It's at least half a decade from that. VR is great, but it's going to remain niche until the tech improves on the tracking, motion sickness, and resolution dimensions and becomes affordable for the long tail.

There's also the issue of broad appeal. VR will remain a furry / anime / vtuber thing for awhile. Casual audiences aren't going to fit in.

AR is bullshit beyond Snap and Instagram lenses. Nobody is going to wear that full time outside of an industrial application.

Half a decade, try half a century.

There is no way that it will become a mainstream activity until vr headsets are as comfortable as a pair of reading glasses.

There also needs to be a major cultural shift. VR forces you to turn off your loved ones. You can't see or hear them at all.

Whats more, VR will only every occupy the space that gaming does now because it's an "active" activity that requires you to do something. It will never replace TV which allows you to turn off the decision making part of your brain.

Computer gaming shuts you off from your loved ones too. Most wear thick headphones.

VR has always been very social for my friends an I as we mirror the display to the tv so people can see. And the headset we use doesn't cover your ears so you can still talk.

Plus, vrchat and the likes feels much more intimate than any video game I've played. Many in my circle live too far to meet up IRL.

>VR forces you to turn off your loved ones. You can't see or hear them at all.

Not everyone has loved ones and not everyone's loved ones are physically near them.

> VR forces you to turn off your loved ones. You can't see or hear them at all.

But if they're in the same room, you can punch 'em in the face...

That made me laugh. I just pictured some kid in a VR headset punching is mom in the face. oops...sorry mom.....

Only, that's literally what happened. Thankfully, he's only 5, so it didn't actually hurt.

Motion sickness and tracking are solved problems. The biggest barrier is content (value prop right now is still not huge) and hardware comfort.

I'll believe it when I see it.

People get motion sick in a car or on a boat. Its not a software problem.

If your are attempting to build your VR experiences without moving the camera through the world then you'll be extremely hamstrung.

I really enjoyed Alyx, but building a simulation of this world that you can't actually walk around is just weird.

VR "looks" cool, but you can't do anything in it that you can't do just as easily using a traditional screen.

Motion sickness is not a solved problem. My wife and I both tried fairly recent headsets, both terribly motion sick.

It's not solved in consumer headsets, but the technology does exist.

I think the tracking is extremely precise by now.

Using a browser is actually viable even with low res headsets (tested rift S). While the low res is a constraint, turning your head quickly adjusts the viewport, so that your "virtual" resolution is quite good.

By the way, do these AR goggles solve the problem of focus distance?

(i.e. the eyes needs to focus onto an object if it is nearby, and shouldn't always focus on infinity)