Lufthansa brings the inflight experience to life with mixed reality | Hacker News Reader

Lufthansa brings the inflight experience to life with mixed reality

forwork.meta.com

28 pointsBrajeshwar69 comments

I'm mostly surprised just how underwhelming this looks. Meta has buckets of money, and hires the absolute best engineers available, and what they can come up with is...this? It just looks so bad - ugly lighting, bad textures etc etc. If this is a showcase of the best that Quest can be, I'm surprised.

The Quest is pretty limited in hardware. The article mentions they use both Quest 2 and Quest 3; the Quest 2 is a $250 device that runs on a 5 year old mobile chip (about the same as the one in the Galaxy S20 Plus). The Quest 3 is much better (about on the level of a $500 phone), but they might just use the same games on both.

And in VR/AR low latency and high framerate are much more important than visual fidelity. Your brain just kind of accepts those low fidelity representations, but reacts very badly to latency spikes or frame drops.

Your point is valid but it will "feel" different in VR. The stereoscopic effect bolsters the lower quality rendering. The aesthetic from the screen cap reminds me of the horizons style so this may have been intentional.

It's not Meta's work. They're just highlighting a Quest application made for a large partner (seemingly by these guys: https://www.msm.digital/business-units/ar-vr-labs/).

It sounds like MSM.digital is the one that created the MR "experience". It's not really clear what Meta's involvement was from the article.

Maybe they should buy EA. Considering the amount of money they are spending, financially it may be feasible.

Even if you’re one of the best engineers, doesn’t mean you have style.

Physics. A quest is basically last year's mobile phone pushing way more pixels and FPS than on a phone. Because VR is heavy. And needs low latency so some optimisation tricks are out the window.

Even PCVR with my 4090 is still very limited in quality in things like Flight Simulator.

Meta could have gone the Apple route but they price themselves out of a real market. And the external battery is really poor UX. And really it's not super much better (though they compensate a lot with foveated rendering)

This is basically what the tech is right now if you really want standalone.

This just looks entirely pointless and the product of a marketing team with too many staff.

For Meta this is great because it exposes lots of people to their product. And since it's business class many of those people are either influential or at least open to buying a $250-$500 headset to show the same experience to their kids at home.

For the customer it's interesting because flights are often somewhat boring, so having the option for a whimsical distraction is nice. When the novelty wears off after 30 minutes it's still a good alternative way to watch movies.

For Lufthansa it's a great differentiator. Some people might choose Lufthansa over an alternative for their next business trip just to try this out in what's already company paid "lost time".

It might die out in a couple years because it doesn't do much that a screen can't (apart from the privacy aspect of other people not seeing your screen). But that doesn't mean it can't be a positive in the short term.

You could say any of this about the Rayban Meta glasses they are advertising heavily on TikTok. It is a very optimistic take on things that's unlikely to work out.

This is for showcasing/simulating a fly environment, not for using during an actual flight. Nobody would risk such a thing during an actual flight, not now and not for the foreseeable future, for obvious reasons (safety, motion-sickness etc).

It is a product for the sake of being a product. Literally a "meta-product". There is no real practical use out of commercial exhibitions. Nobody is gonna use this thing to decide which class to book or anything, and using such a thing for real training is laughable unless this is where we are with cost-cutting. It is an absurdity born out of marketing boredom and a desperate need (from meta's part) for making some product with VR headsets. Only thing I am surprised is that AI is not mentioned. Such "products" are usually "AI-powered".

>Nobody would risk such a thing during an actual flight, not now and not for the foreseeable future, for obvious reasons (safety, motion-sickness etc).

I can't think of any obvious reasons. People are allowed to take their own headset onto the flight, why wouldn't the airline lend a quest 3 to people in business/first class?

I don't think that in the current state airlines could take a risk to provide vr headsets. A lot of things can happen in an airplane, most obviously turbulence, and lack of good orientation and space perception during a flight for something an airline provides and advertises can lead to accidents that can bring bad PR. Moreover, most people are not used to headsets, especially for an extended period of time, and I do not think airlines want to deal with the practicalities or bad PR that vomiting passengers bring either. Flights are complex and cumbersome enough to add hassles like that. People bringing their own helmets is another story, as that does not reflect on the company's image. Maybe if these things are more normalised they could be tried eg by passengers that are scared of flying.

Lol, seeing this after both my Lufthansa flight and luggage were delayed today has me feeling a mixed reality.

It's like the Deutsche Bahn executive with his Keynote at KubeCon Europe who said he wants to increase Train travel without building infrastructure, and by reducing energy costs.

I had the exact same thought. My luggage was lost by Lufthansa the other day and my first thought to the headline was "and now I can have that bad experience in VR".

If I could look down mid-flight and see what was happening below…ancient battles, modern news events…that would be a truly educational inflight experience.

That is an awesome idea. I really hope someone runs with it.

This is a great example of a good idea that absolutely doesn’t depend on the technology at hand. In fact it might make it worse: in the middle of most flights you’re above the clouds. Any battle details would be infinitesimally small. And looking at the floor for extended periods of time would be very uncomfortable.

Why not take the same idea and just… show it on a screen?

I enjoy looking out windows and really like the in-flight views that many airlines have put into seat-back entertainment, but they're all just rendering aerial/satellite photos, not actually showing you. I'd love it if there were actual cameras on the planes that showed you exactly what was out the window (with some map overlay).

If you know your approximate position and have a good feeling for geography, you can see a lot. Coming back from Europe during daylight, I was able to see Lac Manicougan, the St Lawrence River, and eventually Lake Champlain (since it was a clear day, I actually saw more of it on that flight than I did when I drove across it a few years later, when it was foggy). I've identified highways from cruising altitude and used that to identify the larger towns/smaller cities we were passing. Flying to Europe at night, I've had a full view from Ireland to Amsterdam as we approached landfall.

All of those would be even better if I could have looked ahead and to both sides with actual cameras. I wouldn't want to spend a whole flight in a VR headset, but an hour or two would be great, especially since 1-2-1 has become the default seating in business class - I'm traveling with my wife and so we have to sit in the middle of the plane to be able to sit next to one another.

The graphics really remind me of Sun Microsystems' "Project Wonderland"

[0] https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Ss_rLDyRQCk/SL_c2fZOm3I/AAAAAAAAG...

[1] https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRy3qRs...

I get the hate, but I find this semi-interesting. I flew business recently and the airline had a '3d' walkthrough of their cabin (i.e. 360deg photos at multiple points), a bit like property market listings where you have to press a bunch of arrows to move around. It may seem daft, and you may not be able to imagine someone using this in its current iteration, but I reckon as VR-wear becomes less clunky, stuff like this will be really useful. There are many air (and airmile) hobbyists and frequent flyers who like this stuff. So, hm, I guess people should just be a bit more generous with their good-faith tech curiosity instead of pouring hate?

EDIT: to expand a bit on why I like these walkthroughs in general: if I'm gonna spend a significant amount of money it's really useful to see what I'm getting for it. Unlike real-estate, you can't see an airline cabin unless you've already purchased the ticket and are fully committed. It's really that simple. Also if it's a rare joy, it's nice to build up a bit of excitement with these walkthroughs. Maybe that's dumb.

> but I reckon as VR-wear becomes less clunky, stuff like this will be really useful.

The thing is, I can already get a really good overview of the interior of the plane I'm gonna fly on, based on the actual textures and natural lighting, by doing a quick search on youtube.

It doesn't matter how less clunky the interface gets, when I can already get the same result with no added interface at all.

And as a frequent flyer with a preferred airline you probably know with a fair bit of granularity what seating options are like.

I'm all for potential novelty on a long plane flight and I'm sure I would fiddle with it for 30 minutes at least but it doesn't really draw me either.

I don't think the intention is that potential passengers would ever experience this. It's for "partners" and training.

And then reality hits: they will change the plane and all you've seen before buying becomes invalid. Swiss (a Lufthansa group member) makes you pay for your reserved seat, then constantly changes it at will - I fly with them often and I can't remember one single time where I kept the reserved place. So yes, it's a pointless PR exercise.

Agree. It’s a little embarrassing, but when booking flights, I do spend some time finding out which seat may be the best for my taste and seatguru.com isn’t always enough. So this could be helpful.

Also, we need experiments with new tech to find out if and how to use it. Why not have an airline give it a go?

Lufthansa has the least amount of seat space in any plane I've flown in. But sure, goggles.

Given that legroom, seat pitch and such is something that can easily be researched before purchasing a ticket. Unless someone is forcing you to fly a particular airline, is this something to complain about?

https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Lufthansa/fleetinfo.php

Yes. The information on choices can be freely available AND you can have your choices limited to a set of options that individually you find unsatisfactory. These can both be true at the same time. For example, what if their trip was for work and they weren't given any choice since the tickets were purchased for them?

Do you know of an equivalent in metric? (just asking for the other 7.650 billions humans)

I do not, and I looked hard for one. (very surprised) I did find https://www.aerolopa.com/ while searching. Still imperial units, but seems to offer much better information than seatguru.

Perhaps someone will take note and fill this serious void.

> Unless someone is forcing you to fly a particular airline

It's called "My company bought the tickets for me".

I live in NZ, had no experience with long haul travelling until my first flights into Germany, so I really had no idea it could differ from airline to airline that much. I assumed you'd get stuff like that on RyanAir etc. but never thought of Lufthansa as a budget airline.

And yeah, I learned about Seatguru _shortly afterwards_ which is why I _now_ know that Lufthansa really is the worst.

Appreciate you criticising me for not being omniscient about all things flying beforehand, it really contributes a lot.

I have somewhat long legs but am not particularly tall. Flying Lufthansa was the worst international flight experience I've ever had, primarily due to the seats. Food and service was pretty bad as well.

Maybe Lufthansa just figure out how to make their promised business class a reality. How many years has it been? They announced it in 2017 or something, still not there.

Lufthansa will do anything for its business class except make it any good.

What’s wrong with Lufthansa? It’s the only international business class I’ve ever flown. Had good experiences compared most domestic airlines in the US.

The international business class is simply inferior to most of its competitors. Other airlines offer larger seats (4 seats per row vs. 6 seats per row). Their onboard entertainment systems use more modern hardware, provide a better selection of content, and sometimes even integrate better with personal devices. The culinary options are less refined. Additionally, Lufthansa still charges $27 for in-flight Wi-Fi. Their lounges are also subpar — smaller, more crowded, and with fewer culinary options. This is based on my personal experience flying with Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss (all part of the same group), British Airways, Singapore Airlines, and Turkish Airlines. However, other business travelers echo these sentiments. It's noticeable that they enjoy a lack of competition in their home country of Germany, since some healthy competition would force them to actually improve their business class offering.

I flew with them a few times as well as KLM, Emirates, and Singapore. Lufthansa's customer service, on-board experience (i.e. food & entertainment), is not on par with the others. When a flight got canceled last minute, we were left hanging with a number to call and a long waiting line, and we are still waiting for our reimbursement. On the need to reschedule due to a positive coronavirus test, it took 16 minutes with KLM to reschedule and almost 3 hours with Lufthansa and a bunch of (online) paperwork.

On top of that, some strange management decisions like completely stopping pilot training and laying off the ones that started during Covid while getting financial assistance from the state and 2 years later struggling with a pilot shortage.

Not a fair comparison. International flights tend to have more legroom than domestic flights because they're longer routes.

I recall Lufthansa at one time being a well ranked airline. However, they seem to have fallen.

They're not even listed here: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/skytrax-world-airline-awards-...

They're 15th here, but it is dated information.: https://www.worldairlineawards.com/worlds-top-100-airlines-2...

They canceled my flight to Dubai on the day of the flight with no alternatives offered/booked. I booked them because I thought they were reliable even if more expensive than alternatives. Never again.

This is a better link that actually talks about the face that business class passengers will get headsets to use for the flight. https://www.meta.com/blog/quest/travel-mode-lufthansa-airpla...

"With the technological improvements we currently see for headsets and software, I am convinced that mixed reality has the potential to transform many elements of the travel experience and drive scale."

- Dr. Björn Becker, Head of Program, Future Intercontinental Experience, Lufthansa

What does "drive scale" mean here? Getting more passengers into the same plane volume?

"cutting exhibition costs by up to 80% and making training more scalable." and "When Lufthansa launched Allegris, a new seating experience for long haul flights, in approximately 150 of its aircrafts, it needed a scalable way to promote the experience with partners around the world. Lufthansa also needed to train flight attendants and call centre staff, so that they could better serve customers and upsell them to Lufthansa's First and Business Class offerings."

--> sounds like B2B sales/communication and internal training.

I assume drive scale means 'serve ads', which somehow translate into more flights?

Enjoy Lufthansa flights with a mid flight corporate purge! Enjoy murdering your fellow passenger-whistleblowers in Lufthansa's unique VR chill-scape, "Where Do You Think You're Boeing?!?" When you fly Lufthansa, only The Winner makes it out alive!

Lufthansa are a terrible airline, avoid travelling with them if at all possible is my experience.

With VR goggles, everybody can have the business class experience while paying for economy.

How is Lufthansa for leg room?

That's the only difference I care about w.r.t. seating sections, and I doubt VR could help with that.

Here Mr Businessflyer, enjoy your virtual glass of fine wine.

Just take a cheap wine and look at the expensive bottle.

Appearance is everything, as this study shows:

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infam...

> In a sneaky study, Brochet dyed a white wine red and gave it to 54 oenology (wine science) students. The supposedly expert panel overwhelmingly described the beverage like they would a red wine. They were completely fooled.

And the point of this is...what exactly? That I can see the interior of a planes seating area?

I can do that with a 5 second youtube search. And I can do it on my phone, without requiring any VR hardware.

I wonder if training customer service reps in VR will further hinder abilities to empathize with customers. I guess we’ll know if they start killing, looting, then teabagging clients.

This is lame. Was expecting an actual "inflight experience", but got a VR tour app of the cabin along with the same 'ol silly avatars.

The seeming lack of vision of everyone who is both connected to XR and has the money to actually make something is kind of demoralizing.

Doesn't look a lot better than GoldenEye N64.

Can someone explain to me who these customers are? Who is buying these seats from Lufthansa?

Who is flying international business class generally?

Lots of senior-level business people, wealthy individuals, individuals who may not be wealthy but aren't penny-pinching and have lots of frequent flyer miles.

Personally I'm not a fan of Lufthansa specifically but I've flown businesss class quite a few times (although not routinely).

Meta trying to recover some of their investment into VR via sales to the tech graveyard?

Got excited for a moment imagining they built windows that give information about the environment being flown over, like mountain names, city info like name, population, etc.

But then I read 'meta.com'

How are passengers going to use it for the main type of usage of VR headsets? (let's not pretend most guys are buying it for a flight simulator/racing experience)

I'm pretty sure gaming is still a more common usage than porn.

That might change if the capture technology improves.

Stats are telling a different story...

What stats?

The number of certain VR sites and their traffic is exploding, but the number of successful VR games is not.

Frequent cancelations, leaving 100s of people stranded in an airport because it's the end of shift, losing bags more frequently than any flag carrier (hell even more than cheap airlines), despite being late insisting on checking size of the cabin bags of the entire plane worth of people, mediocre to bad food, broken website, never working in flight Wi-Fi, terrible cheap seats that leaves you with a sore back and bum, wasting taxpayer money numerous times by asking government to save your broke-ass company;

but yeah sure VR inflight experience is the most important investment right now.

Building exhibits includes paying for parts, transportation, and labour costs, while grounding actual planes in order to train employees would mean missing out on vital revenue.

So… they can build physical mockups for trade-shows around the world, but not for their training centres at HQ?

To be fair to them it sounds like the digital twin is 100% functional in VR which meets the need for training but the exhibits were merely mockups not functionally accurate.

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