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Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

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101–110 of 216 posts

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#101
post #79

I’m not a AR/VR bull but I think Apple’s position is extremely underestimated. It’s almost like every Apple product has been developed and refined for the future AR/VR moment. Custom silicon. Fast camera HDR. LiDAR. People/scene/room/boundary detection. AirPod Max fit and finish. Spatial audio. 50 other things… All in the service of AR/VR.

It's interesting in that context that they seem to have met with a much bigger challenge than they expected in actually delivering on their AR/VR product. Current indications are that it's going to be quite mind blowing but at the same time, highly encumbered by compromises as well (encumbered by wires, external battery packs, etc).

[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/03/report-reveals-wave-of-...

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re interested in virtual monitors, and willing to be a bit ahem bleeding edge, try the NReal Air. They’re no replacement for a high quality 34” curved monitor but come kinda close to a nice 25” 1080p monitor IME. They suffer the same issues as other VR solutions (focusing on fine text can be hard, it shakes on your head, etc). But unlike the Quest, you can set it to “Aircast” mode which basically replaces an V…

Self promote: https://primitive.io is a VR enabled collaborative immersive development environment where we have optimized code readability in every respect

Java? :(

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#103
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right under the price on this page https://www.meta.com/quest/quest-pro/ the first feature is AR / passthrough. In fact, most of the page is dedicated to things other than gaming. > With breakthrough high resolution mixed reality you can engage effortlessly with the virtual world while maintaining presence in your physical space in hi-def color.

It literally never says AR. It says "mixed reality". In mixed reality, the pass through (real world) quality is secondary to the virtual objects that are rendered within it. These virtual are rendered at high resolution, hence we have "high resolution" mixed reality. People seem to just not understand that mixed reality is different to augmented reality?

> People seem to just not understand that mixed reality is different to augmented reality?

I can't help but feel that this is a distinction without merit. It appears to be jargon designed to muddy the waters and deflect criticism.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#104
As a side note, has anyone seen a test/review of the simula one (https://simulavr.com/)? I think they actually have the correct ideas about making a business/developer headset and I'm seriously considering pre-ordering (but have had quite bad experiences with pre-ordering in the past, so have been holding off for now).

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#105
post #45

The author persistently conflates AR and MR throughout the posting, evaluating the Quest Pro as an AR device but the concluding at the end it's a terrible "MR" device because it failed at their AR tests. It seems to suggest they really think these terms are synonymous but they aren't. While AR aims to enable display and interaction with the real world but with augmentations, MR aims to bring virtual objects into the…

I can't help but view the (myriad) odd choices in the Quest Pro in the light of Carmack's resignation letter. It really does have the camel feeling of a horse designed by committee, instead of anything filled with 'give a damn'. I hope the folks there can figure out the operational difficulties, and find a way past whatever org chart drama is the source of the dysfunction. The Quest 2 has been a delight, but enough t…

The problem is that we dont exactly need ar/vr: we can put screens around for a fraction of the cost, and video games are nice to sit down: we can run after each other while giggling in the forest if we want some movement fun and dont exactly need anything overlayed.

I can understand they try to see far to anticipate a future where they'd make a lot of money being useful, but there's such low latency and richness of perception with normal atomic real world interactions that I'm not sure we can or want to replace it with something that simply adds a paid intermediary.

It s like adding a blockchain to transact cash for instance.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#106
post #79

I’m not a AR/VR bull but I think Apple’s position is extremely underestimated. It’s almost like every Apple product has been developed and refined for the future AR/VR moment. Custom silicon. Fast camera HDR. LiDAR. People/scene/room/boundary detection. AirPod Max fit and finish. Spatial audio. 50 other things… All in the service of AR/VR.

I personally think Apple is very capable. The issue is they'll build a good enough VR then put it within their walled garden.

Having used Apple software, I'm honestly not convinced of Apple's ability to deliver anything half as sophisticated as VR.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#107
post #45

The author persistently conflates AR and MR throughout the posting, evaluating the Quest Pro as an AR device but the concluding at the end it's a terrible "MR" device because it failed at their AR tests. It seems to suggest they really think these terms are synonymous but they aren't. While AR aims to enable display and interaction with the real world but with augmentations, MR aims to bring virtual objects into the…

I can't help but view the (myriad) odd choices in the Quest Pro in the light of Carmack's resignation letter. It really does have the camel feeling of a horse designed by committee, instead of anything filled with 'give a damn'. I hope the folks there can figure out the operational difficulties, and find a way past whatever org chart drama is the source of the dysfunction. The Quest 2 has been a delight, but enough t…

It's definitely a compromise device. My gut feeling is various factors delayed its delivery and they ultimately were left with the choice of, deliver it now as it is or potentially lose the whole business market due to being overrun by Apple, HTC or others in that arena. Nearly all the interesting tech in the Quest Pro will be outdated within a year - it would be impossible for them to ship it if they waited even another 6 months. So I think they said "ship it" and honestly I think they were right - as people say, ultimately "shipping is everything" [0]. Witness Apple struggling year after year to get their AR/VR product out. It's actually really hard, and if you wait for all your problems to be solved you will never ship anything. The product may be full of compromises but the process of shipping it will put Meta miles ahead of those that still haven't got anything out the door yet.

[0] https://medium.com/@jas0njames/the-primacy-of-shipping-94b8e...

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dedicated Neural Processors on iPhones. Constant focus on improving battery life with awesome performance. Wearables that work best when using the iPhone as the main hub. Apple is absolutely gearing up to dominate AR by having a sleek set of glasses that use your iPhone for the graphics rendering. And they'll succeed.

the iphone rendering idea was dropped years ago

Sauce?

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#109

A new VR arcade opened up in my area and I visited with my son. They were using HTC Vive headsets, which retail for $1,000+. It’s the first time I really used VR, especially in a couch coop mode setup. The following struck me: (1) There is no killer, must have game for VR. Beat Saber seems to be the most popular and mainstream game but not nearly engaging enough to convince the mass market to buy one or more VR heads…

There's a VR place near me called Sandbox VR that gets good reviews on Yelp and Google. My family went and it was... okay. We played together for about 45 minutes and we all came away with the same opinion - it was kind of fun, but none of us really wanted to play it again.

I don't know which headset they used but I do know we each had an entire PC in a backpack strapped to us.

Re: Meta Quest Pro – Bad AR Passthrough

#110
post #55

In spite of all the negativity, I'm super excited about the future of AR. - being able to see in extremely wide spectrum bands compared to human eyesight - being able to see in higher dynamic ranges than the human eye - being able to magnify little details and thus see with a higher spatial resolution than the human eye - all of this while enhancing your field of view with lots of other interesting information

aren't these all reliant on scientific breakthroughs? they're scifi features that we're unsure we'll achieve. promising direction to pursue though edit: minus IR/thermal

You've never used a thermal camera?
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