Still goes with the unibody design, which is understandable for keeping costs down. I don’t mind personally as I like the idea of adding my own headstrap that suits me best (most likely just a vive DAS).
No eye/face tracking is surprising, but apparently meta’s implementation is expensive but very accurate. I’m wondering if there will be the a Quest 3 with eye/face tracking for a couple of hundred more.
I’m guessing this will be released next year. If it is high res, like 25PPD+, then I could potentially see myself getting one assuming it’s still like 299/399. Would use it as a monitor replacement for working in while away from my home office. Seems interesting overall, the addition of a depth sensor is good to see. Also seems like it will go with self tracking controllers also, which is actually very surprising for something trying to keep costs down.
I was surprised that SadlyItsBradley found that surprising. I don’t see how its surprising at all. This is a headset being built to a very minimal price point. And its main mission is gaming for the masses. I think this is an obvious differentiator for Meta’s Pro models. If the basic Quest did everything the Pro does, why buy pro?
It’s still mounting an XR2, so I wouldn’t expect any more resolution or FOV than the Quest Pro.
I think the apparent camera arrangement necessitates the controllers tracking themselves. Note the lack of upward facing cameras like the Quest 2 has. This headset has a limited number of cameras it can handle, and it is reallocating them to different missions than they had on the Quest 2. I think that makes a lot of sense.
I think it was surprising as Zuckerberg said it was the most important feature that he wanted to be in everything going forward ( I think that was during his Joe Rogan interview, or maybe Lex Fridman). Seeing how much he seems to dictate directly the direction of the company, I was surprised but you’re right in your elaborations.
All signs seem to be pointing to the XR2 Gen 2. That said, I do expect the same FOV but higher resolution panels still provide a benefit even if not driven at a higher resolution, but yeah they need to keep costs down and it would be intended primarily for standalone use so not really much send to bump the resolution much. Seems like a good place to keep costs low.
Yeah, all of that makes sense. I’m just surprised by the controllers due to them needing their own chips and dedicated batteries etc. It quickly makes it much more expensive. That said…I think they might sell it without controllers for very cheap with greatly improved hand tracking. Then have a bundle with the controllers and dock for a bit more. That way they can probably hit the magical 299 mark with just the headset.
That is a very good point that I hadn’t considered. Selling them without the controllers at all and leaving the controllers as an add-on. Yes, they may just do that.
And I hate the implications that would have for VR gaming.
I think gaming is a stepping stone in meta’s eyes to social XR. That said, I believe they will try to skip that stepping stone too soon and fall flat on their face.
IF, and that’s a big: “if”, we can get perfect hand tracking, I for one will loudly cheer finally getting rid of the detestible lumps of remote control junk, with buttons, and sticks, and such garbage, that we are currently forced to hold onto (even when strapped into your hand), to interact in VR.
(Meanwhile, it looks like “Lucas VRTech” is dropping all the the spindly strings for the next version of his DIY force feedback gloves, in favour of flexible splines – promising. :7)
Isn’t leap motion hand tracking already pretty much perfect? Like available on the current headsets. I think the issue is moreso hand tracking support, rather than hand tracking technology itself.
Also haptics. I have tried a few hand tracking experiences where the hand tracking itself is great but it is quite limited in terms of experiences that I would be willing to use it in. For example, I could see myself using it in games that are like magic and gesture based but for something like a flight sim where I would be flicking switching or pulling levels etc, I really need some sort of feedback. Otherwise I actually prefer controllers.
Ah, I should have finished reading lol. I was thinking just hand tracking, but yeah good haptic gloves are a definite future dream tech, Like if they were accurate enough you could have “controllers” in your hand that aren’t actually there. That’'s the dream for sure. It’s a5 years minimum off imo though.
My experience with it in “the Pimax Experience” (using the Pimax-tailored model) is abysmal.
At first glance it seemed kind of ok… A fair bit of latency - yeah that is to be expected; A bit offset… ok, not surprising - “surely it can be calibrated somewhere, right?”; Really easy to occlude - again not surprising, given limited FOV and viewpoint…
But then one try to use it… It is just not possible to trust the virtual hands to realiably reflect one’s real world ones – they bend and wobble more or less randomly, and reaching out to press something in the PE GUI seems to bring the hand past some critical distance from the device, because suddenly the fingers will curl and warp as if colliding with some invisible pane of glass an inch or two in front of the button, even if the hand is held up perpendicular to the cameras, and the fingers are held clearly separated in view.
I had retained some hope for it, even after my heart sank when I learned Leap Motion uses regular visible light imagery cameras, rather than the Realsense stuff I had previously believed they were. The actual experience was disappointing.
