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> field of view...Limits of the technology

It really isn't though, at least not for long, as of mid 2023 there are publicly showcased compact lightweight prototypes with 240° FoV.




Well there’s FOV and there’s pixel density which are both too low right now and antagonistic to one another feature wise. There’s also display brightness which is an issue and I’m not sure how that fits in to the FOV/density spectrum. And then more pixels means more compute… That prototypes exist doesn’t necessarily mean much in a space that is full of prototypes showing off one particular feature. The very hard thing is to combine all of the desired features in to one consumer ready headset.


>Well there’s FOV and there’s pixel density which are both too low right now.

Exactly. You know what is the best "goggle" type display I ever saw (and I tried quite a few)? Recent FPV goggles (hdzero) that have 1930*1080 OLED displays at approximately 46 degrees fov. I'm very glad the manufacturer decided to use the his low fov instead of increasing it to 55deg and more like others. The picture is insanely crisp, and looks better than looking at a 4k display. Another huge benefit is that entire picture fits within your "focus cone" so there is no need to gaze around. It is not a VR display, it's purpose is different, but it shows us what visual quality is possible.

I'd love if manufacturers, if they can't make 16k displays that fill the entire fov, create variable pixel density displays. Best quality in the center. Deteriorating towards the edges. That would be much cheaper, but then for good illusion one would need eye tracking and motorised optics which would probably be more expensive in the end...

Oh, well, I'm pretty happy with my fpv goggles (for fpv) I just wish there was a way for them to display different picture for each eye. They already have head tracking, I wonder what VR would be like with this huge ppi narrow fov goggles. Would it be more or less immersive?


for those who don't know: FPV = first person view. Used for drone racing and things like that.


I'm pretty sure one of the varjo headsets had displays like you describe.


motorized displays also sounds HEAVY which is a big issue for a device intended to be used for long periods of time


they are paying the price for their obsession with super high resolution. I think it's a mistake, from my perception Quest 3 at 25ppd is nearly good enough, and its panels are nearly half the resolution. They should have traded 20% resolution for 10 deg FOV either side. In fact, with appropriate optics the effective resolutions sacrifice could be even less than that.


How is it to read text on the Quest 3? How would you compare it to a high-density display (such as what is on your phone)?


Well, it's no Retina screen. I'd say it's bit like reading text on a 1080p CRT at 96 dpi.

It's perfectly doable, but there's still a hint of fuzziness and we're still a couple generations away from crisp LCD text.

I care about my eyes, so I use a 4k screen at 2x scaling for coding, and will not use the Quest 3 for work, unless that involves playing games and watching videos.


Is there any evidence of pixelated text damaging eyes?



They only need hi-res where the user is looking, don't they?

We can't see what's in our peripheral vision clearly, so they should be able to get away with most of the FoV being blocky af, shouldn't they?


The goggle FoV is fixed right in front of you, but your eyes turn.




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