Comment by chris-orgmenta | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chris-orgmenta | Hacker News Reader

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Sorry for the slight tangent, but: What's the current state of VR&AR Headset friction / boot time? This is what I expected Apple to solve first.

With VR/AR headsets, the friction to 'boot in' seems to be one of the biggest problems in adoption, and one that I feel Meta et al don't openly talk about. (Note, I am ignorant of this field in general).

How close are we to seamless, quick boot, such that one puts on a headset and are 'immediately' immersed? (Compare to my phone, which unlocks before my eyes even have time to focus on the screen).

(My admittedly poor) web searching of this question just tends to offer webpages on common boot issues (e.g. 'Quest boot time'/'Vive startup time' just leads to complaints and support forums.)

I suspect this also to be a primary issue with the true 'metaverse' taking hold. GTA6 will, in my opinion, be the luxury 'hang-out' metaverse, but will likely take many minutes to access. I feel that Microsoft could have made Minecraft the de facto metaverse (by implementing certain features), but will never quite get there. Perhaps a WebGL game that can take you to a bookmarked 'spacial' lobby within 3000ms can get real traction.

This is a pretty strange complaint to me. When you use a VR headset you don't really put it on and take it off frequently during a session. When you take it off you can plug it in and it'll stay in standby, which is similar to phone standby. Its also not any slower than Playstation standby.

It's not a complaint (from me or my acquaintances), it's something that I thought (possibly incorrectly, but as mentioned I am ignorant hence me asking) was a hindrance to the success of the market. I.e. when I speak to most people re: VR/AR, they say something like "It sounds like a lot of faff", or "I have one gathering dust, I can't be bothered to use it".

I have no skin in the game and no intention of buying anything for another couple of years at least, FWIW.

Anyway: Sibling post says ~5 seconds from standby - Which seems very reasonable to me, so I suppose it's just lack of compelling features (subjectively to the people in question, not regular users) that result in the 'gathering dust'... Which means the people I have spoken to haven't wanted to bother keeping it on standby (thus increasing the barriers further).

It takes substantially more effort to put it on than it does to "boot up"

And while it may sound weird that putting it on is such an ordeal, keep in mind that there's a lot of inherently fiddly bits and many have compromises. Like the PSVR2 requires me to go turn the lights on, because it uses inside-out tracking which doesn't work well in a dark room. But also you have to fiddle around with the position of it, get it in a comfortable spot, wiggle it a bit so the lenses line up with your eyes as you had it last configured, etc... Then realize that you smudged the lens with your forehead so take it off and clean it and do it again but more carefully this time.

Having used a Quest 2 and owning a Quest 3 personally I can tell you the delay is essentially zero. It takes 2-3 sec to get the headset fully secured around your head, and the Quest will wake up the very moment it starts to get moved. That's part of the reason it annoys me so much-- just moving the controllers will wake it up, even if it's sitting on my desk.

> just moving the controllers will wake it up, even if it's sitting on my desk.

Odd that it doesn't work that way for me with controllers, maybe it's a setting you chose? For me no amount of moving the controllers or even pushing the buttons or triggers will wake the headset, it only wakes up if I put it on or through the power button.

You can turn that feature off, at least on the Quest 3

Cold boot time on a Quest is roughly half a minute, though most of the time, you'll just wake it up from standby. For testing, I just put my Quest 3 on my head, and without pressing the power button, I counted five mississippis (seconds) before I was fully in their heavily customized version of Android with hand tracking recognizing my digits.

What's booting?

Nothing I use with any frequency gets rebooted except for updates, more or less.

Exception: non-Apple stuff. Because those things tend to die while "sleeping" and unplugged, very quickly (my secondary work Windows laptop, which burns almost half its battery per 12 hours in "sleep mode"; my Steamdeck, which is barely better than that; the Switch though it's almost always on the dock anyway so that's rarely an issue)

I agree that we should pretend that my question said "from standby" instead of "boot"

If it's like iOS devices, I'd assume less than a second to interactive, potentially so fast that most people don't notice it isn't instant.

If it's like macOS, maybe 2-3 seconds to interactive.

It shuts down completely when the battery is unplugged / swapped. Very different from other Apple products. Boot time is 37 seconds according to https://youtube.com/watch?v=GkPw6ScHyb4&t=40m38s

It is an iOS device. It's essentially an iPad Pro (with a lot of obvious other hardware) running a modified iPadOS.

I have a MQ3 I haven't used in a few weeks sitting on the charger. I picked it up, spent 10 seconds finding the power button, hit button, put it on, waited 25 at the meta logo then was in VR. Didn't test opening a game but for a big one it's probably the same 10-45 seconds to start I'd imagine.

It's not something I ever really thought about, you boot it once a session and it goes idle/wake, not hibernate if you just put it on your desk for a minute.

The MQ3 is WAY better than my Vive and better even than the MQ2 at being a "throw on and gun" quick device. It's way lighter, less work to get going with.

The MQ3 is an awesome device, I love it.

One Apple Vision review mentioned that there is no "hot swapping" of the battery. Which means the headset shuts down when you swap the battery pack (which lasts 2 to 3 hours). They said booting it up again takes 30 to 40 seconds, if I remember correctly.

boot time is not nearly as relevant as with a phone where you're constantly turning it off.

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