screens that are at a fixed distance.

Never thought about that. You can throw processing at VR to dial up the frame rate, throw in more expensive displays to increase the resolution but at the end of the day your mind still expects to change focus as it flits from "near" to "far" objects in "the meta" ... and I don't see how we'll ever be ever to accommodate that.

This is actually tractable, if difficult. There's a handful of different approaches, for example having varifocal lenses and you adjust the focus depending on where you gaze.

That's clever. We can already track the eyes.

Maybe its just me but I don't find it nearly as immersion breaking as the other things listed. You're not experiencing it when you focus on an object, after all.

Not immersion breaking, maybe mentally fatiguing? The point seems to be that your brain is expecting to have to change focus, and is "surprised" when it does not.

My understanding is this is the key innovation that Magic Leap promised a solution for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29440213

DonHopkins 45 days ago | parent | context | favorite | on: I bought those AR cycling glasses that were on HN ...

Why not simply do what Magic Leap does, and blatantly fake the camera images and games that don't really and couldn't possibly exist?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28838500

And then rip off other people's work without giving them any credit in your patents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28838443

And then sexually harass the very women you employed to solve the endemic "pink/blue problem" and fix the nepotistic sexist bro culture, and rebuff and ignore her advice, and pay her off to keep their mouth shut when she sues you for sexual harassment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28838421

And then give the entire AR industry a bad name by not delivering on your outrageously hyped promises, while burning through BILLIONS of dollars and fucking over your foolishly gullible investors.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28838737

VR is still early due to the cost and complexity of PCVR. While Facebook Meta has a great compelling product that I use daily, their brand is just toxic to most people in developed countries.

I believe VR is ready for work, you can invest in an HP G2 and beefy enough PC. However, I believe its main current use cases are still either fitness or virtually socializing with people you cannot physically meet with due to either lockdowns, distance, or just convenience.

I think virtual tourism is another likely use case. I've got the original Quest and I'm currently addicted to the Wander app, which is basically just Google Street View in VR. It's not even that immersive but I can still "stroll" around places off the beaten path as it were for hours.

Sounds awesome. This could be the key to more productivity in college and at work by eliminating distractions from the outside.

I love HN comments. I feel like you and I read different articles.

sounds pretty f-ing awful to me.

Do you by any chance use noise-canceling headphones?

It's funny that if you wanted to simulate an ultra-realistic VR work environment, you just need to put on clear airsoft goggles and sit in your desk, it would include real feedback to your body and all. But having to work with those goggles is very uncomfortable, now imagine doing it with actual VR.

How do I simulate the part where I can adjust my workspace in any conceivable way?

Nah it’s not accurate enough like that. You also have to have it occasionally remove your monitors from view for no reason and drop you back into an alpine dome with an app store.

What would it take (in terms of tech and number of years) to come up with something similar to VR (or AR) but without the burden of wearing a headset or glasses? Like the way Tony Stark interacts with JARVIS. I hope it won't take 50 years!

My main problem with VR is that whatever you do you still need to move. Im just going to say it but i think the measuring bar for VR will be the first brain chip for it. THAT will be the beginning of the metaverse.

Stock photo shows person wearing a Google Daydream headset, making a pinching gesture like they expect hand tracking to be a thing on a 5 year old smartphone in a glorified "cardboard" viewer.

My earlier attempts at this failed miserably. Mostly due to distance between eyes issues and res being too low for good text reading.

...both surmountable issues given time so I do expect this to take over eventually.

I’ve only engaged with VR in passing, but am curious to think more carefully about it. If anyone is moving in the other direction and wants to pass along a headset, email is in profile.

The writing for this article is strikingly bad. Presumably it was produced with the VR headset. Does that tell us anything?

Hey VR designers, anyone ever thought about people that wear glasses? Most headsets don't really take it into account.

Valve Index allows you to set the distance of the lenses towards your face so there is room for glasses.

A lot of glass wearers did tell me that they can see perfectly well without glasses, probably far-sighted.

...to write this article, and then you read it. For my next act I will be working for my bathtub for an entire week.

Forget VR. Even without VR 3d games gives me motion sickness. I wanted to play the much praised "The Witness" games by Jonathan Blow. Too sad i could not because of motion sickness. Has any one found a solution that worked to get rid of motion sickness?.

This might depend on personal physiology - some people seem to have less of a negative effect.

One thing to try is the game "I Expect You to Die"

If I remember right, it was designed by people who focused explicitly on making a VR a pleasant experience. It's a game where you sit down (to match your character's position: sitting) and the camera never moves (the prime cause of motion sickness for many people). I loved the game and it was a great experience.

https://iexpectyoutodie.schellgames.com/

AR for me is way more exciting

VR just to get a bigger desktop screen. This seems disappointing.

just natural evolution. a small step towards the tech being useful.

i like vr, but if one wants isolation to work, just move in a cottage

I assume someone may want isolation to work, but not in all aspects of their life.

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