[nkrisc]

Unless materials science advances to the point where a display like the Vision Pro weighs as much as a pair of glasses, I don’t think there’ll ever be mass adoption of wearable VR beyond anything more than a novelty, for exactly the reason you stated.

Wearing something heavy on the front of your face is simply not a pleasant experience.

[pmontra]

The weight is important but it's only a part of what's wrong with those kind of devices. Wearing something that hides their face is something that people do at Carnival or because they must. It's antisocial. It creates a barrier. It isolates from other people. There is no chance it will become something people will do together with other people not wearing the same device.

[gwbas1c]

> Wearing something that hides their face is something that people do at Carnival or because they must. It's antisocial. It creates a barrier. It isolates from other people.

When I ski, I often raise my goggles to my forehead when I'm in the lift line, unless it's extremely bright or extremely cold. Specifically, because of the "antisocial, barrier, isolates" aspect of blocking my face.

I'm interested in the concept for computer work because I like very large monitors. Something like Vision Pro would work if it was similar to a ski helmet and goggles, where it's easy to lift the visor when talking to someone, and then flip it closed.

[nkrisc]

Agreed, that’s the other big reason I didn’t mention: most people don’t want a screen on their face. They don’t want their face covered, they want to see out the window or just what’s around them.

I have never seen someone wear a VR headset in public that wasn’t part of a mall VR novelty attraction.

[Geee]

Beyond 2 is 107 grams. The new M5 Vision Pro is 750 grams. It's easily doable, but Apple deliberately makes them heavy for some reason.

[layer8]

107 grams is still pretty heavy. Regular glasses are 35 grams or less. My sunglasses are below 20 grams.

[Geee]

I wouldn't say so, if they're properly balanced / supported. Most headphones are heavier than that and comfortable. Ski goggles are around the same weight, and you can easily wear them for long periods without even noticing.

[layer8]

It makes a difference. People are less willing to wear heavy headphones all day than they are willing to wear regular glasses all day. They also wouldn’t want to wear ski goggles all day (unless they are into all-day skiing I guess). I much prefer wearing 20-gram glasses to wearing 35-gram glasses. 100-gram glasses would be a turn-off.

[Geee]

The difference is that glasses sit on your nose and headphones sit on your head. 100g headphones are considered lightweight. Apple's headphones are 386 grams, which are too heavy for a lot of people.

[asadotzler]

Beyond 2 has almost none of the sensor suite, no eye tracking, no meaningful compute, no pass-through video, no inside-out tracking, no gesture control, and requires two to three entirely separate units set up around the room to do any outside in tracking, yet it still weighs 4-5x what glasses weigh.

Just the displays and lenses will outweigh glasses considerably and there's nothing to strip back when you're down to display and lenses. Throw in a chassis and head strap and you're pretty far from glasses in weight and ergonomics.

[Geee]

Yeah, that's why I don't have Beyond 2.

Beoynd 2e has eye tracking. The added mass is just 1 g which is kind of hilarious. You could add 8 visual sensors for pass-through, inside-out tracking and hand tracking, adding maybe 10 g. Compute should probably be on the wired external unit or streamed wirelessly. Having it on-board would probably add less than 50g of mass though, but you also need cooling which is not very easy without adding mass. You could try something like structural heat piping through the headstrap or the battery wire.

Anyway I think it should definitely be doable under 200g, which would be much more comfortable than the current 750-800g.

[sleepybrett]

the steam frame is apparently 440 grams.

[Geee]

The display part is 185g and headstrap adds 245g, which has headphones and battery at the back. Seems like it's well balanced, but might be too heavy. If it's comfortable it will be the first ever decent VR device. Assuming that they've implemented eye-tracking based UI like Vision Pro, and I don't have to shoot tiny targets to click, which is hilariously bad UI.

[jerf]

"Assuming that they've implemented eye-tracking based UI like Vision Pro, and I don't have to shoot tiny targets to click, which is hilariously bad UI."

Assuming that the Steam Frame isn't accompanied by a complete change to the current SteamVR experience that hasn't been so much as hinted at, alas, no, SteamVR is full of tiny targets to shoot. I've only ever used the Meta Quest 3S' native UI but the smallest targets there are generally significantly bigger than the smallest targets in the SteamVR UI. On the plus side, once you activate some of those small targets you can do some cursor navigation like a conventional UI, and having that option is a breath of fresh air... but it's completely inconsistent. You experience it as a bonus when it's available because it's not even consistent enough to "miss it when it is gone", let alone for it to be a consistent navigation method.

We may get the obvious eye-tracking upgrade but the targets are still pretty small, it's going to need to be very accurate.

[Geee]

Just switching the input method from shooting to eye-control would be fine for me, if it's accurate enough. Clicks can be made from the controller.

[sleepybrett]

I found the index to be a bit on the heavy side but comfortable. I certainly put in significant time in several different 'flight simulators' (elite dangerous, star wars squadrons, etc) with it. No battery of course.

[nkrisc]

107 grams is still too heavy. That’s four times as heavy as my glasses.

[numpad0]

Vive Flow is 189 grams btw