Researchers predict that by the year 2050, about half of the world’s population will have myopia.
Considering the target demographic, a significant number of potential VR users suffer from myopia already. Why are there no more VR headsets with adjustable focus?
Several vendors offer replaceable lenses, or various addons to fit the glasses in, but the obvious solution used by the early cheap headsets like GearVR - adjustable distance between lenses and the display, is not being utilized for some reason.
Is it a technical problem, economical problem? Are the modern lenses somehow tuned for a specific distance?
- Not everyone has the same prescription for both eyes.
- This doesn’t help with astigmatism.
VR isn’t a mature technology. Every design is bad. For what little attention they’ve paid to human eyes, they completely ignore the existence of a human neck. It’s the kind of device that discourages you from playing games because it’s a pain to get out, strap on, and wear. And this is from a guy who keeps his flight sims on the slow hard drive because it takes 5min to get physically set up anyway.
It is much better with a specialized strap, like this one for Quest: https://www.bobovr.com/ . Why standard one is so crappy, to the point of causing pain, is beyond my comprehension.
My very simple guess is this. It requires more parts, bigger assembly line, overall higher complexity, adds weight, makes the headset more fragile, and so forth, so I’m sure if they can make a design that accommodates the majority of users, it is cheaper to say “good enough” then to design and accommodate for the rest of the potential users
Varifocal lenses are bulkier and restrict an already limited FOV. For my part I prefer how it is now with the headset maximizing FOV and using aftermarket lens inserts for vision correction, but of course that is much easier for me since I am the only person using the headset
Contact lenses help, but you’re right, there should be an easy way to accommodation a prescription.
My eyes need different amounts of focusing power, and different astigmatism, for each.
because it’s cheaper to get contacts
My Vive XR elite has diopter dials, but they’re negative adjustments.
Does that even help nearsighted people? The screen is literally an inch or two away from your eyes. There’s nothing to focus on.
I’ve never noticed much of an issue seeing in VR games, though I’m not uberblind either.
Yeah. I’m nearsighted and had to get aftermarket prescription lenses for the index in order to use it comfortably. My nearsightedness isn’t even that strong, but I can’t use it without them.
That’s weird. I haven’t had much of an issue. Though my experience is with the OG Vive so that display is kind of rough to begin with.
The lenses in a VR headset make it seem like the screen is infinitely far away. If you need glasses normally, then you will need to wear them or something equivalent to see clearly in VR.
