Comment by ahelwer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ahelwer | Hacker News Reader

Meta's VR tech is undeniably amazing. I picked up a quest 2 off craigslist and was blown away - wirelessly streaming VR games to the headset over wifi is the first time I felt the technology had actually arrived. The resolution is also good enough to use it for actual work with text on virtual screens. It's conceivable that the standard workstation + monitors setup will be a thing of the past by the end of the decade.

It is sad that we are unavoidably headed to a world where a company like Meta monopolizes control of two of our five traditional senses (sight and sound). Their business model is based on behavior modification and I fully expect their highly-compensated employees to be endlessly creative in the application of headsets to that end. The sheer scale of R&D expenditure required to get realistic/usable VR is daunting and seems beyond FOSS capabilities. Not just hardware, but software like SLAM/VIO or image processing. I backed the Simula One headset but the disparity in development resources between them and meta is pretty astounding.

I find myself constantly surprised in threads like this. The few times I’ve tried VR sets (including a Quest 2), I found the resolution to be shockingly low. It’s easy to overlook when the image is moving, which is most of the time in games for example. Just like Jurassic Park still looks great despite having HD res computer graphics.

But sitting stock still, I was so distracted by big obvious pixels. I can’t imagine trying to do real work with text at that resolution.

Don't worry, you're not alone. During the pandemic, one of my clients got about 20 Quest 2s for employees to have at home in an effort to make people feel more in touch and experiment with VR meetings & workspaces. After the novelty wore off, usage dropped to basically zero and I don't know anyone who uses theirs now for anything besides games.

For me, Quest 2 is very obviously a "not there yet" product that seems to mostly appeal to kids and people who don't actually care about graphics or comfort. It's hot, battery life is bad, strapping over a pound on your face for hours at a time is not fun, and the graphics are visibly bad - even just sitting still the edges are horribly aliased and the screen door effect is massively apparent. Plus the nausea for many people, and the complete lack of spatial awareness. I will say that untethered is massively better than tethered, though, even with the graphics penalty. Quest 4 (I don't think v3 will be a big enough improvement) or whatever Apple eventually releases might actually be appealing, though.

The biggest challenge I've found is that most items in the Quest marketplace look gimmicky. As soon as you use AirLink and connect it to a PC, it is honestly pretty good. I admit it has a few meh moments, like the gap by the nose and doesn't seem wide enough to cover full peripheral vision, but for wireless VR it is great for the price.

In the niche area of VR fitness, I think the Quest 2, or the Quest 1 for that matter, was already there. It is the killer app...but maybe the only one for those who use the Quest that way: this morning I did 45 minutes in FitXR and another 25 minutes in BeatSaber, I have a few other fitness apps I use sometimes but I've never even explored the gaming aspect of the system. I don't want to go back to the way it was before the Quest 1 came out, gyms aren't that convenient for me anymore and everything else I could think of to do at home wasn't cutting it.

DDR was as really great fitness app back in the late 90s, early 00s, similar experience, but it required insanely expensive hardware if you wanted to do it at home at any decent quality (rather than just a novelty for a few parties). The Quest has none of that problem (though most of your work is in your arms rather than your legs). It is also too bad Microsoft didn't go the fitness route for Kinect, that worked fairly well also in getting sore at least.

You can buy a top quality DDR pad for €200, and could back then too. A Quest 2 costs £299. Since £299 > €200, the Quest 2 is also "insanely expensive", and so most definitely has all of that problem.

Those still aren't that great. What I really want is a hard pad that detects via air pressure (like the arcade ones), resistive pads feel flimsy and stop working fairly quickly after heavy use.

An air pressure hard pad...well...you have to buy a DDR arcade unit. Those are going for $10k+ last time I looked. Then you have to find a place to put it....

The great thing about resistive pads is their mechanical simplicity. You can make any part in them yourself with supplies available at a hardware store, and conduct most repairs with basic hand tools. What sort of "heavy use" breaks these pads quickly? Are you playing with a sledgehammer? There's videos of people passing ITG14s on Cobalt Fluxes posted to YouTube this year. Cobalt Flux went out of business in 2011, so those pads are over a decade old, and you don't get good enough to pass 14s playing casually.

And if your definition of 'flimsy' is 'requires some maintenance every decade', note that the product we're comparing it to, the Oculus, has a lithium ion battery in it that's e-waste after less than half that time, and good luck getting spares in a market that discontinues its products every couple of years.

I'd like to see these, because when I went looking, they were a hell lot more expensive than that.

DDR is in this awkward space where it's either cheap and garbage, or expensive as all hell. The DDRGAME stuff, from what I've heard is somewhat pricy AND garbage.

https://www.maty-taneczne.pl/product-category/dance-mats-ddr... I've got one and know several people who have them and haven't heard any complaints about them.

The resolution of the Quest 2 is quite good given the context: it's a really cheap headset, and the resolution is generally much better than really cheap (or even not-so-cheap) headsets of previous years.

VR as a whole still has a long way to go though, for sure. You need like 8k per eye or something crazy before you're "maxed out" on what humans can perceive IIRC.

https://www.discovery.com/science/mexapixels-in-human-eye

tl;dr human vision is higher than 8k, but megapixels is not the right concept to measure it

what I've found from playing a lot of VR over time (was an oculus dk early adoptere waaay before they were acquired by facebook, then got a vive, then got an index) is that my brain is rather easily fooled even with cartoon graphics. the world reacting like I expect the world to react seems to be the major factor in whether the vr 'sells' itself, and is only tangentially related to graphics.

I do agree with you that the resolution is still to low to replace screens.

My brain is easily fooled as well. I nearly broke my foot trying to kick a headcrab that was jumping at me.

and then when you try to bring this up, VR enthusiasts tell you that resolution isn't the accurate term and don't tell you what is.

looks like that's getting slightly better, as long as you tether to a massive desktop to fit its massive enthusiast GPU

You don't need a massive desktop. I used a mid-range gaming rig with 2-3 year old hardware just fine, and the graphics look amazing.

The Quest 2 is a terrible replacement for screens, (also because it has a fixed focal distance of 2 meters) but the resolution and clarity has improved so much since the launch of the Vive that I’d bet new headsets will be there within the decade.

While I agree the resolution is not good, mind that the "pixel" effect is reduced when you are perfectly aligned with the lenses (and see more clearly the pixel, weirdly).

I can't imagine doing real work with text too, but it's enough to be immersed in realistic worlds like hl alyx.

I'm really really curiuos who will win this bet.

I also have a htc vive pro + wireless transmitter + highend pc and i don't think at all that this will replace a normal monitor setup on a table.

Why?

Because wearing a headset on your head is just cumbersome.

I don't think anyone would ever sit in any outdoor setup with a VR headset on their heads because it looks idiotic, it ruins your hair and its too expensive to let it lay around.

And at home? At home people stoped wearing pants why would they give up a good display for a headset?

> because it looks idiotic

This is exactly what people thought of 5+ inch phone screens, and now nobody cares.

Except with a 5in phone screen, you still have some sort of situational awareness of people walking up on you whether you choose to ignore that or not is totally different than being in a headset where you have none.

I keep seeing ads/promos for VR with people on a train/subway in a VR headset. I hope you don't mind having the rest of your stuff taken from you while you crush it in what ever game you're playing on the subway

Yup. This is why I think that if VR goes mainstream and is used everywhere it'll actually be AR.

Real world with the AR "Killer App" - whatever that is. Google Glass will (sadly) be accepted by everyone in society eventually.

<s> Alexa/Siri: The optimal carriage for the train you are taking will stop 12 paces to your left. whoosh... screeech!

Alexa/Siri: Enter the door to board the train.

Alexa/Siri: The person seated 3 metres in front was recently given a 1 star Co-Rider review with the notes:"Loud shitty music."

Alexa/Siri: This person approaching you has been flagged for viol.... </s>

But it doesn't really matter. Ads will ruin everything. They always do.

Yeah, the Terminator AR view was always the best use to me. Instantly image rec to find the names of people in your viewport type of stuff. Adding turn by turn arrows while walking a city/mall/etc.

Then, Black Mirror comes along and ruins it for everyone, because of course people will use it exactly as they proposed it could go. After seeing that, I don't want any part of it.

Is there a rule of the internet/tech/life that says for any good use, people will first take it to the dark places thereby ruining any potential good usage first?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

3 words, full color passthrough. Meta includes sample footage of this in their demos so it's definitely coming with Cambria. While it would be possible to use a standalone headset out in public, I don't think that's the main goal. The hardware belongs in a home or an office where you have a dedicated play space tailored to whatever your use case is. Asking for something that people can use on the train on their way to work is trying to run before we can walk. VR headsets will replace desktop displays first because why wouldn't you want a device that can emulate any size, shape, or number of displays instantly with no cable management or mounting hardware and allow those displays to be visible whether you're at your desk, on the couch, grabbing a fresh cup of coffee or doing some stretches on your yoga mat.

>Asking for something that people can use on the train on their

To be clear, I'm not asking for anything. This is from their own PR that I've seen this advertised as a use case.

Except you are making yourself look idiotic instead of just holding something that looks idiotic.

Similarly about 3D glasses and...

Because a headset could become a better display, and while the technology may not be perfected.. if it was AR, it opens new possibilities.

It will just be a normal pair of glasses in 10 years. VR is in the pre-iPhone smartphone era.

I would smart glasses, where I can see through to the real world, rather than pass through like the VR devives.

i.e. something like the hololens or spectacles

So basically like the Google glass ukelele demo that never came to pass.

It's getting there though. Vuzix have made really nice flat AR displays for their Blade. They just don't have a clue how to sell them afaik.

The Quest 2 already has passthrough. When you exit your guardian, which is an area you defined as "safe", it will use the external cameras to essentially act as thick glasses.

Not to say that it is some kind of blissful experience, but it works reasonably well to go get a glass of water.

The original Quest has passthrough as well, this is exactly what I don't want

you gain IRL latency for reduced pixels

I don't think it will be that far along in 10 years, or if it will, it will cost $5000 and won't see widespread adoption.

Enjoy your terrible FoV. I'll to take my nonglasses form factor immersive headset instead.

People who wear normal glasses already 'enjoy' a terrible field of view.

You still get peripheral vision when wearing glasses. It doesn't matter much if it's blurry.

It’ll be thin eye covering passthrough goggles, full FoV

> I don't think anyone would ever sit in any outdoor setup with a VR headset on their heads because it looks idiotic, it ruins your hair and its too expensive to let it lay around.

Not something I care about in both counts. And I don't think people care. In fact I was at a trade show this weekend where someone was playing a Q2 game and everyone looked really interested.

And messing up my hair, well I hardly have any :)

because it looks idiotic Same as when people started talking to their bluetooth headset while walking on the street. It used to be disturbing and idiotic but no one bats an eye now.

It is still irritating and not a lot of people do it.

And yet, whenever there is a regulatory initiative to reign in those companies some people, especially on places HN, will claim that it is a futile attempt despite past evidence to the contrary.

My prediction if this takes off: Just as in Phones right now we will see a period of mono/duopolism after which lawmakers around the world will start to decide that the public space expanded into a new field and that companies such as Meta are unfit stewards. Then laws will be written to align platforms more with whatever the local society expects. (And some people will, again, complain about that "overreach")

> headed to a world [...]

I am always astounded by such claims, like have you guys ever travelled outside the Western hemisphere at all?

I can only provide anecdotal data but every single person in the dev world that I've talked to would disagree. Having unlimited virtual screens is useless if you're limited to how much of the screen you can see it at single time given the extremely limited ~90° FOV.

Furthermore, the resolution on a Quest for viewing actual text for long periods of time is entirely too low, and that's not even considering the fact that it can be very difficult to get the entire virtual screen to be in focus given the fresnel lenses. What do you do your programming on, a TI 83 screen?

Can confirm, I tried the virtual desktop thing and was somewhat underwhelmed. The pitch sounds amazing, but it practice it just hard to read code in VR.

"We can sell 80 percent of the screen WITHOUT inducing seizures!"

You might like “The Dawn of The New Everything” by Jaron Lanier.

Edit: comment deleted

It’s hard to believe that advertisers would be paying Facebook $100 billion a year if their product didn’t modify behavior. Maybe they’re just misinformed about the efficacy of Facebook ads, but I doubt it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com