Why virtual reality makes a lot of us sick, and what we can do about it.

  • finthechat@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I bought a Vive since I was careless and wanted to see what the VR hype was. Considering that I’ve probably used it less than 100 hours in about 4 years, I think of it as a bad investment.

    In its current technologically limited state, VR feels more like a gimmick than a real experience. I think that all of what VR is currently trying to do is still waiting for that uninvented Star Trek holodeck technology to come around anyway. Headsets and wands are unwieldy and breaking down/setting up the system is a PITA.

    • Kage520@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The Quest is really easy to use since you don’t need external sensors, but it’s underpowered and also from Facebook.

      We need wider FOV and better screens. The controllers are okay I think. Hopefully with apple stepping in we get more desperately needed content.

      • magic_lobster_party@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I’m not sure if even Apple can turn the tides. I can’t see how Apple can succeed if Meta struggle finding a market even with their much cheaper models.

        Maybe they will find a market among the most diehard Apple/tech enthusiasts, but it’s probably going to end there.

          • MudMan@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            You can use the Quest as a PC HMD, both wired and wireless. So no, it’s not a problem of performance.

            The reason the Quest can’t secure content is the content doesn’t sell. Which is the same reason Sony struggles to secure content. They both basically have to finance the entire library. Sony and Valve sidestep this by having VR be a feature in flatscreen games, but even then people arent’ queuing up to get them.

            And nobody wants to use VR as a monitor, either. Maybe in a plane if you’re a weirdo or to watch movies in private if you live in cramped quarters, but nobody is going to get to their desk and slap on a face-screen to type a text document, no matter how fancy and expensive it is.

            The application is just not mainstream enough.

              • MudMan@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                We could talk a lot about how much Meta has been getting out of their investment, but ultimately they’ve not been spending that money on funding huge triple-A releases, and you can’t buy your way into a platform’s worth of content.

                And yes, of couse profiting from the games matters. ESPECIALLY if you’re selling the hardware at a huge loss, which is really where a bunch of those Meta billions ended up going. The idea was to get money from the games and the data funnel, but without software and hardware that people use daily both of those things dry up.

                As for VR headsets being garbage for the VR monitor use case… that’s not a design issue. The issue is that when I’m using a monitor I want to be able to also look at other stuff. If I want to check my phone, or read a piece of paper I don’t want to be looking at things through a camera and a screen, let alone take a whole set of glasses off.

                VR as a monitor is a bad idea not because the tech is bad, but because it’s a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. You want to look at an image in space? We solved that problem in the 1940s, and that solution didn’t require you to strap an opaque thing to your face.

    • glimpseintotheshit@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      The OG Vive is a really horrible experience compared to modern VR headsets already. There are incredible technological advancements being made and to say all VR is doing is waiting for some Star Trek technology is incredibly ignorant. And frankly an insult to those super talented engineers that are breaking new ground on a yearly basis.

      • finthechat@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Sorry if I sounded disrespectful to the brilliant people working on this tech. I don’t mean to say they aren’t making insane progress in the field. However, I stand by the main point of my original comment: until VR makes a lightyear jump in tech and frees itself of the headset and the wands/hand pieces (or minimizes them to the point of negligible discomfort), I won’t be sold on VR as a consumer.

        • glimpseintotheshit@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I get that but I feel like we’re much closer than you think. Hand tracking has been a thing in budget headsets for years now and it’s really solid. There are quite a few really fun experiences that don’t require controllers at all.

          Apple is about to ditch controllers completely, combining hand tracking with eye tracking. The displays are almost as sharp as real life and headsets today are fully wireless, standalone computers while being 50% slimmer than your Vive. Oh yeah, they also map the environment automatically and have high definition 3D passthrough with AR capabilities.

          A lot of that stuff was considered science fiction when the Vive was released. What you want from VR is happening within the next decade, no lightyear jump needed.