I am so so glad Meta, or any company continue to invest in AR and VR. Not because I like AR / VR, to the contrary I am not a big fan of wearing a glasses to use it.
But it is the only thing that will move Low Latency Computing forward. Everything in modern computing is slow, we might have increased throughput by 1000 or 10000x over the course of 30+ years. But latency has gone backwards, from Apps to OS UI response. Decent AR/VR experience mimicking the real world would require sub 10ms results. And this should finally force developers to take latency into account.
The biggest issue with VR adoption currently is not VR hardware. Quest 3, Pico 4 etc are all great headsets which launched with amazing price points. The issue is that these standalone headsets are pretty much useless. Sure you can watch some videos, or play some extremely basic games which remind me of N64 graphics. But that's about it.
To get the most out of these headsets, you need a powerful PC. Driving in Assetto Corsa in VR feels amazing, you get actual realistic car physics and can drive in Tokyo with traffic around you which feels 'real'. VR in Microsoft Flight Simulator allows you to fly in any plane in any part of the world. VR in Elite Dangerous allows you to fly in outer space in a 1:1 scale Milky Way Galaxy. But require a beefy PC to run.
Apple, Meta and other VR companies just keep throwing more and more VR hardware with better lenses and form, but the issue is content. If someone is spending 1200 bucks on this headset and playing/interacting with N64 level content, the novelty wears off pretty fast.
I have a different take on this: I bought a Quest 2 several years ago, spent some money and bought about 10 experiences/games/etc. for it, and it is good enough that I continue using it with no real desire to buy a newer model. My wife was watching me use it last week and she commented “isn’t there an upgrade for that?”
Wonderful toy, even though I only use it about 90 minutes a month it is worthwhile for me to own.
The three year old Quest 3 is still the absolute best thing you can buy in this space in terms of value per dollar. Especially the color passthrough is a feature I found to enjoy quite a lot and it prevents me from even considering the new Steam Frame. After the price hike I think Meta might now sell roughly at break even or perhaps even with some tiny margins, but before it was definitely at a loss. If mine fell down and broke today, I'd probably buy it again in a heartbeat, even though I only use it semi-regularly like you.
Given the memory and general hardware shortages, I expected the price to be above $1200. Valve’s subsidy isn’t as high as Meta’s insane and aggressive hardware subsidies which is not the norm.
Still, you basically pay twice the price for finger and eye tracking and a slightly newer snapdragon with more RAM. Resolution, lenses, refresh rate are all basically equal and passthrough is way worse without the hardware upgrade.
I average about 2-3 hours per week. I’ve gotten into simracing and an average Le Mans Ultimate race is around an hour which I play a couple of times per week.
The native experiences are too barebones and I don’t even use it untethered
I bought my Quest 2 when it first came out, and I played it for a while, about 2-3 hours a week, peaking at about an hour a day when I found that Blade and Sorcery is a really good game for "exercise".
I bought the Quest 3 as an upgrade because I had noticed my Quest 2 started having intermittent input lag issues. I never pinpointed what was causing it, but my Golf clubs would fly out of my hand and I'd have to wait a few seconds for them to eventually find their way back to me. My controllers would drift out of view when navigating menus. I uninstalled everything, reinstalled it again. When that didn't work, I upgraded.
The issues persisted in the new version as well. So for about the last 20-ish months, I've averaged under an hour a month, most months I don't even pick it up. I might do some homemade PC VR "experiments" (still have access to mouse and keyboard for the game, and not the controllers) on some random claude code experiments. I have a "cyberpunk" mobius strip space station walking sim I've been working on, that will eventually hook into a treadmill.
ksec · · focus · HN ↗
But it is the only thing that will move Low Latency Computing forward. Everything in modern computing is slow, we might have increased throughput by 1000 or 10000x over the course of 30+ years. But latency has gone backwards, from Apps to OS UI response. Decent AR/VR experience mimicking the real world would require sub 10ms results. And this should finally force developers to take latency into account.
me551ah · · focus · HN ↗
Apple, Meta and other VR companies just keep throwing more and more VR hardware with better lenses and form, but the issue is content. If someone is spending 1200 bucks on this headset and playing/interacting with N64 level content, the novelty wears off pretty fast.
mark_l_watson · · focus · HN ↗
Wonderful toy, even though I only use it about 90 minutes a month it is worthwhile for me to own.
sigmoid10 · · focus · HN ↗
chaostheory · · focus · HN ↗
sigmoid10 · · focus · HN ↗
chaostheory · · focus · HN ↗
sigmoid10 · · focus · HN ↗
me551ah · · focus · HN ↗
The native experiences are too barebones and I don’t even use it untethered
jermaustin1 · · focus · HN ↗
I bought the Quest 3 as an upgrade because I had noticed my Quest 2 started having intermittent input lag issues. I never pinpointed what was causing it, but my Golf clubs would fly out of my hand and I'd have to wait a few seconds for them to eventually find their way back to me. My controllers would drift out of view when navigating menus. I uninstalled everything, reinstalled it again. When that didn't work, I upgraded.
The issues persisted in the new version as well. So for about the last 20-ish months, I've averaged under an hour a month, most months I don't even pick it up. I might do some homemade PC VR "experiments" (still have access to mouse and keyboard for the game, and not the controllers) on some random claude code experiments. I have a "cyberpunk" mobius strip space station walking sim I've been working on, that will eventually hook into a treadmill.