Comment by gravenimage | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gravenimage | Hacker News Reader

I worked for about a month using the Immersed app and an Oculus 2. I judged it workable for me, but probably near the borderline. The positives were that the software generally worked (modulus some bugs), and I could code, attend Teams meetings (as an avatar with a VR camera) and have multiple monitors. Interestingly, Teams meetings with the other participants on a virtual monitor about 2 metres away were very noticeably less psychologically stressful. (I suspect some evolutionary/neurological thing about faces in a monitor 60cms away). The resolution was fine, but not great. I wear spectacles (slightly near-sighted, a bit too much to drive without) and the headset was comfortable enough. With the Oculus 2 the pass-thru was rubbish, so touch-typing and a tidy desk vital. The negatives were that a good wifi connection to the laptop was necessary; the battery-life on the headset meant I had to trail a wire across to keep it on for >2 hours; it was slightly sweaty (I didn't get the serious discomfort other people have experienced); the default headband wasn't great; and in the end it wasn't better than my physical multimonitor setup. I seem also to not suffer from VR-sickness (or motion sickness for that matter), but YMMV greatly.

Almost all your complaints are addressed with the quest pro. Especially the sweat and passthrough are all much better. I just used it yesterday to work w/horizons workrooms while at the office, and being able to see my surroundings was great.

I'm going to re-try using Immersed as well, I haven't figured out a great way to address the latency in the office yet.

Obviously, working at Meta means showing up as an avatar to a meeting isn't seen as a big or unique deal (usually more than one person in every meeting is an avatar). I do think video of someone's face is WAY more expressive than an avatar.

The worst aspect of the Quest is the connection with Meta.

If you bought a Quest and thought you can finally watch NSFW content at work, remember that Zuckerberg is now watching over your shoulder.

And he might even be looking at the code you write.

Try horizon workroooms. To me, immersed is like Linux - tons of options, more features, but it’s a bit trickier to set up just right and things seem to not stay right, it takes constant adjustment.

Horizon workrooms was like using a Mac - it “just works” when I onboarded, less features but way less hassle. I much prefer it personally.

On the slight risk of provoking a flamewar, gonna chip in with a warm take:

To me, Mac is like Linux - tons of options, more features, but it’s a bit trickier to set up just right and things seem to not stay right, it takes constant adjustment.

Linux was like using a Mac - it “just works” when I onboarded, less features but way less hassle. I much prefer it personally.

> Teams meetings with the other participants on a virtual monitor about 2 metres away were very noticeably less psychologically stressful.

How were you projected? Was everyone else looking at a person gazing vaguely in the direction of the camera and obscured by a bulky headset?

Immersed has a 'VR camera' - you position it in your virtual space and so your Teams partners see a floating avatar with hands (the Quest 2 has hand tracking as well). It provoked initial mirth but didn't disrupt much.

> Interestingly, Teams meetings with the other participants on a virtual monitor about 2 metres away were very noticeably less psychologically stressful.

That's fascinating, but it makes sense. I wonder how much of "Zoom fatigue" is caused by feeling you need more personal space, and could be mitigated by just having the screen be (or seem to be) the distance away that a normal human would.

You could probably get pretty far with floating screens rather than the whole avatar thing. They'd all still be staring at you when they talk to each other though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com