Ask HN: Best VR headset for productivity? (multiple screens, etc.) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best VR headset for productivity? (multiple screens, etc.)

6 pointsmettamage7 comments

Hi! I just bought an Oculus Quest 2 to try out VR. I figured that enough games looked fun (e.g. Eleven Table Tennis) and it might offer a productivity boost (via an app like Immersed).

I noticed that the Oculus Quest 2 almost seems to be there, but the DPI seems to be a bit lower than I'd like. I do think I'd be able to get used to it, so it's not too much of a problem. With that said, I do think there's a lot of room for improvement there.

So my question to you is: according to you which VR headset is the best for productivity?

I don't have the money for it, but I figure that one could really pack a punch with the Varjo XR 3 (multiple screens in AR). The pricing isn't really consumer friendly though.

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SO the Quest 2 has the following resolution. 1832x1920 per eye. I have the vive pro 2 which is slightly higher with 2448 × 2448 per eye.

I've tried to load up VS Code on multiple products including the steam floating desktop and have found we just aren't there yet. I really wanted the windows for productivity to just swap focus between documentation, environment, database etc.

I think a lot of work needs to go into rendering fonts in vr alongside of ux design around productivity software. Even at 2448x2448 writing code just wasn't fully crisp.

So I guess the Varjo aero might be the only contender then for (high end) consumer headsets that might already be there.

Would it be viable to use Vim in a terminal with big enough font size for programming with Quest 2 (perhaps via SSH connection to proper Linux system)?

I've played with both the Quest 2 and the OG Vive and have never really been able to find a way to conveniently use it for productivity. The main issue that no headset seems to really have been able to solve is text legibility at any reasonable, real-life text scales (i.e. 12pt fonts are perfectly legible 2+ feet away in real life but few, if any, headsets are able to pull it off). Now, you can work with 36pt fonts and enormous system UI controls, but that almost defeats the purpose of virtual displays because you end up seeing less than you would be able to with a conventional display.

It's definitely not a walk in the park atm.

I see what you mean, but I have to say, I think you can get used to this (as I alluded to earlier). What VR enables, for example, is a custom tiling system since that's how the virtual screens could be used. I'm currently using it that way and especially on the center of your eye, the text is quite readable, so it's less looking with your eyes and more looking with your head/neck.

You're on the bleeding edge so you're probably on your own. Do you get motion sickness on the Quest 2 or have they fixed that issue?

I got motion sickness when I was playing a zero G frisbee game when you were flying around. I did not get motion sickness playing ping pong. In fact, playing ping pong in VR feels as real to me as playing ping pong IRL. I am not a professional ping pong player though, because I'm sure they'd feel the difference! ;-)

As for using Immersed and using multiple screens in the app: no, no motion sickness at all either.

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