Unless they can manage to shrink the headset to the weight of a pair of glasses, I don’t see this as competition for monitors. Just to name one out of dozens of issues: if you have your face supporting a heavy VR mask for hours a day, it’s really going to show after a few years.
If at some point goggles replaces monitors, I can see this taking off... but i don't see that happening anytime soon. VR goggles are way too bulky and uncomfortable now.
The technology isn't there yet. The resolution needs to be probably 6x what it currently is to be good for reading and productivity purposes. The strain on the eyes and weight on the head/neck from having VR headset on for extended periods is also significantly higher than the strain from just a viewing a monitor and that problem is not going away anytime soon.
I have used pretty much every VR and AR headset there is, and have many hundreds of hours in them dating back to the Oculus DK1. Even the Index and the new Quest Pro lack the resolution needed for extended work with text on virtual screens, not to mention that the weight and heat of the headset become increasingly uncomfortable after a few hours. I also suspect that extended use of a headset wasn't good for the health of my eyes. Certainly if you wear glasses it would be pretty uncomfortable, but I generally felt a lot more eyestrain in VR than I would after extended use of a monitor.
I think we are still quite a few years away from VR being a slam dunk for a virtual workstation, and it's going to require continued investments in optics, material science and display technology. There's a reason Meta is spending billions on this, it's an exceptionally difficult problem.
I don't think it's a circular argument. Bigscreen VR is already 127 grams. This is doable in the next decade I think. The question is if there's a better form factor than something you wear on your face.
I'm incredulous that having a screen strapped half an inch from your eyes for 8+ hours is desirable. I have an Oculus Rift, my face is sweaty/red in a couple of hours and there is an indent around my eyes. I'm sure newer tech can be much better, especially with airflow and an AR set that lets in natural light. We're not there yet, though.
It's really awesome but I think what we really want eventually is to be able to project those displays into the space around is without having to wear any goggles. No doubt we'll get there eventually. Until then headsets can become smaller and lighter and also we may be able to get rid of the cables.
VR screens eliminate the eyes' ability to focus naturally.
Unless this devices solves that problem, I find it hard to believe it will be comfortable to wear for many hours per day.
And if the device is not comfortable to wear for longer durations, then it doesn't make sense that it's priced as premium work equipment.
Slightly better resolution but a narrower FOV and worse reflections is not going to turn any HMD from a single digit millions user device into a hundreds of millions of users device. This entire approach is, I think, an evolutionary dead end. People who care about their faces and hair aren't going to strap a 1.5 lb dorkbox to their faces. And no, making it a 1 lb or even an 0.5 lb dorkbox isn't going to fix things if you still have to mash it to your face. People like their faces and won't agree to have their faces look silly for little appreciable gain over a phone and/or laptop.
I just don't know if it'll ever happen, at least not until there are truly massive advances in miniaturization and display tech.
I have much lower spec'd VR goggles and they mostly gather dust. There's just something about having a screen pressed up against your eyes that's weird and uncomfortable in a way that is hard to articulate.
No screen door? Cool! Great motion tracking? Awesome! Premium materials? Eh, OK! But as long as I still need to strap a little box around my eyes with screens in it, I'm going to be limiting my exposure time. My eyes like air, and "better than the competition at all the things" doesn't actually make it solve any real problems I have.
For me, such a thing just can't be more than a toy.
Extended time fixed focus creates eyestrain. In a monitor environment, people look up, they look around, they look elsewhere, and so on, and even so monitors cause eye strain.
This is not a controversial take. Yes, there are tech bros who will insist that this is all fine, but the actual feedback from the majority of the population is that extended wear of pretty much all VR helmets anyone has bothered to look at causes the same eyestrain issues.
There are always people who will put up with discomfort or for whom the discomfort is relatively lower (or they are younger and it is less of an issue), but these products are not going to replace monitors. Resolution is not the only issue, just the one that is most notable when you first put the helmet on.
In addition, the weight of the helmets is an issue. Extended wear is a problem and one of the few notable, repeated comments from the carefully-managed 30-minutes-max Apple Vision Pro demos is that the weight started to get annoying. Seated demos under 30 minutes.
I want VR to happen as much as anyone, but the Vision Pro is an entertainment-light device for media consumption with a nod for people who want to check their laptop (and I'm sure, eventually, their phone or tablet) while watching faux-bigscreen movies.
If VR/AR glasses become no more burdensome than eyeglasses, then you might see more broad adoption. But right now headgear is uncomfortable for work. Even ignoring the weight, if you balance headgear for one position (looking straight ahead) then it is unbalanced for any other tilted position, and it's not like you gain freedom of movement. If anything, you lose some freedom of movement. Plus, taking the gear on and off is (in my experience) more burdensome than getting my phone out of my pocket.
I'd love it if the tech gets there someday, but it's not yet clear how it does.
The utility benefit still has to outweigh the bodily detriment.
What VR headset are you using? I've considered switching to a VR monitor setup but I feel that the quality of existing headsets is too low to compete against an actual monitor and having a screen with text that close to the eyes for several hours will accelerate the accumulation of eye damage most developers already receive.
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