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Comment by holoduke | Hacker News Reader

I think the moment when vr/ar becomes really popular amongst regular people is when the size of the device is the same as a pair of sunglasses. Maybe just slightly more bulky. But till that time its not becoming a successful story. People feel akward wearing the thing. Its uncomfortable and a bit of a gimmick without a real purpose. When the thing could replace my raybands. It looks awesome and contains software that enhances the real world I see with information, it might become something.

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I know a Google exec that was put on the Google Glass project early on, when the scope was for it to be a full AR/VR device (not like the very scaled-back thing Google Glass rolled-out as). Even he knew many years ago that it would be impossible within the foreseeable future with the state of available tech or even near future available tech to fit that experience into the size of a pair of sunglasses. That person is now involved with Google's quantum computing efforts which seems like a more solvable problem than fitting a full AR/VR experience into a something close to a standard size pair of sunglasses.

I've got a Quest headset and the thing causes a lot of pressure on my sinuses, making it unwearable for more than about 15 minutes at a time. There are no AR/VR headsets that I'd be willing to strap on to my face for more than about 10 or 15 minutes.

For the Quest, take a look at BOBOVR headstraps (https://www.bobovr.com). They replace the "clamp to your face" style that companies keep idiotically insisting on with a much more comfortable welding mask/hard hat style arrangement where the weight sits around the crown of your head.

There's an anime from 2007 called "Denno Coil" that focuses on AR compute with devices that look like normal glasses and integrated with everyday life. This is the piece of culture I'd compare against, and use as a barometer to compare where this type of interface can reach a critical mass.

That's interesting, Dennou Coil is actually the first thing I thought of (and rewatched) when the Apple Vision Pro was announced. I thought that if it lived up to the hype and I wanted to build something for it, then it would be good to have some sci-fi use cases fresh in my mind.

It seems like there are several high technological barriers to surmount though. I don't expect to see that kind of AR for decades.

https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses

These are a start.. taking the opposite approach of the Apple device and limiting functionality to what will actually fit in a reasonable form factor right now.

Though to avoid any confusion for other readers, these aren't "AR" at all. They're a voice assistant and camera that happens to be attached to the same body part that AR goggles would be.

No visual display included, because that would require a clunkier form factor still.

This is the bottom line and it has been obvious since the first time I ever put a VR headset on my head 10 years ago.

Today's products, even AVP, are way, WAY too big and inconvenient in 50 different little ways to be seriously used for anything.

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