This is such a great post, and really covers the spiritual aspects of what it's like to work for prolonged periods in VR. Glad to see Immersed getting traction, and taking VR forward. We all benefit from this.
For Linux enthusiasts (possibly the OP as as well): SimulaVR (www.simulavr.com) is working on a portable Linux VR headset with office/programmer productivity as the #1 goal. It will offer the following advantages over the OP's Immersed setup:
1. *More than double the text quality.* We are making a headset with more than double the PPD (pixels-per-degree) of the Oculus Quest 2. This is extremely important for facilitating multi-hour VR sessions without eye fatigue.
2. *Proper window management.* SimulaVR is a fully functional Linux window manager (built over Wayland/wlroots infrastructure). Unlike Immersed, it isn't just emulating screens on another host OS. This means you get an unlimited number of windows, popups can (when desired) behave as new windows, etc. No hacks are required to get this sort of functionality. It will also later on facilitate proper 3D/VR applications being able to share the same space with 2D applications.
3. *Proper portability.* Our headset is going to be fully portable (with a detachable compute pack in the back), and won't require you to tether your headset to another computer over WiFi, or take along an additional laptop just to get your VR computer working somewhere else.
4. *Proper hackability.* Simula is built over FOSS, and is not tethered to the Facebook platform. If there's something you want to change or tweak, you're free to do so.
One thing Immersed has though is immediate availability and scalability (there are an unlimited supply of Oculus Quests floating around :). We're likely going to be constrained on the number of headsets we can produce, at least initially, and will have to queue first to the early users.
We (and the industry at large) also have a lot of work ahead of us to improve upon a VR-centric UX (incorporating proper tiling management, and other things). Very exciting.
OP here! I've been keeping a very close eye on the SimulaVR project for a while. I agree with most of what you've got here, and would love to be able to try it out in the future.
One question I've got about the window management system - I make heavy use of virtual desktops so I can swap several windows out simultaneously (all my source code on one screen, my database GUIs on another, etc.). I'd run out of room using a spatially tiled VR interface unless I had "sets" or other groups of windows (or different vantage points); how is that being approached? Is there a "virtual desktop" equivalent?
Any chance of coopting other hardware as part of your development/deployment strategy? (Vive Focus 3, maybe?)
I'll definitely continue to watch the project - please let me know if I can ever be of service in the endeavor. You guys are building an awesome future.
1. Simula is planning on adding a window tiling/window grouping dynamic to its UX. Agreed this is a useful feature, and we've heard from other people as well that this would improve things.
A short-term hack though, since Simula is a fully functioning window manager, is to simply launch another window manager inside Simula as a client (e.g., launching i3 or xfce4 inside Simula, and using it as a way to group applications together).
2. We've been unable to get Linux support from other VR manufacturers in order to run Simula on other hardware. In fact, our initial goal was to only do this (so that we could focus on the software only), but eventually decided it was better to just build our own headset (in particular a high-fidelity one that is uniquely suited for office/programmer productivity).
Would love to stay in contact. Your office VR setup really captures the spirit of the VR age.
The current build of SimulaVR[1] does support workspaces, accessed via Super+number keyboard shortcuts. I use them like a higher-level alt+tab, to switch between a set of text editor windows (super+1) and a set of browser and terminal windows displaying test output (super+2).
Wow, I noticed that it even has Tobii Eye Tracking. That's extremely exciting imo. It would allow me to code fully hands-free with something like Serenade/Talon, and just use the eye tracking to move the mouse.
Can the headset be connected to a Windows PC? I'm running very heavy stuff when developing, and need all of the the horsepower available. On top of that I also need access to certain software that don't exist on Linux.
Our goal is to make it tetherable to other [Windows] PC's for gaming, etc. Though getting Windows to host SimulaOS isn't yet supported. Your use case has been flagged though. This might be something we need to do down the line.
What is your webXR support going to be? I think for business applications, webXR is going to be the communication medium of choice.
Nothing beats HTML for expressiveness and transmit-ability, and with frameworks like A-Frame you already have an enormous amount of software written for your headset.
Between you guys and Frame.work, it feels like hardware might get inspiring again. Good luck!
solving vergence-accommodation conflict could also be important for long term use fatigue, which no current or near future headset even attempts to solve.
ideally it would render stereoscopically but I imagine since most 3D applications control the camera themselves this will be difficult to make work across all things. 3D using css may work since it is up to the browser how it gets rendered.
Get a better head-strap! He mentions it in passing in the article, but 90% of the strain from wearing the Quest 2 for extended periods of time can be traced to the garbage default head-strap. You want something that properly balances the headset. If you want, you can even get one that gives you a bit of extra charge, too. There are plenty of options.
Something critical that doesn't seem to be mentioned:
You can manually alter the resolution of Quest apps; if an app is looking blurry it's almost always because it's set to a lower resolution than native. This is a problem with a lot of "productivity" VR apps, and the main reason why I ended up working on my own for a few months.
The standard 90hz is comfortable for me for prolonged periods of time, but if you feel nauseous, you can turn it up to 120hz, though some applications will require manual adjustment.
The Quest 2 is really cheap and offers a lot of different ways to do work; you can pretty much throw it in a bag with a USB-C mouse and keyboard (and splitter, so you could technically also bring along a USB-A mouse and keyboard just fine if you bought a 2A-to-C splitter) or a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo and you've got a full computing environment anywhere, assuming you set it up beforehand. And if you bring around a laptop or other small form-factor PC while traveling, it works really well to augment those, too.
Literal years ago Palmer Luckey talked about using a Go, a significantly less powerful headset, as a replacement for any monitor setups while traveling with his computer. We're finally at a point where you can do the same on any operating system, and it's honestly a really good experience.
> Get a better head-strap! He mentions it in passing in the article, but 90% of the strain from wearing the Quest 2 for extended periods of time can be traced to the garbage default head-strap. You want something that properly balances the headset.
I'm very curious why I seem to have heard this exact same advice for every single headset on the market. Why does it seem endemic that headsets ship uncomfortable, fixed within days by amateurs with Velcro and tape? Why haven't manufacturers noticed that they are partly responsible for one of the major blocks to wide spread adoption?
It’s all in the box! The standard strap is very foldable and cuts the total size down a lot. Extended wear straps make the kit much larger. I have a Quest 2, with a fancy strap and a standard carry case and they don’t really work together. The simple strap is also easier to adjust.
The Quest 2 was heavily optimized for reduced cost since otherwise, VR is a very expensive hobby to get into. Before the Quest, you had to buy a $600 headset AND a $1500+ gaming PC if you didn't already have one if you wanted to get into VR.
As it is, I imagine at $300, Facebook is likely losing money on the sale of each headset.
High-end headsets like the Valve Index come with a very good strap. There's no need to mod it or get an aftermarket one because the stock one is already very comfortable and balances the weight on your head very well. But the full kit is $1,000 and requires a gaming PC.
Better headstraps are bigger, bulkier, and more expensive. In a market that competes on price, it's most efficient to have the basic version in the box and then charge for upgrades.
Plus, this also allows you to grow your market share by not excluding people that can't quite afford the better version of the headset.
> Quest 2 requires everyone to use a Facebook account to log in.
> If you are an existing Oculus user and have an Oculus account, you will have the option to log in with your Oculus account and merge your Facebook and Oculus accounts.
I can't speak how enforced these are, but even if it's a soft requirement for now, it's enough for me to avoid it. Pity, since it seems pretty good tech wise.
It requires an Oculus account. There are ways to get a new one even now that don't require you to make a Facebook account. If you check the subreddit you'll probably be able to figure it out in about ten minutes. I make a habit of not mentioning exactly how to do it here because I don't trust employees of companies on HN to avoid fixing any user-beneficial problem involving their work.
Technically FB says they won't require an FB account until 2023. However they make it a pain in the ass to use a Quest without a FB account, and presumably your device will be a paperweight in a year once the FB requirement rolls out
Yes, they require accounts. A while ago, FB were saying the FB account must also be “in good standing” in response to people who had purchased the Quest 2, created the compulsory FB account, and were then banned immediately rendering the device totally useless.
There was a fair amount of bad press about the issue and how there was no way to get unbanned. The bad press forced their hand a bit, but I wonder if it’s an issue again now that it’s not such a hot topic.
Is it really that surprising that spending 25% of your life with 35% extra weight at the top of your head is going to affect your neck? I’m not convinced that a different strap is going to make a significant difference.
The weight matters a little, but people having been wearing helmets at work for millennia. The bigger problem is that the weight isn’t balanced - the front is heavier than the back.
Yeah! I double-checked that post while writing my comment and noticed the picture was gone, myself. I'm guessing it's because he was using the Facebook CDN.
For me the worst thing about the Quest 2 is the lack of adjustable eye-width options. The original Quest had an adjustable dial, but they replaced it with I think 2 or maybe 3 different widths to choose from. Because of this, my experience is way more uncomfortable than the first Quest, since none of the settings match my eyes.
It sounds like you’re describing the Quest 2 as a full computing device. I thought it was pretty much a replacement for just a monitor in a traditional setup.
The quest two is basically an android phone with special hardware/software for VR. It’s running android. It can be used completely standalone.
It can be hooked up to a more powerful PC and essentially just used as a monitor, but it can also run less demanding titles natively with no additional hardware. It has a web browser built in and you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard to it. So you can do some stuff without a laptop/pc. There’s a good library of native games but if you wanted to make a PowerPoint or do office/work you’d likely be using a web app (or just connecting to a pc)
The Quest 2 has enough performance to run Citra (a recent Switch emulator) without any slowdowns; you can install just about any .apk on it, and if you want you can literally run Docker. It works pretty much okay for just about any actual computing task you can throw at it.
Hi! OP here - I use a GoQuestVR Halo strap. I'd originally purchased it for my Quest 1, and adapted it to fit the Quest 2. There are several makers of this form factor now, though.
The Elite Strap has some really awful reliability issues; I'd definitely recommend returning it if you can.
If you've got a 3D printer, there's a pretty popular project that allows you to adapt the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap to a Quest 2; I've heard little but glowing praise for it.
However, since you mention the Rift S, as far as I'm aware the halo strap(s, there are a lot of different brands pushing pretty much the same thing) the author mentions in the page is pretty much just a clone of the Rift S strap, and I've also heard really good things about it. It's like $20 on AliExpress, so it's probably worth a try, at least.
The Vive Deluxe Audio Strap is the way to go. You can 3d print or purchase the adapter off of Amazon. I also strapped a usb battery pack to the back of the headstrap to counterbalance the HMD. The DAS is very comfy and solves the audio problem with the quest 2 as well.
There is a part of me that is disturbed. I like working at my big wooden table overlooking the city, nice natural light filtering in, the ability to detach from the screen and pace around to take a break. VR for work seems like a trap, you'll be consumed, ensnared by something that demands all your attention. You won't know freedom. Maybe this is the current state of headsets, clunky, like a chain with cables, bad tracking and screens. Maybe if it was seamless and I could slip it on as needed, like a pair of sunglasses.
The other part of me is that having a giant whiteboard and endless space seems cool. Imagine if the entire virtual space had powerful programming environments, some more powerful version of Mathematica, I could gesture and run a some powerful. Maybe that would be worth it, but it doesn't seem there yet.
> my small plastic table, looking out on the blank concrete wall of the building next door, some fading indirect light filtering in, the ability to turn around and take a whole step back before bumping into my cabinet to take a break
Sounds more reasonable for Tokyo and I imagine, HK or Singapore.
> There is a part of me that is disturbed. I like working at my big wooden table overlooking the city, nice natural light filtering in, the ability to detach from the screen and pace around to take a break. VR for work seems like a trap, you'll be consumed, ensnared by something that demands all your attention. You won't know freedom.
That's exactly the point, with VR someone in a small apartment they share with an extended family can ALSO have a nice big wooden table overlooking the city. Even if they are facing a beige wall ...
I hear you, but there are layers to this. In a way, VR is like a hyper realistic lucid dream, and so actually gives a sort of freedom. VR is like a protective bubble of reality, you can substitute an unpleasant, ugly, and claustrophobic room for a big wooden table overlooking the city. Also there is something strangely anti-materialistic about VR. Why have all this big bulky, expensive equipment, furnishings, decorations around when all it takes is to slip on the glasses. It may be pseudo-dystopian, but I'm really interested in VR on planes so I can cross the continent while watching movies in my ski chalet.
> I'm really interested in VR on planes so I can cross the continent while watching movies in my ski chalet.
It works great, and I actually use my Quest 2 for this.
The only, er, slight issue is it detects rotation using gyros, so when the airplane turns it'll be immediately visible in a way it isn't when you're not using VR. It ironically makes you more aware of your surroundings.
Isn't this why everyone is burnt out from WFH? The desk is right there, you can sit down/strap in any time, and "leaving" work is mostly just a mental shift
> Imagine if the entire virtual space had powerful programming environments, some more powerful version of Mathematica, I could gesture and run a some powerful.
Not sure.
But I think that there will be far fewer people who work relative to those who play in these virtual+immersive environments than there are with any of our more augmented ones.
This is a great breakdown of the early state of VR productivity. There are still a few key items that are barriers for me personally:
1. Eye and face tracking. The author mentions lip syncing and hand tracking. That goes a long way, but it doesn't recreate the video experience to me. There are a few vtubers out there that are doing some seriously impressive tracking, but it requires tons of special equipment at the moment. Once this gets resolved in a consumer model, I think things will really shine for virtual presence.
2. Lighter weight headsets. For longer sessions, a custom headstrap helps a ton, but even still lighter headsets will go a long ways to helping here.
3. Better lenses and better displays. The lower res means you're really forced to work at huge virtual screen sizes, as the author mentions. While this is the least needed item in this list for basic productivity, the screen door effect definitely creates a barrier some of the time.
I highly anticipate that we'll see a sizable portion of the population change over to VR for productivity within ten years. It has huge potential, especially with the remote work environment many are in these days. I would love to be able to feel the presence of people around me again, while still not having a commute or the risks associated with being physically in the same room.
Your last paragraph reminded me of Isaac Asimov's novel "The Naked Sun" and his fictional world of Solaria, where people have grown used to living far from each other and only "meet" in VR, and this has happened long enough that people feel repulsed by other people and feel sick if they believe they are in the actual presence of another person.
The pandemic is the best opportunity FB will ever have to push VR into the mainstream. Zuck has also been playing up that it could replace business travel post pandemic and there have been leaked specs for a Quest Pro that would deliver a very cutting edge productivity experience.
There are actually a few decent choices for eye tracking now (a company that was just acquired by Bytedance had a pretty good eye-tracking standalone), and there are a few crazy headsets that do all of your listed requirements for 1. and more, but they're all in the $1,000+ range.
Lighter-weight headsets is something necessary but also something that is in sort of a weird spot. The Quest 2 is actually a lot heavier than average, because it's standalone. As cool as it is, it's regressive in some interesting ways.
For better displays, there's already some pretty impressive displays these days if you don't mind jumping up in price a few notches. Enthusiast-range, for sure, but still consumer models.
The latest firmware update for the Quest 2 (v33 [1]) brought "Link sharpening" which improves text clarity when connecting to your PC through Air Link (wirelessly) or Link (via USB). I tested before and after the update. Before the resolution wasn't quite there for coding etc., but I could definitely work with the post-update resolution.
As an aside, a handy cheap way to get more screens in VR with Oculus Link is to insert a headless HDMI plug into your video card. This also works for creating new screens in VR using Immersed although they claim that the virtual screens (paid feature) work better.
> The author mentions lip syncing and hand tracking. That goes a long way, but it doesn't recreate the video experience to me.
The oculus team put together a seriously jawdropping demo of facial tracking using a few cameras in a headset, combined with a lot of AI. The prototype was from a couple years ago. I can't wait until it makes it into commercial headsets. I wonder what the hold up is?
AR has a lot further to go on a fundamental technology level to reach "usable without uncomfortably dim surroundings". VR already works.
E.g. the very best AR stuff you can buy right now is still moderately-bright glowing pixels on top of whatever you're currently looking towards. So if you have too much contrast in the background, or actual light sources, they show right through and ruin much of the visual clarity.
As much as I like AR as a concept, it's much further from "ready". It has all the complexities of VR, plus real-world tracking, plus visual overlay - it'll necessarily trail VR until those latter two are "good enough", and they certainly are not at the moment.
VR with pass-through might still win this because it's more practical for work scenarios. Arguably this is still AR, but subtly different than HMDs with transparent displays.
I would argue that the future of AR is VR with passthrough. AR fundamentally has issues with light passing through the display screen. VR passthrough is solvable with current tech. AR that solves the problem of not being able to selectively block out light is a breakthrough or two away.
I'd be very afraid to fry my eyes. I can't imagine strapping a bright display at 10cm from your eyes, for hours on end, won't lead to eye issues later on in life. I already feel strained after using a headset for an hour.
I feel like people had the same worries when television, computers and video games invaded homes everywhere in decades past. I'm thinking the problems (if any) won't be as bad as you think they will be.
And to your last point I think that's where common sense comes in. If something is painful, if it causes you discomfort, stop. You're body is decently good at protecting you from things that are harmful to it (except sugary sweets for me...)
The amount of people being prescribed glasses is growing each year due to phone and computer use.
I have poorer vision in low light conditions then when I was younger. My optometrist has confirmed my sensitive eyes and advised to wear blue light filters but I choose not to. I have friends who need glasses to drive legally at night for similar reasons.
Don't give people the wrong impression without first asking professional advice as you could do harm by misleading someone.
Well specifically to the brightness, how much light is going into your eyes when using a VR set relative to, say, a TV? Or a 27-inch monitor close to your face?
While it is physically 10cm from your eyes, there are collimating lenses, resulting in a picture that is apparently much further away from you, I think 1.3m is a typical distance, but it can vary by headset.
It is much further away than a typical monitor. As for the light itself, it is light, no UV, not overly bright, sunlight is orders of magnitude brighter (which is a problem for AR btw). The image is also in front of you so no weird eye movement. I don't really see how it can damage your eyes though maybe some people know better, maybe the low resolution/screendoor effect can be a problem on current-gen headsets.
There are things that can cause strain. For example, items too close to you can be out of focus, the low FOV makes you move your head a lot more, and it has extra weight strapped to it, there is the heat, the motion, etc... But a well designed desktop setting like in the article avoids many of these problems.
One nice thing is that (next to being able to dim the screen as there is no background), the eyes actually focus on infinity with the lenses in a VR headset. This is the eye's natural state (staring in the distance, relaxed circular muscles around the lenses, which then flatten), and should be much better in the long term that staring at a screen 50 cm away from you.
I am unsure wether you are aware that the screen is only physically 5cm away. But our eyes have to focus (Focal Distance) on a distance of 2m (oculus quest 2) or infinity (vive) (afaik, i'd love to get more detailed informations on what glasses have what focal distance). This is archived by the fresnel lenses used in the vr glasses.
So it's not the problem focussing something in 5cm distance. The big issue is that your eyes never have to adapt the distance they are looking at. Watching a screen all day 50cm from your eyes is equally bad. You could say that focussing a distance 2m or infinity is better, but i am no eye-scientist.
People keep bringing up vision problems, but I think my biggest concern would be circadian rhythm. How does my brain know when to release sleepy chemicals when I shut off the daylight for 10 hours at a time? All that artificial light would really mess up my sleep patterns. Although, with the winters we have here, it wouldn't make a difference during the twilight months.
I imagine that's something that could be compensated for within the virtual environment -- similarly to the way apps like f.lux change the average colour temperature of a screen depending on time of day.
I've had problems with eye pain for years due to, what I thought, was computer use.
After a lot of trial and error and just thinking about what could possibly be causing this, I believe I have found that I wasn't getting enough sleep. I haven't had eye pain in months and I have been using my computer even more frequently than before (because my eyes don't hurt).
I have learned that I need at least 8 hours of sleep, but try for 8 1/2 - 9 hours. If I go a couple of days getting 5-6 hours of sleep, my eyes start killing me again.
There’s no headset display on earth that will be brighter than the outside world on a sunny day, and we’ve evolved to handle that for 8+ hours a day indefinitely.
Likewise. I worked from a laptop for the last decade. Got a new job and switched to a large monitor that I sat pretty close to. 6 months later I needed glasses after having perfect vision for 30 years. It could be coincidence but I feel the screen caused the vision deterioration. Having a screen strapped to my head sounds like it would be a more extreme version of the large monitor.
Using my phone is frying my eyes today. I am getting lots of eyestrain and blur from too much phone time. Once I got a Quest 2, I substituted enough screen time that my eye strain issues went away. Not saying there will be no long term effects, just that today in the here and now, my eyes feel better using VR for an hour or 2 a day.
I’m sure that I would fry my eyes.
When I was working with 6 screens for one year and half I couldn’t focus anymore far away, everything was blurry.
After years that I didn’t use that setup now my eyesight is normal again.
I can’t imagine what would do to my eyes to focus on a screen mere centimetres from my eyes.
Is the output of the sun somehow equal to the output of LED lights? One could imagine there are slight differences in how they react with the eye, so they probably bring different issues by being received by your eyes for long durations.
Not to mention humans have evolved with sunlight in mind and LED lights are relatively new. Our eyes most likely are more used to sunlight than LED lights.
I'm not ophthalmologist but I do wear glasses for myopia. My concern would be emitted light, distance and emitted heat...
Screens are emitted light. Having a screen strapped to your head emitting light into your eyes is very different to having a monitor in a room (adjusted to ambient light) emitting light and in an environment with a lot of natural reflected light.
Distance, yes there are lenses that bend the emitted light and change the perception of distance to the screen but it's still only a short distance from your face emitting light and heat.
You might be fine for a few years but I would be willing to bet you will have some form of eye issue in later life.
Having a screen blast your eyes 2” away is only ok for so long. Perhaps some can handle this but I cannot possibly imagine this is good for most people at scale. There’s already concern about eye problems due to cell phones in youth, and that’s at least 6-10” away from one’s eyes and with other light coming in.
The resolution isn’t there yet compared to my 4-5k monitors for text, but clearly will get there in the future. For now I don’t see what advantages it really gives me compared to a normal monitor in the real world, especially if I’m just coding. The exception would be if I were on something like an airplane — being able to look forward is a big deal here.
Personally it makes me feel a bit nauseous, particularly if there’s any movement (I get motion sick easily in VR but not normally in real life). My understanding is that about 20% of the population is like this and nothing is known to prevent it.
There are cool things about VR that I really enjoy (particular things like Google street view) but I think it’s way over hyped, and possibly dystopian depending on what people are leaving behind.
The physical distance from the glass to your eyeball is irrelevant.
What is relevant is the distance to the focal plane.
For typical screens, the focal distance and the screen distance are obviously identical.
For VR systems, they're very different. The last one I tried had a focal plane that was about 4 meters away. This makes it better than typical screens!
However, the low resolution is an issue. I've found that I get sore eyes if I use a low-resolutions screen. This is because my eyes try to focus, fail, and keep "hunting" by changing focus back and forth looking for the point of sharp focus -- but it's never there. This is why all of my displays are 4K.
For VR because of the large field of view, the required resolution is at least 8K per eye or equivalent. Ideally a "fake" 16K using foveated rendering.
Focal distance is only part of the issue another is is consistency. Using a headset for 8 hours means your eyes are constantly focusing within a very narrow range of distances for 8 hours which isn’t good. Your brain might be somewhat fooled when looking at a wall vs a VR window, but your eyes don’t change focal distance.
Similarly VR has a narrow range of possible brightness, this is less of an issue but can also cause problems long term.
It's not just the resolution. Lenses get dirty, and you get other optical artifacts (god rays, chromatic aberration, screendoor effect) that mess with the quality of the picture and create eye strain.
> Personally it makes me feel a bit nauseous, particularly if there’s any movement (I get motion sick easily in VR but not normally in real life). My understanding is that about 20% of the population is like this and nothing is known to prevent it.
This is almost always one of two things:
* A low or unsteady framerate or tracking
* Lack of spending twenty minutes in it to teach your body to cope with the aforementioned low or unsteady framerate or tracking
The Quest 2 won't drop below 90hz if in any productivity app, and you can even turn it up to 120hz (it can handle games at 120hz; a productivity app won't put any stress on the hardware), so there isn't really the opportunity for nausea.
It really does sound like you've only used Cardboard or Daydream, since the only thing you're listing is Street View. There's nothing wrong with Cardboard and Daydream, but they're 3DoF and you were lucky if it would hit 60hz consistently. They're a box for nausea. Even the original Vive (still an admirable headset, although pretty rough these days) is significantly below the state of the art enough that judgements about VR as a whole can't justifiably be made.
I have a quest 2, and have put it at 120hz. I still get motion sick. It’s not just frame rate. Movement in real life involves more inputs than just eyes.. you feel it in your vestibular system for example. Here we have a disconnect between motion in the eyes and the rest of your body. And for many, such as myself, that results in motion sickness.
VR gear has improved dramatically, but there are some things you can do to make yourself more comfortable. https://web.archive.org/web/20190813004505/http://elevr.com:... I think the most important piece of advice is to take a break right away when you're feeling bad instead of trying to push through.
The focus issue is not that things are too close (as jiggawatts covers) but that the focal plane never changes. You might want to specifically do some eye exercises by focusing on objects at different distances outside of VR.
> Having a screen blast your eyes 2” away is only ok for so long.
Distance isn't really a factor here, at least not as far as total light entering your eyes goes - a 1W/m^2 source 10cm from your eyes causes the same amount of light to enter as a 16W/m^2 source 40cm away.
What matters, as others have pointed out, is the distance between your eyes and the focal plane.
"Realism will increase (perhaps to hyperrealism) and our ability to perceive and interact with simulated objects and settings will be indistinguishable to our senses."
Hard pass from me.
Gaming addiction was only officially recognized within roughly the past decade. The idea of developing some sort of dependance on virtual reality fills me with absolute dread. Whats worse is that companies promoting virtual offices like this have every incentive imaginable to promote this (hi Facebook!).
I don't have anything against VR and think it has a lot of potential as a medium for gaming and the arts but theres a lot of danger in assuming there is no risk or minimizing the risks. Ignore the addictive power of the things which tune out the inconveniences of life at your own peril.
As someone who has spent quite some time tuning their VR setup for iRacing, I highly recommend the Pimax headsets (Pimax 8K X has dual native 4K). Best resolution and FOV, decently priced, light software, and surprisingly great support.
I 3d printed some supports to mount a vive headstrap to it, and removed the vive headphones in favor of Airpods. 200 degrees of FOV @ 75hz would be incredible for work with a far superior viewport than OP.
Thank you for bringing up FOV. It frustrates me to no end that in nearly 5 years of VR advances, we're still stuck with a ~90 degree periscope angle of view for the vast majority of headsets.
Just a caveat — the article is very Facebook-centric. All the software they mention seems to be Oculus-specific within that closed ecosystem. No mention of non-Oculus options.
There's no real avenue for a "dumb display" to work as a 6DoF headset, and even back in the DK1, 3DoF days you'd still end up needing some software (mainly drivers) for things like the gyroscope.
I mean literally that the PiTool running in the background takes like 10mb of memory. I've seen a lot of reports from friends and online in the sim community that their beastly systems can barely pull 90fps steady in the G2/Oculus headsets, meanwhile I'm at almost double the FOV at 120hz steady, maxed, on a worse system.
We've tried everything we could to get their headsets to run smoothly. There are multiple guides in the iRacing forums about combing through every line in all relevant .ini files, setting up windows, nVidia settings, etc.
I haven't used one of those, but I can guess what he means based on owning an Oculus Rift 2. Let's say I want to start playing a Steam game with my headset. To do so, I must install the Oculus software, sign in with my Facebook account (it's a brick with a headstrap without an account), then find the setting that enables "non-Oculus software" to operate the Rift display. Using the Rift always starts the Oculus software. There are shortcuts on the headset that throw you into Oculus's own environment for buying and launching games.
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For Linux enthusiasts (possibly the OP as as well): SimulaVR (www.simulavr.com) is working on a portable Linux VR headset with office/programmer productivity as the #1 goal. It will offer the following advantages over the OP's Immersed setup:
1. *More than double the text quality.* We are making a headset with more than double the PPD (pixels-per-degree) of the Oculus Quest 2. This is extremely important for facilitating multi-hour VR sessions without eye fatigue.
2. *Proper window management.* SimulaVR is a fully functional Linux window manager (built over Wayland/wlroots infrastructure). Unlike Immersed, it isn't just emulating screens on another host OS. This means you get an unlimited number of windows, popups can (when desired) behave as new windows, etc. No hacks are required to get this sort of functionality. It will also later on facilitate proper 3D/VR applications being able to share the same space with 2D applications.
3. *Proper portability.* Our headset is going to be fully portable (with a detachable compute pack in the back), and won't require you to tether your headset to another computer over WiFi, or take along an additional laptop just to get your VR computer working somewhere else.
4. *Proper hackability.* Simula is built over FOSS, and is not tethered to the Facebook platform. If there's something you want to change or tweak, you're free to do so.
One thing Immersed has though is immediate availability and scalability (there are an unlimited supply of Oculus Quests floating around :). We're likely going to be constrained on the number of headsets we can produce, at least initially, and will have to queue first to the early users.
We (and the industry at large) also have a lot of work ahead of us to improve upon a VR-centric UX (incorporating proper tiling management, and other things). Very exciting.
One question I've got about the window management system - I make heavy use of virtual desktops so I can swap several windows out simultaneously (all my source code on one screen, my database GUIs on another, etc.). I'd run out of room using a spatially tiled VR interface unless I had "sets" or other groups of windows (or different vantage points); how is that being approached? Is there a "virtual desktop" equivalent?
Any chance of coopting other hardware as part of your development/deployment strategy? (Vive Focus 3, maybe?)
I'll definitely continue to watch the project - please let me know if I can ever be of service in the endeavor. You guys are building an awesome future.
1. Simula is planning on adding a window tiling/window grouping dynamic to its UX. Agreed this is a useful feature, and we've heard from other people as well that this would improve things.
A short-term hack though, since Simula is a fully functioning window manager, is to simply launch another window manager inside Simula as a client (e.g., launching i3 or xfce4 inside Simula, and using it as a way to group applications together).
2. We've been unable to get Linux support from other VR manufacturers in order to run Simula on other hardware. In fact, our initial goal was to only do this (so that we could focus on the software only), but eventually decided it was better to just build our own headset (in particular a high-fidelity one that is uniquely suited for office/programmer productivity).
Would love to stay in contact. Your office VR setup really captures the spirit of the VR age.
[1] https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/tree/dev#usage
Can the headset be connected to a Windows PC? I'm running very heavy stuff when developing, and need all of the the horsepower available. On top of that I also need access to certain software that don't exist on Linux.
But if you have enough money to burn, you can taste the future now.
Nothing beats HTML for expressiveness and transmit-ability, and with frameworks like A-Frame you already have an enormous amount of software written for your headset.
Between you guys and Frame.work, it feels like hardware might get inspiring again. Good luck!
If no support between them, there will be a virtual window embedding e.g https://threejs.org/examples/#webgl_decals , which is weird
Get a better head-strap! He mentions it in passing in the article, but 90% of the strain from wearing the Quest 2 for extended periods of time can be traced to the garbage default head-strap. You want something that properly balances the headset. If you want, you can even get one that gives you a bit of extra charge, too. There are plenty of options.
Something critical that doesn't seem to be mentioned:
You can manually alter the resolution of Quest apps; if an app is looking blurry it's almost always because it's set to a lower resolution than native. This is a problem with a lot of "productivity" VR apps, and the main reason why I ended up working on my own for a few months.
The standard 90hz is comfortable for me for prolonged periods of time, but if you feel nauseous, you can turn it up to 120hz, though some applications will require manual adjustment.
The Quest 2 is really cheap and offers a lot of different ways to do work; you can pretty much throw it in a bag with a USB-C mouse and keyboard (and splitter, so you could technically also bring along a USB-A mouse and keyboard just fine if you bought a 2A-to-C splitter) or a bluetooth keyboard and mouse combo and you've got a full computing environment anywhere, assuming you set it up beforehand. And if you bring around a laptop or other small form-factor PC while traveling, it works really well to augment those, too.
Literal years ago Palmer Luckey talked about using a Go, a significantly less powerful headset, as a replacement for any monitor setups while traveling with his computer. We're finally at a point where you can do the same on any operating system, and it's honestly a really good experience.
I'm very curious why I seem to have heard this exact same advice for every single headset on the market. Why does it seem endemic that headsets ship uncomfortable, fixed within days by amateurs with Velcro and tape? Why haven't manufacturers noticed that they are partly responsible for one of the major blocks to wide spread adoption?
As it is, I imagine at $300, Facebook is likely losing money on the sale of each headset.
High-end headsets like the Valve Index come with a very good strap. There's no need to mod it or get an aftermarket one because the stock one is already very comfortable and balances the weight on your head very well. But the full kit is $1,000 and requires a gaming PC.
Plus, this also allows you to grow your market share by not excluding people that can't quite afford the better version of the headset.
But it requires a FB account right? Or is there a way to use it without one?
> Quest 2 requires everyone to use a Facebook account to log in.
> If you are an existing Oculus user and have an Oculus account, you will have the option to log in with your Oculus account and merge your Facebook and Oculus accounts.
I can't speak how enforced these are, but even if it's a soft requirement for now, it's enough for me to avoid it. Pity, since it seems pretty good tech wise.
[1] https://support.oculus.com/fb/
There was a fair amount of bad press about the issue and how there was no way to get unbanned. The bad press forced their hand a bit, but I wonder if it’s an issue again now that it’s not such a hot topic.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/oculus-quest-2-users-banne...
https://screenrant.com/oculus-quest-worthless-facebook-accou...
https://palmerluckey.com/oculus-goblack-how-to-make-your-ocu...
You can see that on wayback machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190325121641/http://palmerluck...
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4627924
https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/jeie0q/your_ip...
It can be hooked up to a more powerful PC and essentially just used as a monitor, but it can also run less demanding titles natively with no additional hardware. It has a web browser built in and you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard to it. So you can do some stuff without a laptop/pc. There’s a good library of native games but if you wanted to make a PowerPoint or do office/work you’d likely be using a web app (or just connecting to a pc)
If you've got a 3D printer, there's a pretty popular project that allows you to adapt the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap to a Quest 2; I've heard little but glowing praise for it.
However, since you mention the Rift S, as far as I'm aware the halo strap(s, there are a lot of different brands pushing pretty much the same thing) the author mentions in the page is pretty much just a clone of the Rift S strap, and I've also heard really good things about it. It's like $20 on AliExpress, so it's probably worth a try, at least.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001657071604.html
Add a weight on the back is also good.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28678568
The other part of me is that having a giant whiteboard and endless space seems cool. Imagine if the entire virtual space had powerful programming environments, some more powerful version of Mathematica, I could gesture and run a some powerful. Maybe that would be worth it, but it doesn't seem there yet.
Nice flex, but not everyone has this kind of setup.
Sounds more reasonable for Tokyo and I imagine, HK or Singapore.
That's exactly the point, with VR someone in a small apartment they share with an extended family can ALSO have a nice big wooden table overlooking the city. Even if they are facing a beige wall ...
It works great, and I actually use my Quest 2 for this.
The only, er, slight issue is it detects rotation using gyros, so when the airplane turns it'll be immediately visible in a way it isn't when you're not using VR. It ironically makes you more aware of your surroundings.
You can...take off the headset.
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Not sure.
But I think that there will be far fewer people who work relative to those who play in these virtual+immersive environments than there are with any of our more augmented ones.
Sit down and your real room just widens virtually, your window remains and big screens pop up next to it.
1. Eye and face tracking. The author mentions lip syncing and hand tracking. That goes a long way, but it doesn't recreate the video experience to me. There are a few vtubers out there that are doing some seriously impressive tracking, but it requires tons of special equipment at the moment. Once this gets resolved in a consumer model, I think things will really shine for virtual presence.
2. Lighter weight headsets. For longer sessions, a custom headstrap helps a ton, but even still lighter headsets will go a long ways to helping here.
3. Better lenses and better displays. The lower res means you're really forced to work at huge virtual screen sizes, as the author mentions. While this is the least needed item in this list for basic productivity, the screen door effect definitely creates a barrier some of the time.
I highly anticipate that we'll see a sizable portion of the population change over to VR for productivity within ten years. It has huge potential, especially with the remote work environment many are in these days. I would love to be able to feel the presence of people around me again, while still not having a commute or the risks associated with being physically in the same room.
The pandemic is the best opportunity FB will ever have to push VR into the mainstream. Zuck has also been playing up that it could replace business travel post pandemic and there have been leaked specs for a Quest Pro that would deliver a very cutting edge productivity experience.
Lighter-weight headsets is something necessary but also something that is in sort of a weird spot. The Quest 2 is actually a lot heavier than average, because it's standalone. As cool as it is, it's regressive in some interesting ways.
For better displays, there's already some pretty impressive displays these days if you don't mind jumping up in price a few notches. Enthusiast-range, for sure, but still consumer models.
As an aside, a handy cheap way to get more screens in VR with Oculus Link is to insert a headless HDMI plug into your video card. This also works for creating new screens in VR using Immersed although they claim that the virtual screens (paid feature) work better.
[1]: https://support.oculus.com/release-notes/
The oculus team put together a seriously jawdropping demo of facial tracking using a few cameras in a headset, combined with a lot of AI. The prototype was from a couple years ago. I can't wait until it makes it into commercial headsets. I wonder what the hold up is?
Well worth a look if you haven't seen it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3XcQtoja_Y
Curious, but why not AR for productivity rather than VR? Both could work, and AR is less invasive.
E.g. the very best AR stuff you can buy right now is still moderately-bright glowing pixels on top of whatever you're currently looking towards. So if you have too much contrast in the background, or actual light sources, they show right through and ruin much of the visual clarity.
As much as I like AR as a concept, it's much further from "ready". It has all the complexities of VR, plus real-world tracking, plus visual overlay - it'll necessarily trail VR until those latter two are "good enough", and they certainly are not at the moment.
What risks are you anticipating in ten years time?
And to your last point I think that's where common sense comes in. If something is painful, if it causes you discomfort, stop. You're body is decently good at protecting you from things that are harmful to it (except sugary sweets for me...)
I have poorer vision in low light conditions then when I was younger. My optometrist has confirmed my sensitive eyes and advised to wear blue light filters but I choose not to. I have friends who need glasses to drive legally at night for similar reasons.
Don't give people the wrong impression without first asking professional advice as you could do harm by misleading someone.
But yeah I couldn't imagine using it for a workday. I bought an Oculus Go once, my eyes couldn't handle it for more then 5 tot 10 minutes.
But I guess everyone is different, can imagine for some people like me it's not healthy
There are things that can cause strain. For example, items too close to you can be out of focus, the low FOV makes you move your head a lot more, and it has extra weight strapped to it, there is the heat, the motion, etc... But a well designed desktop setting like in the article avoids many of these problems.
[1] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1130973138362294272
So it's not the problem focussing something in 5cm distance. The big issue is that your eyes never have to adapt the distance they are looking at. Watching a screen all day 50cm from your eyes is equally bad. You could say that focussing a distance 2m or infinity is better, but i am no eye-scientist.
After a lot of trial and error and just thinking about what could possibly be causing this, I believe I have found that I wasn't getting enough sleep. I haven't had eye pain in months and I have been using my computer even more frequently than before (because my eyes don't hurt).
I have learned that I need at least 8 hours of sleep, but try for 8 1/2 - 9 hours. If I go a couple of days getting 5-6 hours of sleep, my eyes start killing me again.
Might be worth looking into your sleeping habits.
Not to mention humans have evolved with sunlight in mind and LED lights are relatively new. Our eyes most likely are more used to sunlight than LED lights.
I'm not ophthalmologist but I do wear glasses for myopia. My concern would be emitted light, distance and emitted heat...
Screens are emitted light. Having a screen strapped to your head emitting light into your eyes is very different to having a monitor in a room (adjusted to ambient light) emitting light and in an environment with a lot of natural reflected light.
Distance, yes there are lenses that bend the emitted light and change the perception of distance to the screen but it's still only a short distance from your face emitting light and heat.
You might be fine for a few years but I would be willing to bet you will have some form of eye issue in later life.
If anything, this could be much healthier.
If only the head mounted displays were designed with health in mind rather than making a quick profit...
The resolution isn’t there yet compared to my 4-5k monitors for text, but clearly will get there in the future. For now I don’t see what advantages it really gives me compared to a normal monitor in the real world, especially if I’m just coding. The exception would be if I were on something like an airplane — being able to look forward is a big deal here.
Personally it makes me feel a bit nauseous, particularly if there’s any movement (I get motion sick easily in VR but not normally in real life). My understanding is that about 20% of the population is like this and nothing is known to prevent it.
There are cool things about VR that I really enjoy (particular things like Google street view) but I think it’s way over hyped, and possibly dystopian depending on what people are leaving behind.
What is relevant is the distance to the focal plane.
For typical screens, the focal distance and the screen distance are obviously identical.
For VR systems, they're very different. The last one I tried had a focal plane that was about 4 meters away. This makes it better than typical screens!
However, the low resolution is an issue. I've found that I get sore eyes if I use a low-resolutions screen. This is because my eyes try to focus, fail, and keep "hunting" by changing focus back and forth looking for the point of sharp focus -- but it's never there. This is why all of my displays are 4K.
For VR because of the large field of view, the required resolution is at least 8K per eye or equivalent. Ideally a "fake" 16K using foveated rendering.
Similarly VR has a narrow range of possible brightness, this is less of an issue but can also cause problems long term.
This is almost always one of two things:
* A low or unsteady framerate or tracking
* Lack of spending twenty minutes in it to teach your body to cope with the aforementioned low or unsteady framerate or tracking
The Quest 2 won't drop below 90hz if in any productivity app, and you can even turn it up to 120hz (it can handle games at 120hz; a productivity app won't put any stress on the hardware), so there isn't really the opportunity for nausea.
It really does sound like you've only used Cardboard or Daydream, since the only thing you're listing is Street View. There's nothing wrong with Cardboard and Daydream, but they're 3DoF and you were lucky if it would hit 60hz consistently. They're a box for nausea. Even the original Vive (still an admirable headset, although pretty rough these days) is significantly below the state of the art enough that judgements about VR as a whole can't justifiably be made.
Distance isn't really a factor here, at least not as far as total light entering your eyes goes - a 1W/m^2 source 10cm from your eyes causes the same amount of light to enter as a 16W/m^2 source 40cm away.
What matters, as others have pointed out, is the distance between your eyes and the focal plane.
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Hard pass from me.
Gaming addiction was only officially recognized within roughly the past decade. The idea of developing some sort of dependance on virtual reality fills me with absolute dread. Whats worse is that companies promoting virtual offices like this have every incentive imaginable to promote this (hi Facebook!).
I don't have anything against VR and think it has a lot of potential as a medium for gaming and the arts but theres a lot of danger in assuming there is no risk or minimizing the risks. Ignore the addictive power of the things which tune out the inconveniences of life at your own peril.
I 3d printed some supports to mount a vive headstrap to it, and removed the vive headphones in favor of Airpods. 200 degrees of FOV @ 75hz would be incredible for work with a far superior viewport than OP.
This blog post makes me want to give this a try.
We've tried everything we could to get their headsets to run smoothly. There are multiple guides in the iRacing forums about combing through every line in all relevant .ini files, setting up windows, nVidia settings, etc.