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Comment by zmmmmm | Hacker News Reader

It's going to be interesting to see this compete with the Meta VR glasses. They are essentially identical for productivity except the Aura has physical light pass through while the VR glasses use external cameras to provide pass through. The Meta VR glasses will have better resolution I think, but then the Aura has access to the whole Android ecosystem - so that means real implementations of Microsoft Word etc.

But the real choice is the unfortunate one of who is least likely to abandon the whole thing when it doesn't take off and leave you with an un/poorly supported device. Both companies have terrible track records on this.

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Resolution matters a lot for productivity, and Meta's displays have more than twice the number of pixels. Image quality for the display will be much better on the Meta VR glasses because of the lack of interference from outside light. See-through displays sound good in theory but require too many compromises IMO. There's no such thing as "black" on a see-through display, only "transparent". Definitely try before you buy.

I feel like Meta's track record of VR device support has been decent enough. Quest Pro still gets updates even though it was discontinued almost two years ago. When they ended support for Oculus Go they released an update that unlocked the device and granted root access. I'm sure you can find some complaints on Reddit but looking at what they've actually done I think it looks pretty good.

Yes I actually agree with you on the support question.

Quest Pro is a good example though because yes, they provided OS updates. But they never released anything like the required software to address professional use cases that they suggested would happen when they launched it. That's where I harbor the doubts about support. I just don't think Meta "gets" professional / business use. They aren't built with that DNA as a company.

It's true that Meta hasn't provided much software support for productivity use cases. At least the Meta VR Glasses will have DisplayPort support. So if you don't like the software on the device it will still work as a portable monitor setup for your other devices.

They did have horizon workrooms.

Making that a compelling experience however they did not do.

I found it surprisingly compelling. Maybe not enough to justify forcing a bunch of people to wear a Quest for an hour, but there was definitely something there beyond what a Zoom call gives you. It was too early, but with much more comfortable glasses like this, and better face/body tracking, I could see people preferring it over Zoom.

Well I didn't like workrooms itself but some other solutions yes.

We did some testing and collaborating together on a whiteboard etc was working much better. It was also much easier to move around between breakout groups.

For the regular "one to many" death-by-powerpoint meetings I think teams is still the best (though to be honest, most of these are even better not being had at all).

But for more dynamic brainstorming/collaboration I think it is a plus. I used to prepare a whole meeting room with pictures and videos and sometimes even 3D objects of products. We tried it for a bit during covid as people could not travel anyway. But since then the interest faded, sadly.

> The Meta VR glasses will have better resolution I think, but then the Aura has access to the whole Android ecosystem - so that means real implementations of Microsoft Word etc.

Those aren't mutually exclusive though. Horizon OS is based on AOSP, and the more applications cross over into big screens on Android, the more Horizon gains the ability to leverage them too. Whether they actually show up in Facebook's store is a separate question, but I also have no idea how common the use of SideQuest is, just that the store is somewhat of an artificial limitation. (Google Play, on the other hand...)

> But the real choice is the unfortunate one of who is least likely to abandon the whole thing when it doesn't take off and leave you with an un/poorly supported device. Both companies have terrible track records on this.

Agreed. I would never buy a device like this from Facebook, and while glasses as a display are super useful, I don't necessarily see the need for a dedicated compute device for them when this experience could just as easily be powered by a phone. (I could maybe see replacing a phone with this, but more for particular minimalist crowds and not as a mass-market sell.)

> essentially identical for productivity

The devil is in the details. Every single UX design choice can have massive impact on productivity and creative tooling workflows. Don't predict anything based on the spec sheet.

The Oculus devices have and continue to have terrific support from Facebook

my entire interest in the meta vr glasses is on-device eye tracking; I think that interface concept has been under-explored.

What are you most excited about with that?

It solves the problem with hand tracking if done correctly (and only Apple has come close).

Hand-tracking is a terrible idea without micro gestures and eye tracking - because your arms tire very quickly and pointing at things is very inaccurate. There's a reason why brushes are more popular than finger painting)

Of course - we've already invented the optimum solution which is tracked 6dof controllers - but someone decided they aren't ever going to be mainstream so here we are...

Does 6dof require external trackers?

Meta will never be able to compete ecosystem wise with Apple or Google/Android

Meta quest is android.

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