From the GitHub this is only capable of 3DoF tracking, which puts it in the same category as the defunct Oculus Go headset, or Google Cardboard. 6DoF is really the bare minimum to qualify as proper VR nowadays.
For the uninitiated 3DoF means the headset only tracks the rotation of your head, not your heads absolute position as you move around, while 6DoF tracking does both. 6DoF is also much harder to implement.
3dof is sufficient, imho, for a large number of VR use cases, because most people don't have a full room dedicated to it, but is at a desk. Sitdown VR setups would be more common, if the equipment was cheaper.
Having experienced both 6DOF and 3DOF on my Quest 3, I can confidently say that 6DOF is leagues ahead even if you are sitting in a chair. Unless you are watching a 180° stereoscopic video, you'll want to look around to get the full experience, and even the small translation movements that result when you turn around can make the experience nauseating.
Besides, VR is already cheap. A new Quest 3S is just $300 and can do pretty much all of what the $3500 Vision Pro can do (just worse); if you just want VR games you can get used 6DOF-capable PCVR or PSVR headsets on eBay for closer to $100.
> Quest3S … pretty much all of what the … VisionPro can do
It can’t do that “protecting your privacy” thing. And that’s a dealbreaker for many, many people.
Also have to hard disagree. I remember going from the Oculus DevKit2 to the Vive, seeing the change in people we'd invite over for "I'm done trying to convince you with words just Come over and try out VR" evenings.
6DOF, even when sitting, is a significant difference. Your brain immediately feels far more at home with good 6DOF.
Fun fact : one week I spent about 5-6 hours every evening playing Elite Dangerous in VR. Mining asteroids while listening to lofi cyberpunk and pretending that mining was my whole life, it was great. Until my partner would bop me on the back of the head ^_^
6DOf not only necessary for room scale. Lack of parallax of 3DOF a common cause of discomfort for many. I’ve been in the space for a decade and given hundreds of demos to people.
I very much disagree, your view in vr tracking your head as it does small movements in xyz significantly increases immersion, and more importantly, significantly decreases motion sickness and fatigue.
Close one eye and those sound like TV use cases.
They also said their mission is for creators. Seems to me 3D is fine for that
Never understood why my GCardboard couldn’t do that, my phone sure has a bunch of accelerometers and giros. Sure higher and other techs can track better but isn’t it enough for a basic sense of mouvement? For most of the applications I won’t more than a few meter anyway.
Probably some have tried and I’ll be curious to know what prevent it.
The problem with accelerometers and gyros is they drift badly if you try to derive absolute positioning from them alone. They need to be fused with some other form of tracking to anchor them in absolute space, which in the case of the Quest and Vision Pro is done with multiple outward-facing cameras fed into a SLAM algorithm.
Maybe Cardboard could have attempted to use the phones camera for SLAM, but a single lens would only have got them so far. Dedicated VR headsets have at least four cameras pointing in different directions, which are sometimes augmented by IR projectors and/or LiDAR.
Most phones have a couple cameras nowadays… I think the Pro iPhones (some, at least) even have some sort of lidar system that seems like it ought to be helpful? Anyway, it is a shame, I guess the market must not have been there.
Most phones use a rolling shutter, so doing machine vision for low-latency motion/pose is difficult or unfeasible on a mobile cpu.
Best regards =3
Lots of quadcopter flight controllers use 9DOF IMUs , with 3 gyros, 3 accelerometers, and 3 compasses. The absolute directional data from the compasses solves (at least most of) the angular/gyro drift.
The translational drift is harder for VR/AR headsets indoors. Drones can do sensor fusion with GPS and the accelerometers to solve translational drift from the accelerometers (or, for FPV drones, they just let the meatware compensate).
LADAR/3D-cameras or LIDAR are both expensive parts with limited capabilities. Note rapid pose-recovery using cameras and or SLAM has been tried, but again people end up pooching the CPU/power budget.. and rolling camera shutters are useless... difficult to deploy as a wearable tech.
A few years back, we did design a set of <160USD parts to get repeatable absolute head and controller spacial location/pose to sub +-3mm in a room. The key was being able to resolve stable _absolute_ pose at >24Hz with <10kiB/s of low-latency data to handle. i.e. a small generic mcu _quickly_ handles the dual kalman filters and IMU sensors fusion, and battery life is reasonable.
Now build your own versions, it is not that hard... ask Alphabet/Meta/Apple... lol...
Those new 3D lenticular screens look pretty cool, but the prices are still not for consumer hardware yet.
Best of luck =3
Dead reckoning using MEMS IMUs accumulates error way too fast.
even if you supplement with GPS?
That works if you're building a cruise missile, but not so much if you need millimeter accuracy indoors.
Ah! So it could 6DoF if I run outdoor fast enough with MarathonSimulator
especially given the camera, it seems like you could do some kind of motion tracking. I guess a Quest has 4 cameras for motion tracking so 1 isn't enough. Though maybe putting a 180degree wide angle lens over it would let it do the work for 4?
This was 4 years ago. The team has now become https://unison.co/
Founded 2021, part of YC in 2022, any news on how the product is shaping up?
Related. Others?
Relativty – An open-source VR headset - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24431052 - Sept 2020 (222 comments)
Relativ – A VR headset that you can build yourself for $100 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16195055 - Jan 2018 (84 comments)
It isn't a $200 headset. It's a headset you have to build yourself (including 3D printing and soldering) with $200 worth of parts. Huge difference between the two.
It depends. Do you have paid extra work for the time you would use on building this?
Everyone who is capable of building this thing has the option to take on paid extra work doing /something/, even if it's tutoring rich college brats in calculus at $50/hr.
I wish that would be the case.
All of our time has a value.
That is true. But only specific kind of time can be used on acquiring the desired VR headset with specific time/value ratio.
Yes
Here's an overview of current VR hardware.[1] This is by Phia, who is a VR native. She's been trying everything in VR since she was a teenager.
The most recent advance is Bigscreen.[2] Wired headset display, weighs 127 grams, good screens and optics, about US$1000. We're starting to see the end of the brick you wear on your head era.
Edit: I now realize that it is actually relativty, without the second ‘I’
The relativity.com domain could not have been cheap, even if leased.
I’m surprised they are making a new brand, “Unai”/unison.co, instead of continuing with Relativity.
Clicking through the parts list, somewhat wildly <10cm inch 2k displays appear to be available for <$50 now. After a quick look I can't find much north of that in terms of resolution, but surely there has to be _something_ between this and the SOTA 4k+ displays going in high end headsets. If those exist then the last major barrier I can think of to DIY is the magic lenses required to make those screens viable when <50mm from an eyeball.
That company name is not easy to remember how to spell.
This will be nice for Maker projects, but I don't see it getting traction without 6DOF
probably better buying a psvr for $150... Great quality headset with solid linux support.
love to see more quest 3s hacking tho ($270)
Defeat the Index in some metric and get support from VRChat and I'm in 8)
I feel like the future would declare monitors to be old technology. And everyone will migrate to eye mount displays.
That’s kind of my dream for programming actually.
A belt-mounted split keyboard on my thighs, and limitless screen space in a serene setting provided by VR. Won’t need a standing desk at all!
Sounds dystopic to me. I don’t always look at the display when typing. Having no way to look away is visual prison to me.
Nowadays you can have a floating display in AR that stays in the same spot, as if it’s a physically grounded monitor. You can look away and it stays where it is.
> Having no way to look away is visual prison to me.
This makes the advertisers happy.
It's too expensive. The Meta Quest 3S is $300.
Is it possible to use it these days without Facebook account.
Yes, you use a meta account that has no ties to Facebook. Mine is under an alias with absolutely no connection to any social feeds or network.
Unless you count Meta Horizon Worlds which is kind of a joke.
Can you use any device these days without creating an online account?
My monitor does not require online account yet - I don’t see why my VR classes should either.
Quest headsets aren't monitors and don't get their input from a computer. They are standalone devices with a consumer OS and app store, much like your PC or smartphone.
I wonder how it is then mentioned in this context. It is not comparable at all.
The name of this product is infuriating.
Oh boy, I didn't even notice until I read your comment!
Nvm I see it now
Why is that? I don’t see any problems with this particular name. Valve index and oculus rift aren’t that amazing either.
The name is Relativty, which is one 'i' off from the normal spelling of relativity.
"RelativityVR" or similar would arguably be equally good for search, clearer purpose/context from the get-go, and much easier to communicate, vs " 'Relativity', but without second 'I' " ...
It's more searchable?
No, it will just get auto-corrected. Removing a letter from a word as a brand name is dumb; it is no different than parents naming their kid a normal name with stupid spelling and thinking they are original/creative.
Put quotes around brand names.