Gateway to the metaverse: Top AR glasses and VR headsets you can buy right now
It can be hard to wrap your head around the "metaverse," the expanding galaxy of online experiences that companies like Apple, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) and Microsoft envision as the next stage for the internet. Fortunately, the curious don't merely have to imagine this emerging digital domain — you can start to explore it today.
Your ticket: One of the interconnected augmented and virtual reality devices that are now on the market and that allow you to tap into a growing class of immersive video games, workplace collaboration tools, non-fungible tokens and other applications that seek to meld the physical and digital worlds.
"The metaverse is not just a virtual reality that we opt into instead of real life," said Michael Pachter, a tech and gaming analyst with investment firm Wedbush. "It'll be a diverse experience for everyone, a lot like today's internet. When you work, you might sit at a traditional desktop, and on the go you use a phone. One does not replace the other. Instead, different devices enhance and extend your experience. The metaverse will be similar."
It's important to note that, in its current form, the metaverse exists as a primordial soup of old and new technologies — as well as some advancements that are still on the drawing board. It will require updated cloud infrastructure, novel operating systems and fully immersive apps. This software layer will rest on top of augmented and virtual reality hardware.
"Gaming is the 'killer app' of the metaverse," Pachter said. "It's the thing everyone can understand right away. So are work apps. These products will push early adoption."
While it might take a decade or more for the market to mature, major tech firms are already investing billions in metaverse products. The gateway for most of us will be VR and AR glasses. For example, Apple is likely to enter the augmented reality headset market soon, according to media reports, with a pricier device targeted at early adopters. The iPhone-maker's biggest rivals, and dozens of startups, have had a head start designing mixed-reality products for businesses and consumers.
Following are some of the most interesting metaverse products that you can buy and use now.
Augmented Reality
HoloLens 2 - $3,500
A photo illustration of Microsoft's Hololens 2 mixed-reality headset, currently aimed at businesses in manufacturing, health care and other industries, but foreshadowing a diverse range of potential uses for mixed reality in the near future. Microsoft
Microsoft's Hololens is expensive, and it's not built for consumers — yet. The mixed-reality headset is aimed at businesses in manufacturing, health care and other industries, but it originated as a headset for Microsoft's Xbox gaming console nicknamed Baraboo. The Baraboo's screen was blurry and the device heavy. It wasn't clear Microsoft knew how to market the headset which was eventually scrapped before being re-conceived as a business tool.
The Hololens 2 is lightweight and the image quality is crisp. Unlike other virtual reality products that totally block users' vision, the Hololens makes it easy to switch focus from the real world to virtual images on screen. Its software is designed to aid business collaboration, and the headset is clearly priced for corporate customers. That said, it's easy to imagine Microsoft, which also owns the Xbox brand and several game development studios, producing similar headsets for gaming.
Perhaps more than any other device, the Hololens 2 foreshadows a diverse range of potential uses for mixed reality.
Lenovo ThinkReality A3 - $1,499
Lenovo's augmented reality glasses mimic a large virtual workstation and connect with Windows laptops to enable remote collaboration features. The device comes with swappable lenses and frames, allowing it to be customized for comfort.
Magic Leap 1 - $2,295
AR pioneer Magic Leap's first product is underpowered and requires a somewhat clunky external processing unit. The experience, however, can be stunning. It is also the first professional AR device to offer prescription lens compatibility. In short, Magic Leap's first product may be flawed, but it explains why creative professionals are hyped about AR.
Bonus: Your Smartphone
You can experiment with creating and viewing augmented reality right now, if you're running an iPhone with iOS11 or newer, or a modern Android device. Both mobile device manufacturers offer software development kits that let independent developers and large companies build AR apps. Get started now with apps for iOS and Android.
Virtual Reality
Meta Quest 2 - $399
Meta's Oculus Quest 2 is one of the most accessible and affordable VR headsets currently available. Unlike many of its rivals, the wireless device runs apps and games natively and is easy to use. Meta
It's easy to understand why Meta is hot on the metaverse. The social media company exists on today's smartphones as a suite of applications — Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram — that effectively makes it subject to the rules of companies like Apple and Google. For instance, recent iOS updates limited the information Meta could gather from iPhone users.
As a result, Meta wants to create both the hardware — the Oculus VR headsets, for example — and the software needed to navigate the metaverse. That would help avoid a similar quandary, where the company becomes dependent on its VR competitors.
Meta's Oculus Quest 2 is one of the most accessible and affordable VR headsets currently available. Unlike many of its rivals, the wireless device does not require a beefy PC. It runs apps and games natively and is easy to use.
The downside is that the apps are limited and the device is low-resolution compared to its more expensive rivals. The headset also requires a Facebook login, though the company says this will change soon.
With the Quest 2's successor expected in 2022, Meta has an opportunity to both grab a lot of first-time VR consumers and retain their current users by offering a compelling new product. If it's anything like the current Oculus suite of VR headsets, Meta's next headset could be a runaway success.
Valve Index - $999
Video game publisher Valve owns Steam, one of the largest online video game markets in the world. So it makes sense that the Valve also makes the Index VR kit. This expensive system ships with a massive visor, location sensors, controller wands and power supply, and requires a powerful external PC. If you can get past those hurdles, the Index offers an unrivaled VR gaming experience.
Vive Flow - $499
HTC's Vive Flow is a relatively affordable, accessible and portable VR system. The glasses' integrated software focuses on mental and physical health. The device also comes with a smartphone app to help track and manage the time you spend in VR.
Bonus: Google Cardboard - $15
Google Cardboard costs $15 and uses your smartphone as a screen. Cardboard apps are easy to download and generally focus on education and entertainment.
Google Cardboard is an affordable and simple way to experiment with virtual reality. The company sells cardboard kits that use your smartphone as a screen. Cardboard apps are easy to download and generally focus on education and entertainment.
In short, the metaverse now resembles the internet in the 1990s, Wedbush's Pachter said. "It's cool to be an early adopter, but the only thing we know is that we don't know the real winners of 'Web 3' stuff like the metaverse. Meta's Oculus has a big first-mover advantage, and Apple knows how to make products people like. But in 1996, the winners looked like AOL Messenger and Microsoft's Internet Explorer."
Why VR (& VR Headsets) Can Cause Serious Eye Strain & Pain
When using virtual reality headsets, as many as 70 percent of users complain of nausea and dizziness, according to ABC News. The realism of the simulation can affect how a user perceives the space around them, leading to general discomfort that sometimes manifests as motion sickness. Eye strain and pain are common issues when using VR headsets. When people use VR, they strain their eyes to focus on the image they see, but what they are actually doing is focusing their eyes on a pixelated screen.
Virtual reality is a computer-generated simulation of a real or imagined environment. Most modern and consumer applications of this use a headset to see the environment.
When using VR, a user’s brain is forced to process visual stimuli in a different way than normal. This can cause eye strain, which is simply a case of the eye muscles becoming fatigued. Eye strain will not cause long-term problems, but it is a sign that the eyes and brain need a break from the activity.
Simply resting and not using VR headsets for too long will help to avoid eye strain.
Because children’s brains are still developing their sense of sight and perception, they should probably not use VR headsets.
What Is Virtual Reality?
Virtual reality, or VR, is a technology that allows people to interact with computer-simulated environments. The environments can depict real-world settings for training or therapeutic purposes, or fantastical ones for gaming and recreation.
Most virtual reality systems are visually delivered, either displayed on a computer screen or through a special headset that users wear. The full headset is required in order to completely take up their field of vision and eliminate the sight of real-world objects and settings.
People interact with the VR world by using a keyboard and a mouse, or a specially calibrated gloves and controllers, to simulate movement and interaction with elements within the VR world.
VR Headsets & Eye Strain
When using virtual reality headsets, as many as 70 percent of users complain of nausea and dizziness, according to ABC News. The realism of the simulation can affect how a user perceives the space around them, leading to general discomfort that sometimes manifests as motion sickness.
Eye strain and pain are common issues when using VR headsets. When people use VR, they strain their eyes to focus on the image they see, but what they are actually doing is focusing their eyes on a pixelated screen.
The current generation of headsets does not completely address the optical issues that come with a device that has to be used so close to the eyes. VentureBeat points out that virtual reality headsets ask the brain and the eyes to process visual information in ways that do not come naturally. Indeed, “the brain has to fight against its normal (functioning)” in order to make sense of what the VR screens are telling it, which is what causes some people to have headaches and eye pain after using a headset.
Human beings have a typical field of view of 200 degrees (how much a person can see around them at any given moment), 140 degrees for binocular vision (the overlapping field of view, which allows us to perceive depth), and 60 degrees for peripheral vision (what we can see out the corners of our eyes). Consumer VR headsets only have 35 degrees field of vision, which is what causes the brain to struggle to perceive distance and relative space within the VR environment. This is also what puts pressure on the eyes to try and determine where “things” are in that environment.
Is Eye Strain Dangerous?
Eye strain is not unique to VR headsets, but it is nonetheless a risk. Eye strain happens when the eyes are put through intense use. It is a form of fatigue. Any eye discomfort caused by focusing the eyes on an object (or objects) for long periods of time would be considered eye strain, whether this happens while looking at a computer screen, reading in poor visibility, driving for extended periods of time, or using a virtual reality headset.
Eye strain is known as asthenopia, and it is also referred to as eye fatigue. Symptoms include tired eyes, which simply means difficulty with focusing vision, blurry vision, headaches, and sometimes double vision. These usually result from intense use of the eyes for visual tasks, often without adequate eye care and breaks.
Eye strain can be painful and frustrating, but as the American Academy of Ophthalmology writes, it is not a serious condition, and it can be quickly and easily remedied. Usually, all it requires is a break from the activity and a short period of rest, allowing the eyes and brain to heal.
There are some cases in which eye strain is a symptom of a more serious eye condition, which would require optometric treatment. For the most part, however, timing VR sessions to allow for breaks, or limiting the use of the headsets, will reduce instances of eye strain.
Sometimes, with intense use of the eyes, people unintentionally and subconsciously clench their facial muscles or frown. Doing this for too long can also add to eye strain because the muscles in and around the eyes are not allowed to rest. Additionally, the pain of eye strain can also compel people to clench and frown (either to get through the discomfort or because they don’t know what’s causing it), leading the eyes to continue to suffer.
VR Disorientation & Impact on Eyesight
One of the realities of virtual reality events is dealing with some level of disorientation during or after the experience. Players endure varying degrees of it. Individuals who have motion sickness or vertigo will experience exaggerated signs of disorientation when using VR. But if play too long without a break, you can get disoriented.
The type of game you play also determines the extent of disorientation you will experience. Those involving flying or falling are more likely to cause spatial disorientation, but playing even stationary games can cause it.
And it can lead to eye strain. The two LCD monitors projected at each eye creates a stereoscopic effect leading to the depth illusion. While you get the immersive experience, your eyes strain to focus on the different objects within the game. It’s similar to staring at a screen for extended periods.
Sight experts recommend spending no more than 30 minutes in VR without a break. After half an hour of gaming, you're likely to lose spatial orientation and awareness of the space around you. You might not be able to accurately locate items in the real world when wearing the headset.
Before playing any VR game, the first step should be to clear the gaming area of anything you could knock over or run into during the game. Remove all the furniture, cables and ensure children or pets are not in the vicinity especially if you're having a full-room VR experience. This should help with any associated disorientation.
Users of HTC Vive and the like need to clear their gaming area to avoid accidents resulting from spatial issues.
Dry Eyes
Virtual reality headsets can be quite heavy — anywhere from 300 grams to well over 1,000 grams — and using the sets for an extended period of time can put a great deal of pressure on the eye sockets and face. This will likely also contribute to eye strain.
Additionally, most people tend to blink less than normal when carrying out visual tasks that require concentration, especially in gaming. A decrease in blinking can cause the surface of the eyes to become dry, which leads to eye pain and dry eyes. This is particularly true with a VR headset, which can be both heavy and hot to use.
VR headsets can be calibrated to account for refractive errors (the necessity for glasses for nearsightedness, farsightedness, or both), but a user who has such problems with their eyesight and uses a VR headset will likely still suffer from eye strain if they use the headset too much.
Eye strain can be uncomfortable and even painful if exacerbated. However, there are no long-term consequences to it. There have been no reported or known cases of eye strain causing damage to the eyes or chronic problems to vision.
That being said, eye strain can still be disruptive. If a user does not take a break from their VR experience, they will likely struggle with physical and mental fatigue, headaches, and other associated problems, such as a loss in productivity.
How to Avoid Eye Strain
When using a virtual reality headset, the following good practices will reduce instances and severity of eye strain:
Calibrate the display settings so the projected images are not too sharp or too bright.
Make sure to consciously blink when using the headset.
Take the headset off at regular, frequent intervals.
Massage the eyes and temples when the headset is off.
While the headset is off, stand up, walk around, take deep breaths, and stretch.
In the event that the eye strain persists, over-the-counter artificial tears can help to reduce discomfort in the eyes. If all else fails, an ophthalmologist should be consulted.
Are There Vision Benefits to VR Headsets?
Although VR headsets are primarily linked to potential harm to vision, they can improve vision in different individuals. For instance, headsets can help individuals with low order vision abnormalities like nearsightedness regain their sight. IrisVision, a California-based VR headset and software company, has used them to help thousands of vision-impaired people to gain better eyesight.
With the guidance of an eye-care specialist, you can use the VR headset to enhance eye coordination, depth perception, reaction time and hand-eye coordination.
If you have amblyopia (lazy eye), using VR headsets properly can help visual acuity.
Are Headsets Safe for Kids?
Although the American Academy of Ophthalmology notes that there is no threat of permanent vision damage as the result of using VR headsets, Scientific American writes that the “vergence-accommodation conflict” poses a risk in child use of VR.
The “conflict” is the process of how the eyes work. First, the eyeballs look in the general direction of an item (vergence), and then the brain focuses the lenses in the eyeballs (accommodation). When the two processes come together, this creates a picture that the brain can process.
Similar to the field of view problem mentioned earlier, today’s virtual reality headsets can, at best, only simulate an illusion of depth. They do this by showing a marginally different image on each screen (one in front of the left eye, and the other in front of the right eye). This means that, regardless of how far away the object appears in the VR simulation, the eyes are still focused on a fixed point, even though they are converging on something that looks farther away.
An optometrist speaking to Scientific American suggested that this is the same reason some people experience eye strain when watching a 3D movie.
VR Headsets & Eye Health
This will likely only be a problem if the person experiencing the symptoms already had weak eye movement and control. People with this problem are likely already susceptible to eye strains and headaches.
Children who experience this when they use VR will probably have to wear corrective lenses as they grow up. In an unexpected way, VR headsets may alert parents and optometrists to problems waiting to happen.
There remains no established research on the full range of effects that virtual reality headsets have on children’s vision. This is partially because of obvious ethical concerns, but also because headset manufacturers would not want to appear medically and legally liable for their products inducing headaches and eye strains in young consumers.
Researchers have pointed to other issues of exposing children to VR. Children are still learning how to tell fantasy from reality, and some of the content they might see in a VR setting might be too traumatic for them to adequately process.
While virtual reality is not inherently unhealthy or dangerous, doctors recommend being safer, rather than sorry, when it comes to children using it. This is both for their mental health, as well as to let their eyes develop normally.
References
The Important Difference Between Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality. (July 2019). Forbes.
The Complete Guide To Virtual Reality – Everything You Need To Get Started. (November 2016). The Guardian.
Why You Feel Motion Sickness During Virtual Reality. (August 25, 2019). ABC News.
We’re Not Talking About What VR Is Doing to Our Eyes … And Our Brains. (April 18, 2015). VentureBeat.
Cameras vs. the Human Eye. Cambridge in Colour.
Eye Strain. (November 2019). MedicineNet.
Eye Strain: What Makes Your Eyes Feel Tired. (October 2018). American Academy of Ophthalmology.
How to Keep Your Battery From Overheating When Using a Virtual Reality Headset. TechNorms.
Dry Eye Syndrome (Dry Eyes, Keratoconjunctivitis Sicca). (May 2018). MedicineNet.
Five Surefire Ways to Reduce Computer Eyestrain. (June 2012). CNET.
Lubricating Eye Drops. (August 2018). American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Are Virtual Reality Headsets Safe for Children? (October 4, 2016). Scientific American.
Virtual Reality Sickness: A Review of Causes and Measurements. (July 2, 2020). International Journal of Human Computer Interaction.
Can VR headsets harm your eyes? (May 2021). All About Vision.
Will Apple VR glasses be good for the enterprise?
Despite the hype, we don’t really know what affect VR/AR experiences will have on productivity once these immersive experiences scale out into the enterprise — but we should already recognize the risk of unintended consequences.
Be careful when you follow the virtual path
The optimism of good intention is one thing. But if we’ve learned nothing else in recent years, it is surely how powerful technologies can also be used against us. Think of the ugly consequences of Facebook and social conditioning, of artificial intelligence on employment, or even the security implications of having your entire life on a smartphone in an era also defined by NSO Group.
Why would VR/AR be any different?
Apple is expected to introduce its take on wearable VR/AR in 2022 or early in 2023. As noted, these Apple Glasses will likely use M-series processors, provide immersive experiences, and offer advanced sensors to help you navigate the world you're in, not just the virtual or augmented environment you're exploring.
Recently leaked source code suggests the device will run a realityOS system, though analysts — including Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty — don’t really expect these things to have a huge impact on Apple’s income for a few years yet.
Collision control
One emerging unexpected consequence is collision control. Meta Reality Labs had a holiday season success on sales of the Oculus Quest 2 headsets in 2021. But that success also spurred numerous domestic accidents, as reported by home contents insurer Aviva, which experienced a 31% increase in home contents claims involving use of VR headsets.
These claims, average value: $880, included incidents like the one in which a man swung a punch in his virtual world and accidentally struck his ceiling fan.
While lost in immersive worlds, people are wrecking their furniture, destroying valuable ornaments, and accidentally smashing their TV. Reflecting the growing deployment of VR headsets, the insurer claims incidents of this kind have climbed 68% in five years.
People trying out this technology clearly need to have better insight into what’s happening around them in the non-virtual world to use these gadgets safely.
But what about the enterprise?
If damage is bad in consumer’s homes, what about the enterprise market? There’s so much expectation that once businesses engage with AR/VR solutions, they will be able to unlock new levels of productivity. But is the tech yet ready to unleash in that way?
Think about warehousing. Will workers collide with shelves full of valuable stock, or will remote fork lift drivers accidentally damage more? Can businesses safely function while employees are ensconced in immersive virtual productivity experiences?
I think Aviva’s data shows the jury may need a little more time to consider.
There’s a difference between augmented and virtual reality, of course. The latter consists of more complete experiences that fill sight and sound with completely different environments.
The former can consist of solutions that overlay valuable information above your lived environment. Those warehouse workers may find themselves guided to the shelves they need with interactive maps superimposed above their environments, or a surgeon may see case notes and relevant resources made available while maintaining their focus on the matter in hand.
But even there, we can’t yet accurately predict the extent to which even augmented information may distract a user at an inappropriate moment, and what the consequences of such distraction may be.
What Apple may be planning
Apple’s longer-term ambition in Apple glasses is thought to involve a lightweight pair of spectacles equipped with AR features. In the short-term, however, it’s thought the company intends on introducing a mixed-reality headset. This would provide immersive experiences like VR goggles from other manufacturers, including Quest 2 and others.
Recently, we’ve heard claims Apple’s plan extends to use of VR for FaceTime chats, and it seems seriously probable the company will have a raft of Arcade games, Music, TV+, and other experiences ready to go as it works to ramp up the services component around its new platform. We’ve discussed this extensively in the past. This may extend to the Apple’s consumer-focused SharePlay feature.
What we don’t know yet are the unexpected consequences, or the extent to which they may negate any of the productivity benefits the devices are expected to provide. (Aviva’s news certainly suggests effective collision and movement detection will be mandatory to optimize these outcomes.)
With this in mind, it is interesting that Apple is thought to be developing glasses equipped with two powerful M-series processors: one to provide the experience, the other to handle real-world sensor data.
If Apple manages to build a situationally-aware solution that can deliver immersive VR, while making sure users don’t collide with their surroundings, then it may be able to reassure enterprises to at least give its AR goggles a look.
A similar set of situationally-aware accident-avoidance technologies will, incidentally, also be required within autonomous vehicles, including Apple’s future car.
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