The ability to work comfortably in AR and take several large screens wherever you go is alleged to be a major selling point for the Magic Leap 2. We'll see, the company isn't known for delivering on its promises.
Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
181–190 of 257 posts
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#182I have a vive and a quest 2 and I tried working like that when travelling. The quest won't work in a car as it uses gyros. I tried for about 18 hours each device to work in VR. Many things are not there yet. My vive is attached to a 5 monitor dual GPU beast that drives a central 144hz 4k HDR 43" and 5 2560x144 monitors. The vive couldn't touch the physical setup for comfort or resolution or just non-fussiness. I cons…
I feel that the bare minimum headset that can handle work is the HP Reverb G2. It’s the only headset with a high enough resolution under $1000 (you can find it under $300 on eBay). There’s also Pimax, but their QA and customer support is terrible and you need to deal with base stations. Through the lens comparison g2 vs Index vs Quest 2 https://youtu.be/ny_OPsxHQmU
I have a reverb g2 - great for games but definitely not up to it for work - the sweet spot is just too small.
If looking at a page of text, only the middle of 3 or 4 lines of text are in perfect focus. The rest might be readable but blurry. You have to move your head to scan lines comfortably and that is far from acceptable. I tried all the tricks to increase the size of the sweetspot to little avail.
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#183I have a friend who has been working (coding) using a Quest Pro for about a week and likes it.
I'm not a VR fan at all but I tried it for a few minutes and was impressed. The headset is comfortable and light and the tracking is flawless.
It was the first time I've thought VR might have significant applications outside gaming.
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#184The Simula One ( https://simulavr.com ) was designed specifically for this use case (disclaimer: I'm a cofounder of the project). TLDR: it's a 100% office dedicated headset with bleeding edge pixel density that runs Linux Desktop natively. Everything from the hardware to the software rendering is optimized for VR Desktop and the clear display of text. We really pushed hard to make the Simula One specs as premium/blee…
Interesting, thanks for sharing! What’s the resolution and the size of the panels you guys are using?
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel that the bare minimum headset that can handle work is the HP Reverb G2. It’s the only headset with a high enough resolution under $1000 (you can find it under $300 on eBay). There’s also Pimax, but their QA and customer support is terrible and you need to deal with base stations. Through the lens comparison g2 vs Index vs Quest 2 https://youtu.be/ny_OPsxHQmU
The Quest 2 and the Reverb look closer than I expected. The contrast is the main difference (and that could be an artifact of the way it's shot) The tracking on the Reverb has a bad reputation and I've avoided it for that reason mainly - as well as the extra complexity resulting from using one more translation layer (Windows MR > SteamVR) and a minority platoform.
The headset tracking for the Reverb is pretty good, it's mostly the controller tracking that has issues.
But the WindowsMR layer is a bit annoying. It's not too common but I've had a Windows update prevent it from working until I did a full uninstall/reinstall of the Windows Mixed Reality software, the Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR software, and SteamVR. Also because it uses different controllers, sometimes (though very rarely) an app will not recognize the controllers or certain buttons on them.
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#186Can't you rent displays when you move? More practical than carrying them around or being restricted to using cars.
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why VR pixel density (PPD) is so important for VR computing. It's the #1 thing that impacts how legible text and other fine details are when working. Here's a list of headsets for comparison: - Valve Index: 11.07 PPD - Quest II: 20.58 PPD - Quest Pro: 22.6 PPD (In full disclaimer I'm affiliated with SimulaVR, and we're working on a headset with 35.5 PPD.)
What’s the PPD equivalent for a recent MacBook Pro at a distance of “sitting on your lap”?
Well in excess of human eye resolution, around 100 PPD at 2ft distance with a 28 degree FOV.
Peak human eye res is 60 PPD.
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The quest won't work in a car as it uses gyros. I did try the quest 2 on a plane and it worked well, apart from when the plane was turning or in turbulence. I suppose the visual tracking makes an assumption that the world is static, which is usually true but breaks down when the plane is bouncing up and down.
Not an assumption: movement is relative. Quite fun to think about it (Einstein's elevator mental experiment)
But here the movement is relative to two things. You're aware of your motion relative to the plane, and the headset is aware of its motion relative to earth's gravitational field. Einstein's elevator experiment only works when you're traveling on a (reversed) path that matches one that would be caused by gravitational force.
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their software is open source : https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula However it looks like they are more focused on hardware than software right now
Yep, you can try out our software at https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula on the HTC Vive and Valve Index platforms. If you don't have one of those headsets, there are some videos of people (whom we have no affiliation with) on YouTube testing it out: https://youtu.be/8gVLF8SnK84?t=424 Here's also (a pretty old) video of me hacking on Simula, in Simula: https://youtu.be/FWLuwG91HnI . It's also true that we're more focu…
Does Simula have pass through? I can information about it on your website.
Good luck with the project!
Re: Ask HN: Working in a VR Headset?
#190> I am comfortable with at least two 27" monitors. I embraced a single-monitor workflow early in my career after experimenting and finding that having multiple monitors often makes me less productive than just switching workspaces with ⌘+tab. Now it's extended to a single-laptop workflow that's given me incredible flexibility to travel and move around the office. When do people really need multiple monitors? My only…
I recently switched from a 4k monitor+one/two 1080p monitors to a single monitor, and I prefer it now as well, but with one big caveat - it is a single 5k ultrawide monitor with thunderbolt 4. I simply connect my macbook to it using one cable, and I am done. That one cable provides power/charge to the laptop, outputs stuff on my big screen, and allows my laptop to use any devices connected to the USB hub built into t…
I've been going down the 5k display research-rabbithole recently. Hope you don't mind me asking which monitor you're using and also do you know if Thunderbolt 3 can handle it?