Comment by dark__paladin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dark__paladin | Hacker News Reader

Can I get a reality check on the state of headsets? It seems that the only people interested in these things are Apple/Meta hype boys (if the latter even exists), and people that are interested in VR gaming. I have only ever considered a headset because of games, only to conclude that it would be a severe waste of money, and that approximates the opinion of most people I know (echo chamber acknowledged).

I'll repeat the usual sentiments of Glass being a failure, the Vive is nearly ten years old, the Quest is a VR Chat/Beat Saber machine, and the Apple Vision is a Black Mirror style immersive nightmare machine.

I want my ideas to be challenged on this, but I really believe that Horizon OS will be a "Did you know that Meta released a VR operating system?" fun fact in 10 years, probably when Apple releases a $5000 Vision Pro 4 Ultimate.

Who on Earth is using these things? I realize where I am posting, but who outside the tech world is getting excited about and actually buying/using VR Headsets?

Obviously I've been wrong before about tech trends but this one seems to be so blatantly companies sniffing their own farts in regards to "we are the future" sentiments.

Vr is compelling in a way you can’t recognize without trying it, and even peoples memories of it seem less compelling than the actual experience. However, it’s inconvenient enough to use that many people don’t use their headsets as much as they expected. And there’s locomotion challenges that are hard to overcome imho. Finally, theres some privacy and lock in issues with the current iterations of the tech. Valve seems to be the closest thing to the good guys here - is that still true?

> And there’s locomotion challenges that are hard to overcome imho.

I think this is the biggest hurdle: getting your VR legs nice and strong. It took me about two weeks of reasonable use before smooth locomotion was possible. I know other people that tried it once, felt sick, and were done with it. I think this is one of the reasons why there's such a big youngster population on Quest games; they don't seem to be affected as much.

There are a ton of headsets beyond the three you mentioned (Glass wasn't a VR anything). Valve, Pico, Pimax, Varjo are a few off the top of my head. Pico 4 would be very competitive against the Quest 3 if they had released it in the US. Presumably the decision not to has a lot of to do with the TikTok stuff. Pimax has several higher end headsets that are very good hardware wise but not the best on the software side. Valve Index is still very popular and there are rumors about a new Valve headset coming soon.

> who outside the tech world is getting excited about and actually buying/using VR Headsets?

Parents who want to buy a toy for their children, they are not exited about it they just find it cheap enough.

If you want proof just play any game/app that has voice chat on the quest. VR chat, among us, any shooter, ....

I really wish there was a way to filter them out.

The consumer mindset looks at entertainment which is the area you’re focusing in.

The enterprise and general industry mindset is very different. These are already used for product design, medical procedures, training, vehicle development, and more.

ok I bite. I have a Go, a Quest1, a Quest2, several adaptors for mobile phones, even an old kickstarter model of a VR headset with an intel atom cpu and stock android. I have a stereo/360 camera (Vuze VR) and I love all these gadgets.

What do I use them for? 360/stereo movies are incredibly cool. It is just another way of experiencing your personal history. Also there is Oculus Labs where they have some indi games and software which does not show up in the official Oculus Store. There are some gems, like some really cool games and some scientific applications, like a protein modeller.

I have also written VR programs by myself for scientific purposes (mainly biophysics) but also data mining and 3d CFD simulations. The 3rd dimension makes so much difference when you look at objects and you have a real feeling for the objects.

What I miss: Easily exporting 3d Models to VR (e.g. Blender), a good VR web browser. No Chrome is just the 2D version on a virtual screen. Not very impressive. Firefox VR is aready dead. And a good standard fiel format is still missing. VRML was quite nice in the 90s but hey that was 30 years ago.

just my 2 ct

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