How does a virtual reality headset work? What are some of its advantages and disadvantages over normal displays?
I am continuously working and developing applications for VR headsets since 2014 (Oculus Rift DK1/DK2), and I can say with relative confidence that the basic VR headset is just: 1) a display attached to your head, with 2) a set of lenses to allow focus the vision over ultra short distance, and 3) a tracking solution to know the position of your head and correct the perspective (eg when you turn your head to the left, the movement is detected and virtual camera will update the image).
Here is a oculus rift DK2 tear down:
Advantages:
1 – Stereoscopic vision is default and it’s great. Since there is dedicated image/display for each eye, you get great depth sense without loss of quality (brightness, frame-rate, etc) as with other common 3D/stereo displays.
2 – Immersion, immersion, immersion. You know, that convincing sense of being somewhere else your physical place? Immersion have a lot of interesting side-effects. For example I know a bunch of researches that points out that the use of immersive teaching material produces better results in indicators such as attention, memory retention, etc, when compared to traditional material (audio-visual, texts). Immersion, when is convincing also enables stronger emotional involvement and other psychologic responses very close to real life experiences (so fear, stress, empathy, etc) which is just great for trainings and simulators. And VR headsets are king of Immersion, period. No other medium can provoke that effect so quickly and consistently.
3 – Headtracking, sure. You know, in a regular display if you want to look left, you have to translate that action as an input command to the machine (the computer), so it can rotate the camera (usually moving the mouse or tilting the gamepad stick). It may be easy once you learn how to do it, and practice a few hours, but does not change the fact that you HAD to LEARN how to translate that action to the machine. You were educated on machine input. With a VR headset that input is intuitive and natural. You just do it like in real life, everybody knows how to do it, we did learn when we were babies, and it is the machine that was educated on human inputs.
3 – And more tracking! Almost all VR headsets nowadays use the tracking solution to get not only your head’s input, but also hands and sometimes even feet or props (objects like guns, swords, etc). It is a revolution all by itself, since interaction is not limited by mouse, keyboard, joysticks and gamepads, you perform more natural and intuitive movements and gestures, with greater precision and reliability.
Disadvantages (in addition to price, availability, etc):
1 – Comfort. It is still a heavy thing to hang on your face and I would not recommend use it continuously for many hours. I would not even consider watching a regular movie with that, and unless it is an immersive experience (like Google Spotlight Stories) I don’t see the point anyway. My TV + couch is just fine for Netflix, thank you.
2 – You know immersion? It is great, but can also be a problem, when you are on VR it is hard to interact with real things and people on your real environment. Current VR headsets are heavily personal / single-user / not shared experiences. If you are alone at home and completely dedicated to the VR experience, fine, but if you are multitasking (like cooking or doing house chores, while watch something) or having guests, a good old regular TV running Mario Kart will be much more fun for everyone. Also, I would not even consider using it on public spaces (you know, a bus station, shopping, restaurant) like I would certainly do with my other displays (a smartphone or handheld game)
3 – Gestures are really great but may be very niche, and are not the best design solution for many applications. It is fine for fitness games, or realistic/physics simulations. But it requires safe real environment to move, jump, duck, kick, all that stuff. And sometimes is just fine (and easier) to push buttons from your gamer chair while the cat is sleeping in your lap (and not actively trying to make you trip and fall in VR)
Hope this helps, thank you for asking!
