At least when I think of what could be done with a virtual work environment, I imagine it being used to go beyond the limitations of a workstation. We’ve been stuck with the same peripherals for 50+ years, the same GUIs for 25 and we’ve been trying to balance sedentary office work with health for as long as we’ve had swivel chairs. VR allows you to be on your feet moving around and literally putting your hands into the computer while engaging with a truly 3D environment, if we can’t revolutionize work with those gimmes then we deserve our RSI and back pain.

While that sounds like it would work in theory, we've been experimenting with 3D interfaces for work for decades and... it just hasn't caught on. I used to have a 3D desktop application back in the day, where your character could walk through a virtual room to open up a browser, apps, etc. It was a gimmick. Nothing beats hitting cmd+space and three letters to start an app (besides having it open already / cmd-tabbing to it)

Sure some things would stay the same but what if I rephrased it and asked: if you had an infinite budget, what would your ideal office look like?

There have already been inklings of the new interfaces we could invent like Tilt Brush. We shouldn’t be thinking along the lines of how we could do easy things differently, we need to think how can we do hard things intuitively?

Edit: another consideration is that if we want to be less sedentary maybe it is worthwhile actually getting up and walking over to a filing cabinet in order to open a file browser. If it were an option it would probably be more effective than setting reminders to get up and move.

The headaches are commonly a result of low resolution, low frame-rate, insufficient lighting, or bad hardware design (too tight or heavy or not adjustable for your head/face/glasses/etc). These are nontrivial problems to solve.

Very much disagree. I have a Vive Cosmos Elite which has 90Hz refresh rate (pretty standard apart from the Index) and 1440x1700 resolution, which is a bit higher than the average. IMO it has the most comfortable halo ring design for the headband.

That said, I can spend about an hour in it. I can be having the time of my life but after an hour, I need to take a break if I want to jump back in.

I'd laugh in your face if you told me you planned on working 40 hour weeks in this thing.

I know plenty of people who claim they can't stare at a monitor for more than 30 minutes or they get headaches yet we don't laugh in the face of people who do stare at monitors all day long.

It sucks if it doesn't work for you. Hopefully they'll find solutions so more people can be comfortable. For those of us who are already comfortable we'll be happy to use what's available now.

Yes. Not to mention position tracking latency, frame latency, jittery/slow controls, mismatched depth cues (parallax vs. lens focus), and on and on...

I know what parallax is, but what is lens focus? Is that an area seeking improvement in AR research?

Close one eye and focus on something really close with the open eye. Notice that things that are far away are blurry. Now still with one eye open, focus on something far away, and notice that things nearby are blurry. VR doesn't replicate this.

This is a very active area of research, and I'm pretty confident it will be a standard feature within the next five years. There are also light field displays, which are super interesting, but I'm pretty sure they are cost prohibitive for consumer devices.

There's also the odd sensation you can get after extended VR use that your limbs arent really your limbs.

I can get that sensation once in a while when I'm driving for an hour or so in my car. My brain kinda makes the car an extended part of the body so it's a bit of a strange sensation to suddenly "rediscover" your arms and hands as your actual limbs. First time I experienced it I thought it was because I needed a break from driving but I wasn't even remotely tired or unfocused. I was maybe too much immersed like what happens in VR?

Same; even with 8K screens, I'm sure my mild eye problems (glasses) would cause enough issues for me to prefer a regular screen.

I mean I'd love to be proven wrong, put one of these things on and everything being full of stars, but at the moment I'm skeptical.

My experience with VR has been limited to an HTC Vive. While a game like Elite Dangerous feels great, I had a lot of trouble reading text on it. Probably the same reason why I can't get along with binoculars, I just can't seem to focus on things with both eyes?

> While a game like Elite Dangerous feels great, I had a lot of trouble reading text on it. Probably the same reason why I can't get along with binoculars, I just can't seem to focus on things with both eyes?

This is basically textbook definition of convergence insufficiency, which is underdiagnosed on a population level. You should absolutely see an ophthalmologist about it, preferably one at an academic medical institution, as they will be less likely to miss it. They can also modify your eyeglass prescription to help with this issue. This does warrant seeing an eye doctor over.

Here is some info on convergence insufficiency: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17895-converg...

These tips may help you, but probably not for VR: https://www.bouldervt.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/478/2015/...

I personally have severe convergence insufficiency (most middle-aged adults end up with mild convergence insufficiency and have prism/powered lenses) due to a rare immune mediated neurological condition. This requires me to see a neuro-ophtalmologist. I also have astigmatism and nearsightedness. I only wear glasses to read/drive/VR. I have lenses from VR Optician for my VR headsets.

My favorite way to read is using VR. I recommend using Retinopsy Look VR (link: https://www.viveport.com/5445b338-0944-49a8-80ce-7c0f4ea7709...) (which is only available on Viveport, however I have it set up to boot from Steam), which allows you to adjust the distance from screen (focal viewing length), screen size, screen curvature, and screen tilt. This helps tremendously with convergence insufficiency.

Anyways, I personally use Retinopsy Look VR in combination with a screenreader called Kurzweil 3000 (https://www.kurzweiledu.com/k3000-firefly/overview.html) which reads the text aloud to me. When the text is being read aloud, the sentence being read is highlighted in yellow while the word currently being read aloud is highlighted in green. This is done simultaneously, and it helps me better absorb the material.

>My experience with VR has been limited to an HTC Vive. While a game like Elite Dangerous feels great, I had a lot of trouble reading text on it. Probably the same reason why I can't get along with binoculars, I just can't seem to focus on things with both eyes?

You might have a problem focusing with both your eyes, but the reason you couldn't read the text in Elite was simply that the Vive is a very low resolution headset compared to more modern models. Everyone had to lean into the display screens to read them on that display.

Wearing a HMD reminds me of a diving mask - its a little awkward and can get fogged up and etc -- but the overall benefit of seeing underwater as an experience makes up for the inconvenience. My guess most of the problems are a result of limited early hardware and limited early software, both of which are expected to change over time ;}

I'd imagine it would just be for meetings that benefit from being able to share a space and work together on the same models.

I think the comment said he wanted an AR headset. Which is a bit different than VR.