Same experience. It’s a lot of fun and very immersive, but I only use it on long intervals.
I wonder if maybe it’s too compelling. A few games (Half Life: Alyx most notably) have incredible presence, and you really feel (in spite of the limitations) that you’re going to a new world. When you take off the headset, there’s a notable snap back to reality.
So, maybe it’s like going to a theme park or something–yeah, the rollercoasters are a lot of fun, but it’s sensory overload after a while, and there’s some recovery time. After a while the desire comes back.
AR, or Apple’s sorta-AR thing would presumably fix this problem, since you’re rarely fully immersed, and can easily dial in and out. Not sure, though.
Clear-screen AR is harder than VR. For one, getting the focus right requires sophisticated optics. You need a system that doesn’t alter the focus of the real world, but at the same time focuses the screens at infinity rather than a couple of inches away. VR in comparison just requires a single lens between the eye and the screen, since all input is from the screen.
Then there’s the latency problem. The real world has no lag, but the screens do. So there’s always a kind of jello effect where the screens are behind where they should be. Lag isn’t great on VR, either, but it’s at least consistent across everything on the screen. So the augmented bits (virtual screens floating in space) can feel much more locked in place.
Microsoft also has their HoloLens. But the optics still make it bulky and it looks kinds weird. Maybe Apple could do a better job, but it’s still a harder problem than VR.
I remember those and always wondered why the technology didn’t advance that direction. Making the headset more of a peripheral attached by bluetooth to a pc or phone.
Could use your cellphone touchscreen as more of a touchpad for what you see in front of you.
Apple could call it something like… oh I don’t know… iGlasses ?
Another thing about AR is that no one has figured out how to overlay opaque objects onto the real world. The screens can only add light to the scene, not block or subtract it, so you always see something of the background. In VR, a virtual object can completely block what’s behind it. That gives you a great deal more immersion.
Maybe someone will figure something out, using some kind of shutter system, but the optics become even more challenging in that case.
I don’t think Google Glass was real AR. It was a display in glasses. So, it could float a screen in front of you but it had no awareness of your environment (e.g. it could not put a virtual object on a table and have it stay there no matter where you looked).
I think Apple wants the much fancier AR which can lock a screen to a wall or put something on a table and have those stay there as you look around.
I actually think it’s smart to do ‘AR’ with cameras instead of actual glass. I don’t have a problem with that. However, the outward facing screen solely to simulate your eyes is a stupid, misleading gimmick that adds weight, cost, and current draw. I’m sure they did it to emphasize the ‘AR’ aspect of the headset and make it stand out from the competition, but it really doesn’t add much in real life.
I get that the idea is to provide an illusion of less isolation - you can see someone in the room, and they can tell that you are looking at them, But they could have achieved that with a couple of LEDs that light up when face tracking locks on to someone.
The problem with other attempts at AR is that they typically involve a very small field of view. Google got in trouble when its ads for Google glass made it look like you could overlay everything you see, when in fact it was just a little area in the middle that could show overlays.
I read about the Tesla/Vision Pro interaction in a couple of other articles and wondered why it is specifically Tesla drivers that do this. I mean, any driver could do that (not that I would recommend it at all!), so why are only Tesla drivers mentioned? Are they really the only ones who do it? The only ones who post it on-line? Or are journalists singling out Tesla drivers?
I’d say that if Tesla drivers are doing it more than others, it would be because of one or more of these things: Tesla drivers tend to have more money than others, Tesla drivers tend to be early adopters, and Tesla has good enough AI to make it not insanely dangerous to do it.
It could also be that this is in Silicon Valley, where Teslas abound and everyone is into tech.
As best I can tell, there’s has been only a single example of it happening in the wild and it happened to be a Tesla Cybertruck (probably not a coincidence). There was another case of someone making a joke video, but it was spliced together from bits a few seconds long.
In principle, a good enough headset would be just fine while driving, and could have some advantages, at least if it had access to external sensors like cameras or lidar. But I don’t think the Vision Pro is there yet quality-wise.
The guy responsible for this video showing him driving while wearing a Vision Pro headset told the New York Times that he only wore the headset for thirty seconds or so while driving, “It was all just for content.”
An important feature — the ability to place video calls with a humanlike digital avatar that resembles the wearer — terrified children during a family FaceTime call.
While I have no interest in the Vision Pro, since I don’t care for Apple products and it is way too expensive, comparisons between it and the Quest 3 have me seriously considering buying the Quest instead.
I can’t afford $3500, but I can afford $500 for something that is almost as good.