
VR - craigcannon
https://blog.ycombinator.com/vr/
======
evo_9
I bought a Vive the week of Thanksgiving and have been using it roughly 2
hours a day. Every other day is my workout day most of the week (unless I'm
playing hockey that day/night) and the VIVE has become part of my workout now
too. After I complete my normal workout - a mixture of hockey specific
training, free weights, aerobic and of course tons of pull-ups - I now spend
an additional hour+ in VR.

I typically play Space Pirate Trainer first; once I get around level 15-20
things are so hectic I'm moving a ton and often going to one, or both knees.
My abs and back can feel it big-time. I start with this game because it's not
quite so intense at the start and is a good VR warmup.

More impressive is Holopoint - a bow and arrow game. That is easily the most
physically demanding VR activity that I've found so far. I'm usually sweeting
pretty solidly when I complete 8-10 games of Holopoint. I'm also noticeably
fatigued in my arms, back, legs, hips, all over. And just to be clear most
would classify me as extremely fit (regularly skate with/against NHL bound
Junior players, the minimum pull-ups I do in my workout are 30 consecutive,
body fat <10% etc).

Lastly I find I am no longer interested in 'regular games'... such as Madden,
NHL 16, Gran Turismo, etc (on PS4), or even my all time favorite Dark Souls
(series). I simply can't go back to not being physically engaged the way VR
games are.

VR is going to be absolutely huge in the health/fitness space.

~~~
ktRolster
How do you deal with sweat getting all over your device? Doesn't it start
getting dirty quickly?

~~~
karpathy
Agreed with OP on HoloPoint and other apps (e.g. AudioShield is another
favorite of mine) being a surprisingly intense workout. I sweat quite a bit
with these games after ~15min, and this is definitely a problem. On Vive, the
soft padding absorbs the sweat from my forehead as a sponge and becomes quite
gross. I've learned to deal with the yucky feeling and can mostly ignore it,
but I could see how others wouldn't.

------
aphextron
As someone who owns both headsets from day one and has been developing
software for Vive, I'd honestly say the current generation of tech just isn't
worth it for most people. In five years when we have wireless headsets with
eye tracking and full FOV displays with no discernible pixelation and the
library of games are finally here it will be worth it. As it is most people
would probably be let down after the initial wow factor wears off.

I think VR is at the point smartphones were from 2000-2007 until the iPhone
showed up. It's going to take another generation of devices that incorporate
all of those features in a really well designed package before it goes
mainstream.

~~~
rictic
I think that the Vive is a little like the release iPhone. It has all of the
pieces, but it's also clunky and extravagant.

You had to have a pretty good imagination to look at any 2004 phone and
envision the iPhone, but once you had the 1st gen iPhone it's pretty easy to
imagine a modern smartphone. It's pretty much just the same thing only more
so.

~~~
davebryand
I don't know, that first iPhone was pretty special. Just having a fantastic
web browser (mobile Safari) was a game changer. The gap feels bigger with VR,
to me.

~~~
rictic
Agreed that the first iPhone was special, it let me move across the country
without knowing a soul for two thousand miles with confidence.

The limitations were obvious though. The small screen and low resolution made
it hard to read much text. It was really slow, both in processor and in its 2G
connection. And it was clear that there was a lot of work to be done on the
software and design technology side.

The Vive feels pretty special to me too. Presence, that feeling of being in
another place, a fictional place with fictional rules. Perceptually perfect
hand and head tracking. The chaperone system to let you move around the room
with confidence.

The limitations are obvious: high system reqs, cords everywhere, low
resolution, flaky software, and again we need to question a lot of our
assumptions about the kind of software that we write. All of that's being
aggressively engineered away. I'm bullish.

~~~
JBlue42
>Agreed that the first iPhone was special, it let me move across the country
without knowing a soul for two thousand miles with confidence.

What was your alternative way to move across the country?

~~~
ENGNR
There used to be a weird merge between google maps and 2D printing

~~~
JBlue42
There was also that old man Rand McNally. Or stopping somewhere and asking for
directions. I think you might've managed fine without the iPhone.

It's nice to get accurate directions when you really, really need it. There's
also something to be said for getting lost or wandering every now and then.

------
amitt
I run a VR-focused VC firm (Presence Capital). We've done 25+ investments in
this space, so you can say that we believe in the long-term potential of VR.
Even given that, we're bearish on how quickly there will be a
profitable/sustainable VR consumer business and have advised most of our
portfolio companies targeting consumers to keep burn low.

That being said, almost all of the comments here are taking a singular
worldview: consumer-focused VR for a western market.

VR for B2B or enterprises can make money today and doesn't require mass-
consumer adoption. If you make someone 10x more effective at their job (tools
for sales people: OssoVR) or onboard employees faster (training: STRIVR), you
can overcome the cost and rough edges on the hardware.

In China, VR-arcades are going to be how most consumers first experience high-
end PC VR. Culturally, people there are already used to going to internet
cafe's to use computers by the hour and seek out 3rd spaces. VR-by-the-hour
rooms fit this mold. Additionally, the short length of most VR experiences
makes it easy to have a 15-20 minute session and not be disappointed by the
lack of content. More info on this here: [https://medium.com/@amitt/vr-will-
be-huge-in-china-41de0c758...](https://medium.com/@amitt/vr-will-be-huge-in-
china-41de0c75841c#.ayknhfjtt)

~~~
brilliantcode
Genuinely curious but what are your thoughts on VR porn being a thing? Recall
that porn on the internet has really been one of the first to start accepting
credit cards. The old adage "internet is for porn" rings true.

~~~
BatFastard
It is already a thing. As many hours spent in VR porn as in all the games
combined.

------
iplaw
Blown away? Hyperbole of the century. At CES this year, I tried all the VR/AR
tech I could get my hands on. Microsoft HoloLens, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Sony
VR, Galaxy Gear, and everything in between.

I wasn't expecting much and yet I was still underwhelmed. There is zero
immersion, primarily due to the poor resolution, the screen door effect, and
the crippled field of view. It felt like watching a scene through a pair of
binoculars, but that's not a fair comparison either, as physical binoculars
are more immersive than any of these devices.

I feel like I the only one that feels such disappointment!

~~~
pera
This is so different from my experience with the HTC Vive: while I obviously
perceived the poor resolution, screen door effect, etc., after the first
minute I started feeling more and more immersed, and then something in my
brain clicked, pretty much like when you are falling asleep. That's when
everything started feeling almost like a lucid dream. My heartbeat was
noticeable faster and I felt strangely happy/exited, like if my brain was
pumping serotonin. It was so weird and fantastic. The only reason why I still
didn't buy one is because it currently is a relatively big investment (ie
gaming desktop+vive) for an entertainment technology.

~~~
westoncb
I think you nailed it: you have to relax a certain amount and let your brain
do it's own thing—like falling asleep. Some people have more of a tendency to
latch on to the fact they're looking through a device and don't 'let go' and
the magic doesn't happen. It's also probably situation dependent; your mind is
less likely to let go of your actual environment and focus on the virtual if
there are distractions or anything you're concerned about in your surroundings
(e.g. it will be less likely for some people while in stores and at
conferences etc.).

~~~
schnelle
I have a Vive and agree. I personally don't see the SDE but I think I need
glasses. The visual issue for me is not being able to look away from dead-
center where it's the sharpest.

I read once that in VR "geometry matters more than textures" and I totally
agree with that. Some of the most immersive moments I've had in VR are when I
was peeking around a corner. The graphics were all simple, but the geometry of
the corner and connecting corridor are what gave me such a great sense of
presence.

I've written software for nearly 20 years now and I don't want to do anything
other than VR development. It's the new frontier.

~~~
dilap
are you doing vr dev?

------
erikbye
Selling my Vive tomorrow, before it's too late (unsellable due to something
better on the market). < 50 hours use over several months. The visual quality
is awful, not just resolution, but the lenses are terrible as well. Glare,
very blurry except for a narrow center, the rings of the fresnel lenses are
very noticeable. The glare is unbearable in any games with a lot of contrast,
like space sims, that retro arcade hall game was terrible in this aspect, too,
whatever it was called.

I'm not going back to try VR till the resolution is something like 8k per eye
and the optical quality is far better. FOV needs to be much wider, HMD lighter
and more comfortable, and of course wireless (I know you can get this now).

I have a dedicated home theater and room scale still does not work, because
you will never have enough physical space in a regular home, and have to
teleport around in games anyway.

The only games that really work are seated cockpit games. Racing, space sim,
flight sim, etc.

Nausea was not an issue for me. Nor the "anti-social" issue, I've never been a
party gamer, I like to play games alone, in a dark room with headphones on,
sat at my desk staring at a monitor, or alone on the couch with a gamepad in
my home theater enjoying surround sound and a 106" screen.

All made-for-VR games I've tried so far have been mediocre and more like small
demos than full games. Best experiences were games not made for VR but with
added VR support: Assetto Corsa and iRacing. Probably the only two games worth
having VR at all for, but personally I'll wait for 6th gen or whatever will be
good enough for me.

The games I like the best works better without VR. Sim racing games could be
one exception, but are, for the moment, better with a triple monitor setup.
Games like Pillars of Eternity have no need for VR, IMO.

Certainly VR has potential, I just think the HMDs we have now feel old and
dated already. It's 2016 (when released) and it's heavy and wired, basically
ski goggles with crappy monitors and crappy lenses hugging my face.

~~~
madamelic
>Selling my Vive tomorrow, before it's too late (unsellable due to something
better on the market).

The Vive came out like 8 months ago. I would hardly say even the craziest
company ( _cough_ Apple) would rush out a new version that quickly.

>Glare, very blurry except for a narrow center, the rings of the fresnel
lenses are very noticeable.

You are probably wearing it wrong. There are two adjustments you can make.
There is a small knob at the right-bottom edge, turn it and it changes the
lenses width (how far apart your eyes are), this is not likely the issue. The
second adjustment is focal length (how far away the screen is), if you click
out the left circle that attaches the strap to your headseat, you can turn it
to adjust focal length.

The third adjustment is wearing it right. I know this sounds really dumb but
you have to wear it much lower than you expect. I was wearing it very high up,
like glasses, when the better position is like wearing goggles.

But overall, yeah, the resolution isn't great but things like blurriness can
be fixed.

~~~
erikbye
I'm not wearing it wrong, and I know what adjustments are possible. This is an
inherent fault with the lenses, it's just about optics quality.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4i8ogs/am_i_the_only_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4i8ogs/am_i_the_only_one_distracted_by_the_lens_glare/)

[https://forums.oculus.com/vip/discussion/33085/halo-
effect-g...](https://forums.oculus.com/vip/discussion/33085/halo-effect-glare-
lens-flare-anyone-discover-ways-to-minimize-it)

[https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/252662-Vive-
hor...](https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/252662-Vive-horrible-
horrible-fresnel-lens-bleeding)

~~~
shazow
I get that you're confident that you're wearing it right, and you probably
are, but just in case try going through this excellent guide:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4e925m/ive_been_weari...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4e925m/ive_been_wearing_the_headset_wrong_and_i_think_a/)

Maybe I'm substantially less sensitive to the aberrations you mentioned, or
your lenses are not the same as mine, but my experience is much more positive.

I've given demos to probably more than 75 people at this point, and there are
always some people who complain a lot and then we adjust the way they're
wearing it and all is good.

~~~
jibjibman
Yea he's probably wearing it wrong, and just doesn't want to put in the effort
to fix anything or try any games outside of the ones he's deemed "good".
Everyone I've shown the Vive too has been blown away, 2 have purchased one.

------
mtw
Am I the only one who's more excited by mixed reality such as Hololens?

I can't imagine VR being as omnipresent in our daily lives in its current
state. Oculus or Vive implies you are shutting yourself from the outside
world. You cannot interact. You cannot go out, talk with others etc. It's easy
however to imaging how Hololens can enhance existing reality and how anyone
(even my grandmother) could use it for their daily lives.

~~~
huntermonk
I feel the same way. In Sam Altman's most recent interview he talked about
hours of use per day being an important metric for a new product.

It seems like the first high-use product in this category will be a
lightweight regular looking set of glasses that simply displays your
notifications.

Then in the future, add a camera to display overlays on the real world.

~~~
lewisl9029
Same here. I'm much more excited about AR devices like the Hololens and Google
Glass than VR devices like the Rift or Vive, because AR has much farther
reaching applications than just gaming.

In our current tech landscape, we mostly interact with the digital world
through screens. AR has the potential to turn any real world object into a
human-computer interface. I definitely think AR technology is going to be
nothing short of revolutionary once it matures, possibly even more so than the
advent of the modern smartphone.

------
sixQuarks
I can't believe some people are saying VR is a fad, that it's not going to
work, etc, etc. Are you kidding me?

The only real question is how long it's going to take before it's fully
integrated into our daily lives, there is absolutely no doubt this will happen
(unless we somehow go backwards technologically, due to world war or some
other unforeseen event).

It may not happen for another 10-15 years, but it WILL happen.

The term "virtual reality" is actually selling the technology short. Virtual
reality does not merely replicate reality, it allows you to defy the laws of
physics and expand into new dimensions and "realities". Replicating "reality"
is only a small part of what it's capable of.

~~~
callmeed
I'm hugely bearish on VR, I think its a fad (again), and I'm not kidding you.

You talk in such absolutes that I wonder if you've ever done _any_ research on
past technology endeavors. LaserDiscs, interactive TV, VRML (yes, "VR"), 3D
TVs, Google Glass, and (probably) smart watches.

VR doesn't _even_ replicate reality, let alone do more.

While I can appreciate your enthusiasm, there are always doubts.

~~~
carlosdp
Idk dude, VR headsets have already sold to millions of consumers and new
applications pop up by the day. Not only that, but unlike most of the
technologies you mentioned, VR has massive backing already from some of the
most powerful companies in tech.

It has billions in investment already, FB is putting hundreds of millions into
Oculus and funding applications/games. HTC has basically pivoted their entire
company to the Vive.

This isn't going away, VR/AR is going to replace current keyboard/mouse/screen
interfaces, because why wouldn't it? The aforementioned are even further from
replicating what I am trying to do on a computer. Why do I have to move a
mouse in two dimensions or tap on a flat display to interact with many
concepts much easier to work with in 3D?

~~~
mozumder
None of that means it will succeed.

Apple Watch sold millions, and it's about to fail. Same with all the other
smartwatches.

VR is going away, since it's such a terrible user experience compared to
laptops/desktops/smartphones.

~~~
nilkn
This is a strange post to me.

First, where's the evidence that the Apple Watch is about to fail? Every day I
keep seeing more and more Apple Watches in the wild. Just the other day I was
getting lunch and noticed that at the table next to me every single person had
an Apple Watch on. Every time there's a get-together in my family, I notice
one or two extra relatives who've ended up getting one. That's pretty
impressive for something that's on the verge of failure. It actually feels
comparable with how smartphones slowly started assimilating into our lives
years ago.

Second, consumer VR right now is for video games, period. Maybe that will
change later on, but that's what VR is all about right now. So comparing it to
laptops/desktops/smartphones seems strange. What are the dimensions of this
comparison? Turning on Steam VR, then putting on the headset doesn't feel all
that different to me from turning on the TV, then sitting down on the sofa.

------
fossuser
Having both an Oculus Rift (pre-touch controls) and a Vive to play around with
I have a couple thoughts on this.

The first impression/experience is powerful and most people are impressed by
it. The Rift prior to touch controls was unusable in comparison to the room
scale, touch control Vive (to the point that I sold it). Maybe it's better now
with the new touch controls, but I think they still lack room scale and the
ability to walk around is a big deal. The Vive headset also fully blocks
external light which is nicer (but these are relatively minor things that can
be fixed).

VR in its current early adopter state is a lonely experience - more so than
playing a one player game on the couch, you're completely isolated. While this
makes for strong immersion - I think it increases the barrier to entry for
most people. I suspect FB is right about the importance of social interaction
getting people to actually use VR for longer than just showing it off to
people.

I suspect finding the "Doom for VR" \- the application that really takes
advantage of the medium hasn't happened yet, maybe when it does it'll be
obvious in hindsight. As for the comparisons to AR - I think Michael Abrash's
points still stand: [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-
hard-...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-ar-
anytime-soon/)

~~~
bsenftner
I spent years developing and then offering a system that remotely enabled
creating realistic 3D avatars of people from a single photo. It works, I
scaled it to viral capacity levels, the quality is high
([https://twitter.com/3davatarstore](https://twitter.com/3davatarstore)), and
my prices were nearly free. Yet, game, VR and VFX studios only wanted it free.
After being jerked around for years by circuses of clowns, I shut it down. I'm
happier doing FR now for government agencies. VR will continue to be a lonely
place until the corporate exploitation is regulated to the degree that an
individual will have legal and portable ownership over their appearance in VR
technologies, with all the legal ramifications that exposes.

~~~
maffydub
Interesting! Are you able to share anything about how your algorithm works?
I've been playing around with feature detection (using HoG descriptors) plus
constrained local models to identify locations in an image and then
manipulating the mesh to better match these locations and extracting a
corresponding texture.

------
carlosdp
VR advancements to look out for in 2017:

\- Eye tracking (it already works perfectly, I've tried it myself at
SIGGRAPH), this will enable a few cool things:

    
    
      - Foveated Rendering - rendering only what is in the fovea view at high quality and using a lower quality method for the periphery. Reduces rendering requirement by ~75%, enabling either higher-end graphics on the desktop, or the ability to move many desktop-bound VR applications to mobile.
    
      - Eye-assisted interactivity - SMI had a demo at SIGGRAPH where they demonstrated using where your eyes were looking to increase precision of interactions with controllers in VR (for example, grabbing very small objects in VR accurately).
    

\- Inside-Out Tracking - using computer vision to provide 6DoF tracking for
headsets without the need for external trackers. Will allow mobile headsets to
have positional tracking (which is SO VERY important for VR) and will allow
desktop headsets to have lower setup complexity (less important). \- note:
Microsoft will likely dominate this by my guess, seeing as probably the
strongest part of the Hololens is it's excellent tracking.

\- Wireless adapters for existing headsets - these made a big splash at CES
and apparently work pretty well. Making the existing experience un-tethered
will definitely help room-scale experiences.

\- Self-Contained headsets - this is vital to mass-adoption of VR imo. I think
we'll see some of these this year, though probably not from HTC/Oculus yet.

AR, while definitely more the "consumer" product in the long run, is still far
off as the display tech just isn't there yet. But the above advancements in VR
pave a way for AR in the future, until there is no longer a distinction
between them device-wise, but it rather becomes a slider of "how much reality
do you want to replace?".

~~~
ska
Hololens tracking isn't nearly good enough, in my opinion, and isn't going to
get there soon. Vision algorithms + and inertial tracker could be interesting
though. Appropriate tech exists, but is currently expensive.

There has been good work on eye tracking in other spaces for many years now,
so that seems a much cleaner implementation path to work well.

edit: I'm going to add a caveat, I mostly care about VR and AR in decidedly
non-consumer applications, so my bar may be unreasonably high for many
consumer applications.

~~~
JacobKyle
What did you find wrong with the Hololens tracking? I use it a couple times a
week and have been super impressed with it so far. Seems to very solidly lock
on locations, and I can walk to the far end of the office and my content is
still right where I left it. You can use is in huge unbound areas and it
doesn't mind at all.

The Hololens still has a lot of issues, the FOV's crappy, hand tracking needs
a lot of work, occlusion isn't great, etc. but tracking is one place that
they're top of the game.

~~~
ska
It's probably fine if you just want "if I go back to my desk, this window is
on the left hand side". If you want more precision and accuracy, or
consistency with physical measurements/other tracking systems, it's not so
good in my experience. Happy to revise/update that experience though!

~~~
carlosdp
That kind of precision isn't necessary for tracking position accurately for
VR/AR though, Hololens' current system is pretty damn good and I'm sure
internally it's improved a bunch as they roll out their own VR headsets too.

~~~
ska
It absolutely is needed for many AR applications. VR is a bit more forgiving,
particularly if you are talking consumer and games. Any time you need maintain
a relationship to the physical space you are in you can run into trouble
though.

------
sigi45
I really think VR will take off but not yet. I was waiting for new games and
new hardware for a year now but i think there is just a little bit of time
needed.

I'm very enthuastic but not enought to pay 1k for it. Every game i saw in some
video felt to 'simple'. More like funny small games but nothing which would
make me using it for long enough.

but still i can already see useful usecases: When you buy a kitchen for
example but the needed software needs to be build and that takes time and
money. Something like this needs just time and enough 'normal' developer and
manager have to be motivated.

Every peace of money already made with vr and which will be made in the next
two years is probably opportunistic money.

I'm looking forward to better hardware (4k! lightweight, enough smartphones
for google dream) and more software (architecture, kitchen, bath, ikea,
website support for simple plug and play, concert videos, museum and history
tours, games, games games :)

------
thenomad
Nice to see some other people pointing out the positive effects here.

As a (room-scale only) VR developer, I've been writing about the upsides of VR
and VR gaming for some time - example, [http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2016/05/three-un...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2016/05/three-unexpectedly-good-things.html) . There's a _lot_ of
skepticism around this area, particularly the claim that games will actually
make people fitter - but you only have to play a few rounds of Holopoint or
Space Pirate Simulator to realise it's also true.

(As a side note, I'm increasingly dividing VR into "pseudo-VR" (anything where
you can't walk around) and "real VR" (room-scale experiences: the Vive, in
short, and some Oculus Touch setups). Harsh, possibly, but it really does feel
like a different medium once you can get up and interact with your hands.

To my mind, the only interesting VR experiences are those which engage the
whole body. That's something I've been trying very hard to do with Left-Hand
Path
([http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760](http://store.steampowered.com/app/488760))
the VR game I developed - at various points, you have to crouch, dodge, crawl,
duck, and draw magical symbols in a variety of ways.

I'm doing that because quite apart from the health benefits, engaging my
players in actual movement creates a whole new level of immersion.
Proprioception is a thing - the sense of the body's place and movement in
space.

Getting tired and even "gassed" also helps immersion. I've been playing the VR
boxing sim Thrill Of The Fight recently, and it's remarkable how well it
simulates real-life sparring in some ways - including getting gassed, and
having to spend a while just keeping your guard up whilst you recover the
ability to breathe without wheezing. That's an element of immersion I'm never
going to get from a PC game.

I play a lot of Dark Souls, but the phrase "in-game stamina management" means
something completely different when it's _your_ stamina you're managing.

~~~
fooey
On the flip side, that fact that VR is such a physical exertion is exactly why
it will absolutely not have a mass market appeal.

There's a reason why the Wii and the Kinect were cute and cool, but both
failed to get any real market traction.

VR as a fitness device might be a thing, but that's nothing like the market of
gaming consoles or pc's.

~~~
thenomad
I don't know - quite a few people go running or play football (soccer) and
both of those activities require physical exercise!

Soccer, for example, has 270 million active players. That's quite a few people
who don't mind physical exertion.

~~~
fooey
I don't think it's fair to compare VR to Soccer, it's more equivalent to home
treadmills, or something like a bowflex. An expensive niche product that
usually just gets left in the corner getting dusty.

~~~
thenomad
Home treadmills are a billion-dollar market in the US alone.

And a VR headset is _considerably_ more interesting, convenient, and flexible
than a treadmill.

------
sarreph
I feel like a lot of the comments here blasting the technology are related to
its ability to output at the hi-fidelity we are now used to on the web /
mobile 3D experiences.

This level of immersiveness/naturalness/fidelity will obviously come in due
course.

Michael Siebel is here talking about the _opportunity_ (obviously) — which is
IMMENSE.

This is basically the iPhone/App-Store bandwagon all over again. If you can
jump on it, do so.

~~~
moron4hire
It's really surprising to me to see so many people on HN poo-poo on VR like
they do, for this reason. Isn't this site supposed to be about startups,
entrepreneurship, being forward thinking, etc? Where are the "thought
leaders"? If you can't see the huge potential for VR, there is something
wrong.

~~~
falcolas
> If you can't see the huge potential for VR, there is something wrong.

Or, we see so many game-breaking limitations (cost, FOV, resolution, VR
sickness) and are tired of the "give it 5 years" rhetoric that assumes magic
will happen to fix it.

Or we're simply not convinced that what it offers is that much better than a
regular old computer screen. How does VR change my daily activity of
programming? Of watching movies? Of reading books?

~~~
moron4hire
I don't agree that there is anything game-breaking in the current state of the
tech. Also, I don't see why they won't get better rather quickly.

And VR sickness is not really a thing for the vast majority of people. It gets
hyped up by the press a lot. I've put hundreds of people through intense VR
experiences over thirty or forty minutes long. In that time, ONE person had
issues. I've seen higher proportions of people get nauseous from regular,
first-person shooter PC games.

------
legohead
It's not going to take off until someone solves the movement issue. The only
games VR is currently suitable for are if you are stationary somehow -- pilot,
tank gunner, etc. Which limits it pretty severely.

Something like the Ghostbusters Experience[1] is what people want in their own
homes.

Also, maybe it's because I've been gaming my whole life, but the resolution in
VR is still not good enough to "blow" me away, like I keep reading about. How
people are so amazed at current gen VR confuses me.

[1]
[https://ghostbusters.madametussauds.com/](https://ghostbusters.madametussauds.com/)

~~~
fossuser
Movement with the Vive and room scale works (walk around small area and
teleport to new small areas). I think it solves the problem and feels pretty
intuitive.

~~~
mysterydip
I've wondered if scaled movement was possible or if it would really mess with
our brains. For example, 1m realspace = 3m in VR. Would your body adjust to
smaller/slower movements, or would there be a disorientation?

~~~
cr0sh
Not scaled movement, but there was research done in the 90s about having the
computer subtly "distort" (I can't remember how it was really done) things
being displayed to in effect make you walk in a curve to keep you away from
walls (I think it was similar to how you can attempt to walk a straight line
in a forest - and without a compass, actually find yourself walking in an
orthogonal direction compared to where you started - simply due to ground
level differences, motion cues, etc). I'm not sure how well it worked, but it
was a workable system.

There's also the more expensive idea of an "infinite 2D treadmill" \- which
was first implemented by a guy named Rudy Darken; iirc, he did it for the
"dismounted soldier" VR/AR training project for DARPA:

[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1246853](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1246853)

~~~
gwern
'redirected walking'. This has been used in practice by some of the big VR
applications and in research since them. As I understand it, the problem is
that it doesn't solve the 'small living room' effect because you can only
distort by a few degrees and this produces a circle of like 15 meters - so
works in a sort of warehouse setting but not in normal buildings.

------
minimaxir
> I think we are no more than two years away from an explosion of new consumer
> startups

I remember reading similar sentiment two years ago, back when the Oculus
started getting massive attention after their successful Kickstarter.

There are counter arguments to the rise of VR. As mentioned, price and
hardware are too high for casual use, but that will be fixed in time.

What _can 't_ easily be fixed is that fact that it is not _conveient_. VR
tethers you one spot, and using VR in public looks ridiculous/antisocial to
outside observers. In contrast, an AR approach can avoids both issues by
embedding an immersive context with _subtlety_. (in theory anyways; Google
Glass looked ridiculous too.)

~~~
mwseibel
Big screen TVs aren't convenient either - but a huge number of households have
them - VR doesn't have to be exactly like smartphones in order to be very
popular

~~~
atomicUpdate
You can do other things while watching TV, though, like eat dinner, talk to
your friends on the couch, pet your dog, etc. None of those things are
possible with a VR headset on, making it very inconvenient to use.

It's unlikely people will even feel comfortable walking through the room,
since they have no idea when the VR user is going to freak out and blindly
start flailing body parts around reacting to something only they can see. This
means the entire living room is off limits, which is also very inconvenient
when compared to someone just sitting on the couch watching Netflix.

There are a lot of social hurdles that VR will need to overcome, in addition
to each of the technical ones.

------
sp332
Just going to plug one of my favorite blogs here:
[http://elevr.com/](http://elevr.com/) They're experimenting with basic VR
interaction design. How do you represent things in VR, how do you communicate
with other people in the room when you're wearing a headset, how does physical
context change your experience. Fascinating, basic stuff we're going to have
to figure out before we can build meaningful experiences in VR.
[http://elevr.com/would-you-like-to-see-an-invisible-
sculptur...](http://elevr.com/would-you-like-to-see-an-invisible-sculpture/)

~~~
thenomad
Absolutely. Figuring out how the hell the interactions and UI work in VR is
one of the hardest - and most interesting - parts to the entire process.

Even really simple stuff like "OK, I need a graphics options menu" becomes a
significant UI design challenge.

Personally I'm figuring it out _while_ building a big experience in VR, but
hey - that's what Early Access is for!

Bookmarked - thanks.

------
gavanwoolery
I am both a huge proponent and skeptic of VR. I am no veteran but to my credit
I was dabbling with VR many years before Oculus ran its Kickstarter.

I am skeptical in the short term because the hardware is still struggling to
keep up with the demands (at a reasonable price point). Maintaining 90-120 FPS
with any sort of detail is much more difficult than 30 FPS.

I am a proponent in the long term because there is definitely some sort of
value. The feeling of "presence" just can't be matched by anything else (short
of directly manipulating our sensory input).

I think people are still struggling to figure out where exactly the value is
now though. In the long term I can see it being a huge social tool (to the
point where people might regularly meet their significant other in a virtual
environment, if the rendering is accurate enough). There is also likely
benefit in creative tools (I have found modeling in VR to be much easier and
more natural).

Interestingly, from the people I have shown VR to, it is the less technical
people (non-programmers, etc) that walk away with their minds blown. Perhaps
we are still not marketing VR strongly enough, because most people I know
still have not tried a real device.

IMO VR will be different from mobile though. The evolution of apps for phones
was explosive, but we are trying to game evolution by throwing huge amounts of
funding at VR, perhaps prematurely. This is not to say any advancements at
this point aren't worth the time, I am just not so sure there will be a large
payoff in the short term. (And of course, this is just my opinion, feel free
to disagree).

~~~
xigency

        In the long term I can see it being a huge social tool (to the 
        point where people might regularly meet their significant other 
        in a virtual environment, if the rendering is accurate enough).
    

I think I understand the thought process behind this, and I've heard this
before, but this idea literally makes no sense to me.

The sense of logic that wearing goggles will let you see people and be seen
is, outside of cultural context (sci-fi movies, books, and TV), a non-
sequitur. It's like expecting current consumer Hoverboards to replace bridges.
(They can't fly.)

If you start to expound on _how_ you think people can meet in virtual reality,
then it might be more useful.

If you know anything about visual effects, then you know that with motion
capture it's possible to animate digital characters. Do people want to put on
black clothes with white dots in order to look like themselves?

Along that line, if you take together existing technologies like VR, mo-cap,
custom avatars, kinect, Second Life, and OKCupid - and combine them, then
you're going to find the bottom of the uncanny valley.

~~~
gavanwoolery
The way I envision it does not involve any complex setup (like mocap markers,
etc). Rather relying on nonintrusive sensors like cameras/etc to capture
facial expressions and body positions (its crude now but I'm sure it will be
better in the future).

In other words, I am sure technology will progress to a point where you can
practically mimic reality (this might not be for another 20-30 years for the
consumer though). At that point, you have something where you can engage
virtually, perhaps with less of the fear you might have in the real world.
Approaching someone virtually should theoretically be less intimidating (but
perhaps if you have a true portrayal of your identity, it still is?)

------
phn
I think that AR (think magic leap) is going to be much bigger, at least in the
short term.

VR is like the desktop. It will have its uses, sure, but you'll be tied to
your desk/room. Gaming will probably still be the most popular VR application.

Your AR glasses will be your smartphone, on you the entire time, and you won't
even need to reach for your pocket.

~~~
Nagyman
Hm, I think it's the opposite. VR big in the short term; AR big in the long
term. I do agree that when talking about smartphone applications, as in the
blog post, those will need to be AR not VR.

Google Glass was squashed right? And Hololens is focused on business use cases
first. I don't see it becoming consumer focused for some time. VR is amazing
_today_ and has a massive gaming audience. The business applications of AR,
while high impact/potential, are a much smaller audience.

~~~
phn
I think that VR, unless much more advanced (e.g. expand to other senses
besides vision and hearing) will have trouble catching on besides gaming and
maybe some business applications. And even so, I have my doubts.

And I think Google Glass was dropped because the tech wasn't there yet. It was
a small square on the corner of your vision instead of a "depth aware"
overlay.

------
RichardHeart
I think VR is garbage. You take what would be a decent visual experience, and
stretch it across your field of vision until it's nice and pixelated. Then you
cut that crap resolution in half, by giving each eye its own individual feed.

Now that you've got the resolution lowered by 10 fold or so, you can induce
sickness with lag, head tracking inaccuracy, poorly executed strobing to
reduce blur.

Now that you're sickly enjoying the screendoored world, your can enjoy the
face sweat, and not being able to find your beverage in the real world.

I can live with everything but the screen door.

~~~
popcorncolonel
Why does this imply VR in general is garbage, and not just the current state
of VR?

------
enraged_camel
Maybe it's just me but I'm much more excited about Augmented Reality than
Virtual Reality.

Recently I was looking for a new place to rent, and in every place I visited I
kept trying to picture in my mind how my existing furniture would fit (and
look) in the new space. It was so mentally tiring. I wish AR was advanced
enough such that the rental agent would simply hire me a pair of AR glasses, I
could log in to an account to load my existing furniture data, and project it
into the empty rooms to rotate/rearrange/etc.

~~~
RangerScience
It's not just you, but AR is harder than VR, and has a longer "basic" feature
list. Transparent screens, world tracking, world occlusion, object recognition
/ classification - plus the mobile VR issues of portable computing power and
battery life.

VR will pave the way for a lot of the authoring technologies, and then those
techs will (I mean, they already are) get adjusted for AR.

------
RangerScience
I bought a Vive back in August. I loved the shit out of it for months, but
gradually stopped using it, although I still think it's an amazing piece of
hardware and a big piece of the future.

But, when I play games, I frequently want a very relaxing activity, and the
Vive doesn't do that. So, interesting.

But! As a (former?) AR professional, holy shit the non-gaming applications for
AR/VR. There's overlap and synergy for applications in both mediums, and then
there's the overlap on the technologies (particularly authoring tech - I'm
looking at you, Unity) that go into them.

Basically, if I wanted to be a "real" AR developer when AR is ready, I'd start
by becoming a real VR developer _now_.

~~~
wakkaflokka
So the question is, are you willing to sell it for pennies on the dollar so I
can try it out for a few hours and then send it off to someone else? ;)

~~~
RangerScience
No, not even a little.

------
jandrese
For what it is worth, judging from CES this year the first round in the VR war
was won by the Vive and GearVR. There were zero Rift demos that I could find.
Of the two, the GearVR was better even though it lacked controls, the Vive
hardware just just on the wrong side of crappy and the fuzzy muddy pictures I
saw were a big dealbreaker, especially when compared to the GearVR.

That said, GearVR suffered from overheating the phone and crapping out.

------
moron4hire
On point #3, this is exactly why I've been building Primrose
([https://www.primrosevr.com](https://www.primrosevr.com)). Primrose is meant
to be a framework for web developers to be able to build applications that
live inside of a virtual environment. Microsoft calls this "Holographic
Applications" (I don't exactly like that term, but I suppose I will get over
it). The point is to divorce the need to do 3D graphics and geometry from
building the application, to have those as the baseline and provide on top of
that a shared set of UI metaphors. There is a really easy analogy to draw with
standard, 2D GUI systems: you shouldn't have to write an HTML rendering engine
before making a Web application, you shouldn't have to work in a game
framework to make VR-enabled applications.

Please check out Primrose. I know it has some rough edges here and there, but
I've already used it to make some interesting things (a client of mine was
recently featured on Bloomberg.com for
[http://rex.legend3d.com](http://rex.legend3d.com)). I know people are wary
about "single-contributor" projects, but I've already been building Primrose
for 2 years now, it's not going anywhere, and I'm open to bringing
collaborators on, just nobody has really stepped up (and I've been so focused
on working on VR projects for clients that I've not really had the time to
proselytize).

Somebody is going to bring up A-Frame: I think A-Frame is a really nice
system, I just think its design goals don't really match what I think is
important. A-Frame wants to be the entity-component system for WebVR. That's
great. But I don't think that meshes well with "get web developers on board".
I don't want developers to have to think about what sort of motion controller
component to use in their system. I actually want the system to be _more_
restricted, _less_ open-ended than A-Frame. Also, Primrose came out long
before A-Frame, so I'm still married to Primrose for as long as I can be
productive in it.

There are some limitations where I haven't quite reached my goal of making VR
accessible to web developers, but that is more an issue of limited number of
man-months. You can build useful applications with Primrose today. But I have
a very clear goal in mind and if it's something you agree with, I would
appreciate the help.

~~~
mwseibel
Maybe you should consider applying to YC - feel free to email me at
michael@ycombinator.com if you'd like to chat about it

------
seibelj
One thing I can't stand is the resolution, it really needs to be 2x-10x
increased for me not to feel like I'm staring really closely at a screen. And
when you increase the resolution by an order of magnitude, you need more
processing power, which makes it harder to solve the giant problem of the
size, cost, and awkwardness of the hardware. I can't wait until contact lenses
are VR enabled.

~~~
cr0sh
> I can't wait until contact lenses are VR enabled.

I doubt this will happen, simply because physics and optics won't allow it
(unfortunately - because I'd love VR contact lenses myself!)...

~~~
duckingtest
[http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2016/jun/02/high-
ef...](http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2016/jun/02/high-efficiency-
flat-lenses-shrink-down-to-the-nanoscale)

------
SiddarthaBuddha
I've had a Vive for a few months now and I hardly ever use it. I too was blown
away at first. It really is an amazing experience when you first put it on and
play a game like the The Blu but that sense of awe doesn't last long and
you're left with a somewhat uncomfortable headset with less than stellar
graphics and pretty boring games. These days I would much rather play a game
like TitanFall 2 than any of the Vive games. Much more interesting.

Having said that, some of the non-game titles are great. Google Earth and The
Body VR or whatever it's called, are fantastic learning tools.

------
Zikes
One of my favorite things to do is to pack up my PC and Vive and take it to a
friend or relative to try out. A lot of people view VR as a gimmick akin to 3D
movies, which fairly predictably has died out, but once they have a chance to
_try_ VR they often understand the potential.

I think VR has a real future - which certainly will depend largely on falling
hardware costs and increased software funding - and while I'm sure the next
consumer device version will be significantly improved and appreciably cheaper
I'm glad I was able to make a small contribution to the bootstrapping efforts.

~~~
eduren
What is your solution for mounting the base stations? I've looked into tripods
before, but the sensors are meant to be much more firmly mounted from what
I've read.

~~~
benmcnelly
The best I have found so far* is a PVC 5 way side outlet with some short legs
for stability and a tall sections based on how high you want to go. I wanted
added stability to I made two per lighthouse, and a cross beam on top. Using
some old go-pro accessories to attach. *You are right, you want it to be super
stable, moving it while its plugged in can seriously damage it.

~~~
Zikes
Could you post photos of them? I'd love to see if it's something I could also
build.

------
thenomad
Seperate comment because it's a separate topic: if I was looking to _make
money_ from VR as a primary consideration (as opposed to my current cascade of
story first, money second) I'd be ignoring games altogether and looking at
creativity / design / conferencing apps, probably for enterprise.

VR is incredible for creation and design, and can easily be collaborative too.

~~~
madamelic
>looking at creativity / design / conferencing apps, probably for enterprise.

I would too except for the fact headsets cost $800 and the computers to run
them cost thousands.

Once price drops and it gets wide use, it will be a goldmine for early
developers.

~~~
thenomad
The pitch I'd do is basically this:

"OK, how many times do you send your designers away to have a meeting with
their colleagues in other offices? And how much do the flights and hotel cost?

Well, you could eliminate 9/10 of those flights, hotel, travel time costs, and
the rest by buying this one headset and upgrading their PCs - oh, and buying
my proprietory design app..."

By the looks of it, Autodesk have had much the same thought.

~~~
atomicUpdate
> buying this one headset

I don't want to share anything that goes on my face with anyone in the office
I work with. Just passing one around the conference room to each of the execs
during your pitch should make that obvious pretty quickly.

I don't see VR as a useful replacement for video conferencing. You don't get
any more body language and arguably less facial cues than standard video
conferencing. If an engineer is getting sent somewhere, it's typically because
they need to physically interact with something, which you also don't get with
VR. For designers, I suspect the low resolution and inability to import and
(especially) edit whatever designs they're looking at would prevent VR from
being useful also.

~~~
thenomad
I completely agree on the "sharing headsets" issue. The economics work out
fine at one headset per dev who needs to collaborate off-site.

------
koolba
> Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an
> unhealthy activity. I could have used this growing up.

Color me skeptical but they said the same thing about NES Power Pad:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Pad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Pad)

I think it's more likely that people will be even more zoned out as you can't
even move your hand up and down in front of their faces to block their line of
sight to the TV.

> If I am right, over the next five years we will see the following:

> 1\. Lower price point and maybe the ability to finance the hardware (like
> your cell phone).

> 2\. 100 million devices distributed. Without a significant number of users
> the best founders won’t get serious about building for VR over building for
> web/mobile.

> 3\. New frameworks. Building and iterating VR apps is going to have to get a
> lot easier.

> 4\. Large companies solving the primary hardware problems: headset and input
> innovation plus distribution. I think this might be too expensive for
> startups to tackle.

None of these predictions involve any insight into VR. Replace the word VR in
#1, #3, or #4 with any tech at any point in recent history and you can make
the same statement. I also doubt #2 will happen. The smartphone revolution was
a natural evolution of expanding communication devices that people already had
into devices that were more useful. VR requires an entirely new set of
hardware (for the display component) that isn't anywhere near as approachable
as going from a flip phone to a smartphone.

> Recently I’ve heard a lot of investors say “There isn’t a whole lot of new
> stuff to do in consumer. There’s already an app for that.” With VR, there
> isn’t already an app for that.

> I think we are no more than two years away from an explosion of new consumer
> startups and I cannot wait to start funding them at YC.

This I agree is definitely coming though I have my doubts about it being
anywhere near the scale of smart phones or the push to make all things web. I
also think there's going to be an even higher "dud factor" with VR startups
than the already high rate for consumer focused startup. Let's see what
happens!

------
dougb1102
I applied to YC about 2.5 yrs ago with a VR-focused company for new
construction homes software. Got rejected. Fast-forward today and I've built a
successful company with it. It'll take a few yrs for VR to get mass adoption,
but it shouldn't stop people from starting a B2B VR company. I've seen a lot
of tech since my TRS-80 days and can tell you that this one is going to be
transformative in a lot of areas.

~~~
confiscate
What company is this? Because it sounds like Siebel would be interested to
know/fund :)

~~~
dougb1102
www.pixiedustVR.com It's old, but that's what happens to company websites when
they have paying customers. ;) If you have any questions feel free to contact
me directly doug at pixiedustvr You can see our WebVR work
3d-testing.tollbrothers.com

------
BigChiefSmokem
I don't think VR will take off unless the headsets become the size of big
sunglasses, have great battery life, and someone releases a killer app. It's
surprising that these headsets have been in the market so long, going on over
a year now, and we have yet to see that one app that makes everyone run out
and get a headset. Until all of these happen I don't expect much from the
current state of the VR industry.

------
AndrewKemendo
I'm not really sure what this means.

YC has been investing in VR/AR companies since at least 2014/5\. 3% of S16
companies were VR. It's been on their Request for startups since at least
2014[1]. Is this simply stating that they are going to be more aggressive in
the space?

There are plenty of us VR/AR startups out there...

[1] [https://hackernoon.com/3-of-y-combinators-
summer-2016-batch-...](https://hackernoon.com/3-of-y-combinators-
summer-2016-batch-are-vr-companies-81ef471e6931#.flj1imhmu)
[2][https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#vrar](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#vrar)

------
blazespin
It's always fun seeing people go through the various stages that I (and many
many others) have gone through over the last couple of years. Unfortunately,
he's missing the fact that it's exceedingly socially awkward to use these
things and people in general actually don't like being removed from the world.
It is mentally exhausting worrying about what's happening that you can't see.
Not fun :(

You're probably saying, ahhh, that doesn't matter. It turns out, it does.

If you want to get excited about something, look at AR instead of VR.

(I have vive, dk1, dk2, and cv1. though i actually never opened my free cv1
..)

------
bluetwo
I spent the afternoon with friends playing on a vive in a dedicated room. It
was a lot of fun, but I didn't leave the experience wanting to own my own
setup.

Partly the newness of the tech is to blame, and the games were retrofits of
things that existed. I think as a new generation of games come around that are
conceived for the hardware it'll come around.

Let's not forget the zen-like simplicity of (Google) Cardboard VR apps. They
are a lot of fun and use your phone plus a 15-20 dollar holder. I think these
apps will be quicker to innovate as all of the hardware is so cheap and
plentiful for developer and consumers.

------
greenspot
I'm going through this thread comment by comment and it feels like reading
customer reviews on Amazon. Many comments are written like those '5-star'
reviews there. It's just a vague feeling and maybe I'm wrong.

VR might be a hit but there're questions marks which got outlined by other
commentators quite well.

I'm not qualified to judge if VR is going to be a hit but I realize that a lot
of people seem to be committed and invested in this space (so money is
involved) and we should be just wary when we see 5-star reviews.

------
awwstn
The challenges for VR today can be summed up in a few points:

\- The price point (a high-end VR experience costs around $2800 ($800 HTC Vive
+ a $2000 PC)

\- Resolution (even the best VR is too low-res today)

\- Inside-out tracking (explained below)

\- Content – there are great games and other immersive content today, but it's
just scratching the surface

Apart from content, all of these challenges will be handily solved by Moore's
Law in the next 24 months. We will have inside-out, high-end, high-resolution
virtual reality that will cost a consumer less than $500-$1000 all-in.

The chicken-and-egg problem of content vs. consumer adoption is already being
solved. Enough new headsets shipped last year for the market to support
substantial investment in VR content over these next 24 months, and newer,
better content + cheaper hardware will lead to increase in consumer adoption,
which will lead to even more investment in content, and so on.

The only question then is: will everyday people want to use VR regularly? I
have yet to meet someone who has spent a decent amount of time (more than a
quick demo) in a high-end VR experience and still doubts this. Certain
activities (gaming) will be adopted more easily, while others (watching a
movie with your family) might feel a bit strange – but that will feel more
natural when VR and AR converge on a 5-10 year timeline.

It's exciting!

* Regarding "inside out" tracking above: Today, the most advanced consumer headset (HTC Vive) gives a glimpse of this potential with "room-scale" VR that allows a user 6 degrees of freedom – meaning the ability to walk around in an environment. But, the Vive requires sensors on the walls that draw lines around a playspace – this is "outside-in" tracking. Inside out tracking requires a headset that can draw a volumetric map of its environment in real-time – so you could walk from room to room in VR and see walls and obstacles before you crash into them. (the closest thing we have to this today is the Microsoft Hololens) This is important because it reduces the need for a large physical space, a complex rig, a constrained environment area. It might not be _necessary_ for mainstream adoption, but it is a challenge that needs to be faced.

~~~
JacobKyle
Re: inside out tracking - have you seen Bridge? It's a mobile, spatially aware
headset for IOS. It uses an onboard Structure Sensor to power positionally
tracked VR + high end MR. All on an iphone (no remote processing), and < $400
:)

We've been working on it in secret for a couple of years, and just launched it
in December.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iys8yo0sjYg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iys8yo0sjYg)

~~~
adammunich
Still waiting to see what y'all do with structure core. Bridge is too
expensive for OEMs :-)

------
norea-armozel
I'm not sure I have much to contribute to the idea of VR beyond my years of
playing MUDs, MMOs, and Second Life. So I'm seeing VR from the POV of the
desktop here. What I think is the key problem with VR is the problem with all
kinds of technology: form factor. For years cell phones were bulky niche
products that didn't have many users until the mid-90s when candy bar and clam
shell form factors were good enough compared to the bag and bricks of the 80s.
That's when cell phones took off. Smart phones had a similar problem that was
solved with better touch screens and better storage/processor. Now, VR has
always had a huge problem with the goggles and other interfaces so I think VR
to be able to be attractive to people (especially developers) it has to be
smaller, better resolution, and as easy as wearing sunglasses and/or winter
gloves (IMO, I think a glove form factor is the bare minimum for any
controller scheme or at least a good enough pair of gesture sensors that are
easy to place and calibrate). Until a good enough form factor takes over
there's no way VR will ever break beyond niche. It's just that 2016 made that
niche bigger. So I'll be waiting out this wave of VR out until they have a
form factor that's easy and cheap.

~~~
purplelobster
That's a very good analogy. Just don't underestimate how quickly the tech can
progress in this day and age, I did that mistake myself. Less than two years
ago I was very excited about the Rift and bought a dev kit. As someone who
works in computer vision etc, I was convinced though that good tracking would
be many years out, and then suddenly there were the lighthouse solution from
Valve. Now I've had the same thought about inside-out tracking (by means of
vision), but even that seems to be arriving much faster than I initially
anticipated. Today every big tech company from MS, Google, Facebook, to Valve,
and hardware companies such as Samsung, HTC and Nvidia/ATI manufacturers are
pushing hard on every frontier of VR. I agree the form factor has to change to
allow mass adoption, but expect much faster progress than what happened with
phones in the 80s.

------
brilliantcode
I'm going to politely disagree with this article. It's overly optimistic and
draws largely from anecdotal preferences and insights.

I believe that VR will fail for the same reasons blockchain has failed to
reach critical mass, there's just no overwhelming pain it solves, it's nice to
have but great majority of people still do not appreciate having a bright
screen inches away from your eyes and the hardware while it will certainly get
better, may be addressing immersion the wrong way.

A truly game breaking VR device is one that would not require strapping screen
to your face, we will see what's out there on the market but it's still very
much too early to say whether it's going to have the legs it needs to reach
critical mass.

I could be totally wrong and we might end up staring into empty spaces on the
Skytrain with people manipulating VR objects with wild hand movements. Sort of
the same shift in how smartphones have made people hunched over a small screen
or talking to the air with earphones with microphones.

I believe agumented reality is a much more subtle and gradual adoption where
it won't require a powerful device but with gentle gestures or possibly even
reading your mind's will to issue commands without having to deal with a touch
screen. The Google glass is great but I think the killer app would be
something you can install on your prescription glasses that projects layered
UI and makes it "smart". We would be living in a self organized surveillance
state where it's no longer necessary for a government to keep track of
everything but peer based apps that shames socially negative behavior and the
fear of such reprisals will be at a far far higher level than we have today.

We are living in a time where every new critical mass technology (ex.
facebook) are essentially "cigarettes", widely accepted and normalized but not
fully understanding it's consequences.

~~~
oblib
That sounds right to me, and it's insightful. Thank you for sharing this.

------
Animats
I've tried the Vibe and the Microsoft Hololens. The Vibe feels like a minor
improvement over Jaron Lainer's original unit from the 1980s, which I tried
back then. It's still too big and heavy. The update rate and position tracking
are at last acceptable. It's going to be popular with the FPS gamer crowd, but
beyond that, it doesn't seem worth the trouble.

The Hololens packs an incredible amount of hardware into a small package.
That's a very good piece of mechanical and electrical engineering. While it
can't really "draw dark", it does a decent job of trying, displaying against a
filtered background of the real world. It's also cordless, which the VR guys
really should have had by now. Its display field of view is too small; it
can't maintain the illusion of markers on the world. A wider field of view and
it will be useful.

~~~
jayjay71
What do you think will be the use cases for the Hololens in the short and long
term? I've yet to try it, but I've heard mostly good things.

~~~
Animats
I tend to link to this too much, but see Hyper-Reality.[1] Augmented reality
for the job monkey, out of Medellin, Colombia. After viewing that, read
Marshall Brain's "Manna", if you haven't already. Then visualize the two
linked together.

The killer app for augmented reality may be the bossing around of humans by
computers.

[1] [https://vimeo.com/166807261](https://vimeo.com/166807261) [2]
[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

------
oblib
I've yet to put a new one on.

I tried a wireframe VR headset game back in the `90's. It was a two player
game where you tried to shoot each other. My wife was the other player and had
a hard time time navigating the space. I moved right next to her and she
couldn't find me, but what I could not do was pull the trigger. No way. Not
even in VR.

I still don't do games, and I'm not really interested in wearing one of those
headsets for hours no matter how "immersive" it is.

And to be honest, I really cannot imagine that people will do that on any
large scale. I'm sure they will play with them, but I'd expect them to be more
of a novelty than a daily use thing.

I would liken them more to a Segway. Awesome tech, but not near as popular in
use as was imagined or predicted.

Same with "3D" movies. My kids don't like them all that much, but the tech is
still impressive.

------
joeld42
I'm making a VR game with giant mechs that has a totally unique movement
mechanic. Anybody want to fund me? :P

~~~
thenomad
Get it into a playable state and up on Steam in Early Access, sir or madam.
There are a LOT of people looking for a good VR giant mech game right now.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Going to SteamDevDays 2016 convinced me that this is a viable strategy, as
long as you keep your scope small and costs low.

... and then I got side-tracked by machine learning and finance...

~~~
jbpetersen
Please tell me you're making a game about being a quant.

------
brycethornton
I've been reading "Ready Player One" over the past few weeks and it's
description of a VR-filled future is blowing my mind. It's really a great look
into the possibilities for VR in the next 30 years. Highly recommended!

~~~
goatlover
RP1 It's not any sort of world you would hope for. I'd rather the technology
be banned than end up with that kind of world. But the story itself was fun.

------
adamzerner
This article is basically, "VR gets a vote of confidence from YC". That's good
to know, but:

a) It should be pointed out that this is what the article is doing (giving a
vote of confidence, not summarizing, not making any sort of thorough or novel
argument).

b) I think that thorough and novel arguments are more useful. The following
post comes to mind: [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2016/09/write-to-say-stuff-
wor...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2016/09/write-to-say-stuff-worth-
knowing.html).

------
mzitelli
I agree that a lot of movement will happen to adapt actual apps to be explored
in VR, but not just that. A lot of space will open for immersive content, one
moment that you have a headset in every house. Therefore, new solutions are
going to be needed both to explore and create for those devices. A good
example are 360 videos editing. With that in mind I've been working on the
last months on the first 360 video editor for smartphones, you can check that
here [http://collect.video](http://collect.video)

------
hackcasual
> Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an
> unhealthy activity. I could have used this growing up.

In my experience, the best VR experiences are sit down. Sony's approach fully
embraces this. Room scale is great, but I've had much more enjoyable
experiences with the likes of Euro Truck and Elite than Showdown.

VR demos amazingly well, you're excited to try it out and it is genuinely
breath taking the first time you look around your cockpit in outer space. But
the isolation and cumbersome nature of it kills everyday use.

~~~
zitterbewegung
I found that Superhot VR was much more exciting than Eve Valkrie. The
immersion was so high that I started closing an eye to shoot better. I haven't
done that with any other game.

~~~
thenomad
I just had the same experience today testing Onward.

Closed my eye by reflex to aim with the iron sights on a rifle, then had one
of those "oh my god I just did that" VR experiences.

When it feels real it feels _very_ real.

------
oDot
We've applied to YC a few months back with a real estate app based exactly on
this premise. The goal was saving people's time and money in the inefficient
home-search process.

Turned down, though.

~~~
edko
Maybe, in the not so distant future, the use of VR in real estate will be to
give everybody a seaview mansion when, in reality, they live within four
boring walls.

~~~
oDot
If only you could taste VR food...

------
SeaDude
Hm. Market potential is limited to upper-middle class (those having large work
autonomy) or about 15% of the US population. Which may be plenty for your
outlook, i'm no expert.

But I am a normal dude. And there is no way the remaining 85% of the
population can check out of their real-world duties of getting kids ready for
school, cooking, working, watching tv, etc to check-in to VR. No way.

VR's downfall IS its immersiveness. It's a serial activity that cannot be run
in parallel with other life activities. With a phone, I can be texting,
surfing ect and when my kid comes over, I can put the phone down and answer a
question or continue cooking or whatever. VR-not so much. I'd have to first
HEAR my kid come up to me, then unstrap the headset, put down my handset(s),
etc...

If VR has large uptake as a technology, our interpersonal world, our family
and social structures are fucked. Feels like the final checkmate in human
history. Think I'll dig my heels in a bit and let you run over the cliff with
that one.

~~~
SeaDude
And look up "DPDR vr" when you have a sec. Lets see how many more mental
disorders we can create by unleashing tech without ethical, philosophical, or
human-first lenses. I'm getting a little jaded by this market-first approach.

------
guelo
People already spend significant amounts of time on game console screens and
there hasn't been an explosion of non-game apps on those.

~~~
e12e
I remember being surprised at the number of productivity apps available for
the gameboy in Japan. I suppose it was a herald of the the success smart
phones would become.

It's not just about technology, but also about culture.

------
artur_makly
VR Porn will totally destroy all social norms and sexual IRL practices.

It's WAY too damn real, especially if you mix it with a real partner.

~~~
rl3
All I can picture here is two clunky headsets colliding in awkward fashion.

There was an episode of Black Mirror that dealt with this though, using AR
contact lenses instead.

~~~
wj
There was a scene in Demolition Man as well that dealt with this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k80UQWWUIYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k80UQWWUIYs)

------
elihu
It'll be interesting to see how traditionally non-3D application translate to
VR. For instance, what would a VR-enabled window manager look like, or an IDE,
or a command-line shell, or a graphical file manager? What's the best way to
manage web browser tabs in 3D or navigate a comment thread? What about
interactive, graphical programming environments like puredata?

I expect there may be some generic solutions for problems like how to display
a tree or graph in an intuitive way or how to manage a bunch of 2-D
workspaces. Figuring out exactly what the best way to extract that generic
functionality into libraries will be interesting, and I expect if VR becomes
mainstream there will be a lot of competing VR widget libraries just like
there are a lot of competing 2D gui widget libraries now.

------
kc10
I really want to get Oculus, but the requirement of high performance windows
machine is keeping me away. I am a mac user and I don't intend to spend about
$1500 for a windows machine that I would use only for VR.

I don't mind spending $1000 on an oculus which can work with a regular macbook
pro.

~~~
qwtel
You might be happy to hear that the $1500 machine recommendation is outdated.

You can view the current recommendation here [1] and it basically boil down
to: RX480/GTX1060 plus i5 -- very much below $1000 at this point.

[1] [https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-
pcs/](https://www3.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-pcs/) Click "View Recommended
Specification"

------
codingdave
I just said this a few days ago on another topic, but it bears repeating here
-- people are thinking too narrowly. Replacing Input X for Input Y or Output X
for Output Y are not seeing the big picture. Inputs and Outputs are now a
multitude. We are entering the era of many-to-many for I/O.

The companies that succeed are not going be the software dudes who make their
apps work for web, phones and VR (that will be a requirement, not a killer
feature). No, the success stories will be those who build the glue to let
everyone else easily make "all the things" work for all the inputs and all the
outputs.

------
ctulek
It is good to witness so much improvement in VR tech but most people focus on
the eye. I think the killer step in VR and also AG will be when we can use all
our fingers. Once we have that it will be a huge improvement in contrast to 2D
interfaces. Haptic feedback on top of that would make the experience even
better. Till that happens, VR experience is merely an eye interacting in a new
world with 2 bulky pointers.

It would be great if someone develops a bracelet that can detect the electric
signals going from my brain to my fingers and use it as an input to control
virtual fingers.

------
conorh
I'm a casual gamer, enjoy gaming and like to buy a game and play it with my
kids as a family activity. I bought an oculus rift when it came out, figuring
it would be fun to try out. Everyone used it a few times and then it just sat
there. Most of the enjoyment we get out of gaming is sitting around and
interacting while playing, that really didn't work very well with the bulky
headset on one person. I think maybe in a few years when the headsets are
cheaper, smaller, and easier to manage then it will make sense, but I'm not
sure that will be for a while.

~~~
sosuke
I completely agree! My wife and I are very interested in VR, we keep wanting
it to be something though we can't quite figure out what. What I want for sure
is a multiplayer experience. PS4 Pro w/ 2 headsets exploring a VR world for
instance. I want to look to my right and see her there. With just one of us
playing at a time it isn't fun.

Maybe this is already the case and I just haven't figure out how to search for
it correctly.

~~~
mwseibel
My experience was with a multiplayer game - which was a ton a fun

------
746F7475
> Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an
> unhealthy activity. I could have used this growing up.

What kind of VR games are you playing? I haven't seen a single physically
demanding VR game (unless you count standing "physical"). Unless everyone is
going to have a dedicated room for their games or we come up with some kind of
rental halls there won't be any physical activity in VR games just because
there is no room to move around.

Sure ducking and crawling is somewhat more physical that just sitting and
playing games, but not by much.

~~~
ajsalminen
Holopoint, Sword Master VR, Audioshield are some of the more physically
intensive titles. Something like Onward is not intense exercise but will get
you kneeling etc. instead of just standing. Even standing and doing things
with your hands is better than sitting and playing a non-VR game.

------
gfodor
Trying to predict the future of VR based on tech specs is kind of silly,
because I feel the determinant of the timeline of its success is dependent
upon what applications are built for it. All it will take is one or two well
executed applications that require VR to be used, that motivates folks
sufficiently to purchase hardware (a $99 mobile VR headset being a starting
price point) that will bend the curve. But, obviously its hard to predict what
these are, otherwise someone would have built it already.

------
EScott11
"3\. New frameworks. Building and iterating VR apps is going to have to get a
lot easier."

Hasn't Unity already cemented itself as the go-to framework for VR? Has anyone
seen anything better?

~~~
carlosdp
Sure, but Unity is a game engine, I think he means more like Xcode is to iOS
dev as _____ is to VR. Unity isn't optimized for making general applications,
although it looks like they want to head in that direction for VR.

~~~
meheleventyone
I'm curious what you feel general applications need? I come from a games
background and am in current heavy R&D for VR and AR applications. I tend to
feel VR is much more like a game than anything else. You're fundamentally
working in 3D space with tracked game controllers in a simulation that updates
at 60/90/120Hz. Most of what's lacking for common application development is
the sort of things we won't see until there are some mature VR/AR operating
systems. AR in particular really needs to allow multiple programs to run
simultaneously. There's not really the need for that with multiple overlapping
virtual realities right now.

I don't think Unity necessarily has things wrapped up but it would be really
hard to eclipse them right now.

------
corford
Despite having two perfectly functional eyes, my brain only uses the right one
due to a squint I had at birth which later improved but by then my brain had
wired itself to ignore input from the left eye unless I close my right one (I
get a quick shift to the left of everything in my FOV when I do this). As a
result things like 3D cinema don't work for me (and I find using a telescope
much easier than binoculars!).

If VR really takes off am I going to be unable to join in or will it work with
one eye?

~~~
klintwood
The "3D" effect is one of the least exciting features of VR headsets. If that
was all VR had to offer it would be just as much of a gimmick as 3D Video. You
will still get all the benefits of moving your head around, motion controls
and so on.

~~~
corford
Awesome! My main worry was depth perception stuff being problematic (I have
occasional issues with that irl but no idea if it would be the same, better or
worse in VR).

~~~
klintwood
It should be very nearly the same in VR. You will still get the parallax from
moving your head, even small rotation can add a lot to depth perception. Best
try it out before you buy it. If you don't have a store offering demos near
you, many VR enthusiasts enjoy showing off their hardware to others just as
much as playing themselves.

~~~
corford
Thanks for that, sounds promising. Will keep an eye out (haha) for somewhere
offering demos and give it a whirl.

------
arnorhs
i feel like the physical aspect is something that's actually cumbersome in
practice, you need a lot of space, and even then you need to make sure you
don't gradually bump into things. It's a bit of a gimmick and I believe it
will wear off. I have a hard time imagining the N-state of VR being anything
else than people sitting still, or even lying down with just a remote or two
in your hands where you don't even use gestures.

The N-state of every leasure activity is as low physical effort as possible.

However I'm not sure what the main activity will be on a really good VR
platform. It might just be watching movies or it might be playing games. The
thought of some kind of second life type of game/world is also something that
feels like a cliche but is also pretty likely to happen. In which case, how do
you move? how do you interact? probably voice + some sort of game controller,
right?

There might be some practical applications of VR, such as surgery or whatever,
but that will never be the mainstream, unless VR fails for consumers (again),
and this discussion doesn't become very interesting.

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually pretty optimistic about this generation of
VR. I simply don't believe in the whole premise of it becoming a physical
activity.

~~~
thenomad
_The N-state of every leisure activity is as low physical effort as possible._

As someone whose leisure activities have in the past included Muay Thai and
Spanish knife duelling (with blunted knives and fencing armour; I'm not crazy)
I would disagree with this assessment. None of those activities naturally tend
toward low physical effort in their participants. :)

And personally, I seek out high-physical-intensity not low-physical-intensity
VR games, and have done so consistently for a couple of years now. The
comments on this post alone show I'm far from alone on that.

Personally, my money's still on VR being a gateway drug to exercise rather
than devolving into seated activities. There are two main reasons for that: 1)
It only takes one really good Doom-level breakout exercise game to get a lot
of people moving, and 2) humans are wired to find exercise fun. Endorphins are
wonderful things.

------
rosalinekarr
I can't wait to see the first ssh client for VR.

------
hota_mazi
Pretty mundane and naive observations, which is not surprising since it looks
like he tried a VR headset for the first time a month ago.

------
bojl
Are we sure that VR in its current form (headset ala Oculus) is the form of VR
that will become ubiquitous? I find it hard to believe that the average
consumer will be interested in buying that clunky, expensive piece of hardware
just for the "coolness" of it.

If VR is to become popularized i feel like it needs to be more seamlessly
integrated into our daily lives.

------
lisper
Is there anywhere one can demo/rent a VR setup? I'd like to experience it
before I take the plunge.

------
egfx
"Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an
unhealthy activity"

\- I had the same thought yesterday too. I would go further and say we will
see the first open world MMO to adopt true geospacial coordinates very very
soon.

What do you think this will do to fitness? ;)

------
ComodoHacker
>Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be perceived as an
unhealthy activity.

It's a whole lot of research yet to be done in this area, VR & health (I don't
mean muscles, I mean eyes, brain etc.). And VR market expansion will make this
research possible.

------
nilkn
I got pretty invested in VR in 2016, and to be honest I wish I'd just waited.
Here's the history of how VR went for me last year:

* Pre-ordered Vive and Rift, planning to keep whichever one arrived first.

* The Rift encountered tremendous shipping issues.

* I got the Vive pretty much on launch day, so I figured I'd cancel the Rift order.

* I was blown away by room-scale in the Vive initially, but really disappointed in the visual quality. It wasn't just the resolution or screen-door effect. I was shocked to find how small the sweet spot is and how much of the image is out of focus around the edges. I was shocked at the godrays and various other optical phenomena.

* Because the Rift was said to have a much clearer picture than the Vive, I decided not to cancel the order.

* By the time the Rift arrived (in late July I believe), I had basically stopped using the Vive because I'd run out of content and the only new content coming out was incredibly unpolished Early Access indie stuff. Some of the games people are talking about here like Space Pirate Trainer or Holopoint I grew bored of by June of 2016. They're not new.

* The Rift was immediately more comfortable, the picture looked a lot clearer despite having the same resolution, and it was a big relief not needing to worry about separate headphones anymore.

* While I enjoyed the charm of Lucky's Tale and Chronos reminded me of Dark Souls, I couldn't get into any of the other seated content, so the Rift fell into disuse rather quickly. Keep in mind that if you're into racing sims or flight sims there's already a wealth of content for you -- but I'm not into those things (and I did try them).

* I entered a limbo where I didn't know what to do, which to sell (perhaps both?). I decided to preorder Touch, hoping that the Rift+Touch would be decisively better than the Vive and my decision would be made for me.

* Touch arrived in December. The controllers themselves were great. The tracking was not. It was a real pain to set up. I fiddled with it endlessly. The tracking software itself seemed to have glitches. It was really sensitive to which USB ports I used. Eventually I got the tracking working acceptably after my third sensor arrived -- still not as good as the tracking on the Vive, though, which was basically perfect.

* I've been experiencing a brief VR renaissance with the new Touch content, which is generally a lot more polished than anything on the Vive. However, most of it is purely multiplayer, which I'm not really into.

* Rift+Touch is not decisively better than the Vive, but I've somewhat arbitrarily decided to just keep it and sell the Vive, largely because it's the system that I currently have set up.

In retrospect, I wish I'd just waited an extra year or two. VR with tracked
controllers and room-scale is definitely cool and I don't think it's a
gimmick, but it's still very much in early adopter territory right now.

------
TTPrograms
>> 4\. Large companies solving the primary hardware problems: headset and
input innovation plus distribution. I think this might be too expensive for
startups to tackle.

Translation: Because startups are for software and if your idea is hard you
should probably not bother.

------
spullara
Isn't this article a couple years late considering it is YC publishing it?

------
johnchristopher
Maybe he should have waited a week before writing something under the wow
effect.

------
DoodleBuggy
So, how do you overcome the motion sickness / nausea problem?

~~~
andybak
1\. Headsets have got a lot better - high persistence displays and refresh
rates no lower than 90Hz

2\. Game designers have learnt to avoid many of the things that exacerbate the
problem. Avoiding acceleration and lateral motion, giving visual clues such as
cages, use of vignetting.

Having said that - it stopped being a problem within the first few weeks. I'm
now happily strafing around in Doom 3 BFG right after dinner without a care in
the world!

------
clueless123
I can already imagine multiple wearable mechanical contraptions to enhance the
VR experience injecting orientation and acceleration to the mix. This is huge.

------
sharemywin
I spent ~$20 on a Evo and updated youtube and was very impressed. would I
spend ~$1000 on the head stuff probably not but for ~20 you can't beat the it.

------
RoboTeddy
VR might explode once the hardware can convey our actual facial expressions.

Once that happens, there will be strong forces could tip:

* Offices/meetings

* Learning institutions

* Socializing with friends who aren't close by

* ...

~~~
goda90
I kind of wonder if stuff like that is going to require new levels of body-
computer interfaces(contact lens, eye implants, brain implants). It's hard to
figure out someone's exact facial expression when they have a headset covering
most of their face. And if you don't get the facial expressions perfectly,
you're going to have uncanny valley and miscommunication.

~~~
madamelic
Yeah, I would assume some combination of eye-tracking and facial scanning
might work.

There is research into translating real facial movements onto a digital model.
If you are wearing a headset already, I am sure there is something that could
be done to 'scan' facial movements.

~~~
cr0sh
Face-hugger HMDs?

------
Sir_Cmpwn
I'm not getting into VR until Linux support is there. Every major vendor
promised it. It's been long enough. More than long enough.

~~~
iagooar
Why do you think that VR requires Linux support to succeed?

I'm long past the mentality of software having to run on each and every
platform, especially Linux. I love my Mac for work with software development,
my Linux to deploy my servers to, and my Windows to play the latest games.
Best of ALL worlds.

~~~
sedachv
> Why do you think that VR requires Linux support to succeed?

Virtual Reality systems need to support Linux because they need to be built
around Free Software: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-
impor...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-
important.html)

It is essential that we as computer programmers work towards making virtual
reality systems respect people's freedom.

This is a problem of basic ethics and morality. You can say "I don't care" all
you want and buy into the proprietary systems, that just means you are
literally paying money to build out the surveillance police state
infrastructure.

~~~
iagooar
Fair point. Haven't look at it from this angle. Thank you.

------
kevinSuttle
Just finished reading Ready Player One, and have never put on a VR unit. This
post is timely. I can see having a very similar reaction.

~~~
goatlover
Let's hope our world doesn't end up like that one, where society goes to shit
because everyone would rather live in a fake world than deal with the
problems. It would also be kind of disappointing if ETs follow the same
course, and that's the reason we don't hear from them.

------
bencollier49
What's the model for building apps, then. Oculus is owned by Facebook. How do
you create a game - does it require a paid SDK?

~~~
xigency
You can use either Unity or Unreal Engine - both are free to develop. They cut
into your returns, though.

Some people are talking about app building. Unity and Unreal 4 are both game
engines which means they run simulations. Since they use C# and C++ among
other languages, and the target is desktop PC, you can run any software. They
both also have other ways to write logic with triggers or blueprints, etc.

------
beders
Baloney. Unless the form factor improves significantly, this will disappear
again quickly.

AR has a much much better shot at mass market adoption.

------
cebas33
When companies stop selling prototypes for full price maybe I'll get one of
these. For now it's just another toy full of unaccomplished promises and
useless hype, waiting to be abandoned for the user after experiencing motion
sickness. No immersion at all and nothing impressive at this very moment.
Considering I'm hearing it's the "future" since virtual boy... this future is
waiting too much to be reached.

------
andreygrehov
Does anyone know if there is a correlation between the future of VR and the
eyecare industry?

~~~
thenomad
Probably not in the way you'd expect.

My optometrist is very enthusiastic about VR - apparently the way focusing
works in VR puts a lot less strain on your eye muscles than staring at a
screen.

~~~
lsaferite
I'm nearsighted, and I play with my glasses off. It's much less strain on my
eyes TBH.

------
bhewes
Yep, this is why game company www.gameover.la is moving to VR. The potential
is huge.

------
jordache
How is VR "physical" when you are tethered to a computer?

~~~
madamelic
The cable is very long and it is "room-scale" (You can move around), meaning
games involve actually moving around.

And soon there will be wireless adapters.

~~~
cr0sh
The problem with "room scale" is very few people have a (near empty) room in
their households which they can dedicate to a single-user VR experience. Every
user in the household would need their own room (hmm - will new homes be
advertised with these as "upgrades"?)...

~~~
nsxwolf
I have a 2m x 2m area in the basement I use. I wish I had a little more space
but it works well most of the time. The low ceiling is the problem - your
brain is so convinced that there is sky or a high ceiling above you that you
try to throw something over your head and smash the controller into the
ceiling. I have marks on the walls and drywall dust embedded in my
controllers. The chaperone boundaries can't do anything to warn you about that
and those mistakes happen too quickly anyway.

------
swalsh
We need more women to get into VR. Not some SJW thing, young 20 something
techy dudes just don't shop enough. Future malls will be in VR, and it'll be
awesome, but right now the wrong demographics are using VR.

~~~
madamelic
I'd bet more on AR.

Personally, as someone who has issues in crowds, I would shop so much if I
could try things in AR.

------
return0
I expect lightweight, ergonomic VR or AR to replace desktop monitors in a few
years. which means desks may no longer be needed. time to short IKEA - oh wait
they re not listed.

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ggregoire
Like most people, I'm completely sick when I'm in VR. I don't see how the VR
could become mainstream if they don't fix this problem.

~~~
thenomad
Which VR headsets have you tried? The problem's wildly worse in some than
others.

I've only ever seen one person find the Vive at all uncomfortable, for
example. Whereas the Oculus DK1... yeah, that was vomit city, population you.

------
mememachine
i cant see myself with vr.

------
xigency

        Because VR games are so physical, gaming will no longer be 
        perceived as an unhealthy activity. I could have used this 
        growing up.
    

I don't see this panning out ever. If "virtual reality" went beyond being room
based, then it doesn't really seem like the same idea as virtual reality. And
I don't think anyone thinks it's healthy to bump around a small office room.

Harkens back to the 'playing Wii is exercise' movement.

    
    
        Because VR is so immersive, I can imagine myself spending 
        significant amounts of time (hours) with a headset on, 
        every day.
    

While there's plenty of room for improvement, this doesn't sound particularly
healthy. It's eerily similar to taping lightbulbs to your eyelids and
expecting good results. Even if the light level were healthy, the close screen
and lenses could do damage to focus. I would _definitely_ talk to real eye
doctors before planning around this idea. But then again, I'm nearsighted just
from reading books and using the computer.

This is also a naïve attitude as anyone who has or has developed for VR knows
that a little time goes a long way.

    
    
        As a result, gaming will not be the only significant use 
        case for VR. My headset will steal time time from other 
        screens (tv/laptop/phone) and as a result there will be an 
        explosion of VR consumer apps, entertainment apps, 
        developer tools, and more.
    

The virtual office concept is nuts. There is never going to be a time when the
cost per pixel of virtual monitors outperforms real monitors. VR is inherently
selfish, so there's very little room for opening up collaboration. A dry erase
board gives a better sense of community.

    
    
        If I am right, over the next five years we will see the 
        following: 100 million devices distributed.
    

That's certainly possible but I don't understand the leap from, "this device
is cool," to "this is a necessity." When I first saw 3D TV's I thought, "hey,
this is great!" but they aren't sold in my local electronics stores any
longer.

I do think VR is cool. I think it's great that Oculus was able to kickstart
all the way to Facebook, and I think the Vive is an even better product. The
smartphone VR is a neat way to get rid of wires. And there are plenty of great
games and applications, where the community is just getting started.

But I don't think this is the revolution that people are pinning on it. In
ways, VR devices are glorified view masters. Everyone loved those as a child
but they are a toy. (The armed forces pay a lot for 'serious games' as well,
so it isn't a discount.) I think if many people who tried VR tried a Nintendo
3DS they might also love it. And if you tried head tracking on a normal
display it might also be exciting.

I don't like the infatuation with VR. It's not healthy and it's only going to
make things more disappointing when the bubble bursts. It also rings hollow.

------
iagooar
I have mixed feelings about the potential of VR, and seeing YC pushing for it
makes me reconsider my position. Let me explain.

I preordered the HTC Vive as soon as it was available in Europe. I got it
shipped and the excitement couldn't be bigger. When I first tried, I was blown
away. It was an experience I never had had before. I described it once as the
single, most beautiful digital experience in my life. And I really mean it.

But.

Once the newness wears away, it's hard to find a motivation to keep spending
hours in VR. It's cutting-edge tech, no doubt about it. But it requires a
certain kind of commitment that you just can't give it for a long time. Using
room-scale VR requires you to have a dedicated, large space just for VR. You
need to detach yourself completely from the outside world while using it. You
can't play it casually. You need to be a 100% committed to it. Compared to
many other digital experiences, it's an all-in or nothing approach.

While playing on the PC, you need to be sitting in front of your PC. It's
fine, because you can still read texts on your phone or talk to your family
members that are passing by. Playing console games is even less of an issue,
since you can be in your living room, sitting at the sofa, playing your
favorite game. Using a tablet, or your phone is even more casual. You can do
it in the middle of many everyday tasks, without it being an issue at all. At
most, it's a distraction.

So after a while, VR becomes this great experience to be had only a few,
limited times a week, or even a month.

Let's talk VR games. When the Vive started shipping world-wide, you would see
tons and tons of VR content shipping to Steam. Unfortunately, most of them
were short, alpha-stage demos, showcasing the new technology. But not a single
deep, long game. You would pay full price for games that would not last more
than 3 hours total. It's been many months now, and besides Bethesda's Fallout
4 coming to VR in 2017, there is just no other AAA title in sight!

I loved playing Pool Nation VR! I could play it with people from all around
the world. It's honestly the closest you can get to a real pool table
gameplay. But then again, after only a couple of months after its launch, it
was next to impossible to even find a person available for playing online! The
matchmaker would go for more then 10 minutes without finding a single
opponent. I tried it many times, then I gave up.

The non-game aspect of VR seemed to have potential as well. But as of today,
besides some gimmicky drawing applications or low-res virtual movie theaters,
there just isn't a single app that would make you think that VR is the next
big thing.

I was really excited about AltspaceVR. In the beginning, it was vibrant, with
lots of people meeting and exploring this new way of socializing with other
people from all around the globe. Guess what? It's pretty empty right now, not
even a fraction of what it used to be the first few weeks after launch.

Still, I am going to reconsider selling the Vive now. I had pictures taken and
a description prepared to sell it through a second-hand online store. Maybe
there is more to it than it appears. Maybe the next-gen VR sets are going to
be wireless and much, much less isolating (AR anybody?). We shall see...

~~~
gfodor
Hey there, I work at AltspaceVR. I was sad to see you think things seem like
they are empty, but I guess I thought I'd mention a few things that might be
useful. First, a large percentage of people using AltspaceVR these days meet
in private activities with their friends (something we didn't offer in the
beginning) so it can be a bit misleading to know how many people are actually
hanging out just based on who is in a public space. Spending time in VR with
people you actually know and care about is a transformative experience, so
we've tried to find the right way to introduce these types of features while
still acknowledging that the connected graph of VR owners is still quite
sparse.

That said there are still many people who prefer to meet new people in public
spaces and activities (for example about 30-40 people are hanging out right
now in there) so there's always some people around to meet up with. We're past
the point where things are ever completely empty, there is always someone in
there to hang out with (and worst case, you can hang out with our 24/7
concierge service staff who we have in there making sure new users have a good
experience :))

Also, because as you mention that it is, generally, hard to get a whole ton of
people together in VR at the same time because it is so new, we try to throw
lots of VR events that give people an excuse to come together. Its during
these types of events that we've set record highs for the number of concurrent
people in VR. This weekend, for example, we have a SpaceX launch event and an
encore (recorded) performance of Reggie Watts and Justin Roiland. (Our events
schedule is here:
[https://account.altvr.com/events/featured](https://account.altvr.com/events/featured))
We also have a weekly VR dance party called Echo Space that gets more wild
each time we do it. (It's a great excuse for us to try new tech :))

I'd def encourage you to swing by and check us out during one of our events,
things do definitely get bumping :)

------
SeaDude
DPDR

------
dingleberry
would vr worsen myopia?

------
hubalew
Kind of odd that it takes yc this long to understand such a world changing
technology. And their point is that other vcs are even more pessimistic and
unexcited about technology.

It really shows you how absolutely myopic and limited the current startup
ecosystem is. Many thousands of people could tell VR was real this time back
when Oculus did a Kickstarter. But vcs take +n years? Shows how much room for
improvement there is, I suppose.

~~~
mwseibel
You make a good point - many investors (maybe us as well) don't start thinking
a new technology is cool until they can investing in companies using or
leveraging that technology... From a user perspective though, I bought Oculus
Rift dk2 and thought it was horrible. The user experience has come a long way
since then.

~~~
confiscate
What is different now, compared to when Oculus did Kickstarter years ago, that
would be the reason why you want to pay attention on VR now? Is it just that
the hardware is better, or are there other reason for you to think the timing
is now right as opposed to years ago when Oculus did KS

------
bsparker
It's weird, he keeps misspelling AR. ;)

------
k7carlton
I think VR is still too focused on mainly males who are young and tech-savy.
It can only grow so much while focusing on this demographic.

I got involved in social media, and many smart-phone enabled technologies or
apps (and many other things now that I think about it), because the popular
kids at school were using them. I personally haven't seen this adoption by
social trend setters happen with VR yet.

~~~
celticninja
That could be the bio of any tech. iPhones were this when they came out, now
everyone has an iPhone. The adoption rate is not as immediately obvious with
VR though.

~~~
k7carlton
I think smartphones were this when they came out. Apple succeeded because they
figured out how to sell smartphones to the popular crowd. It will be
interesting to see who can do this for VR.

------
thesmallestcat
Nobody wants VR. You can try and ram it down our throats all you want with TV
adds showing befuddled old people discovering the wonders of a phone strapped
to their head, or calling VR systems a "hot Christmas gift," but that won't
change the fact that nobody wants it. It's too awkward, and it makes the user
too vulnerable. You cannot create this market.

~~~
colordrops
Nobody wants VR _as it is currently implemented_. With goggles the size of
glasses, no tether, and the ability to see around you at the flick of a
switch, it would take over the planet. That could be a while off though.

~~~
GFischer
Hololens gets around the 2nd limitation, and I believe many headsets already
have cameras for seeing around.

I agree that the current implementation is cumbersome, but it's getting there
fast.

I do tend to put VR and AR together, for the general public they're mostly the
same, although I believe AR is the real deal.

~~~
colordrops
AR done properly should be a superset of VR.

