Meta may have been a big – perhaps the biggest – player in the VR world for a while, but newcomer Apple is already giving it ideas for features to add to its Quest headsets, and the first of these could be the ability to your Quest VR portable while driving a car or plane.
The reveal trailer for the Apple headset – which will eventually launch on February 2, while Vision Pro pre-orders have already gone live (many Apple headsets are already selling for extremely high prices on eBay) – showed off several use cases for the gadget. One example involved a person putting on the headset while sitting in an airplane seat, presumably so he could enjoy an immersive experience while traveling.
Using a VR headset while traveling – especially on a crowded plane – sounds like a no-brainer. Instead of having to deal with movies displayed on a small screen on the back of the seat in front of you, you can enjoy them on a huge virtual cinema screen and forget that you’re crammed into the bus like a sardine.
While the idea sounds simple, it’s quite tricky to implement – as one disappointed Meta Quest 3 user discovered when they struggled to use mixed reality during a flight. On Twitter/X, user @afoxdesign posted a rather funny snippet of their Quest 3 menu floating in the distance while they tried to use the headset during a flight.
Replying to the post, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said (@boztank) explained that the problem is caused by the aircraft’s motion throwing off the headset’s IMUs (inertial motion sensors). The sensors record the aircraft’s motion and acceleration, so your headset thinks you’re moving and adjusts the position of virtual objects accordingly.
Encouragingly, Bosworth added that Meta is “working on it” regarding enabling Quest headsets while traveling in a vehicle.
No, we use an IMU to keep objects localized to the movement of your headset, so moving vehicles pose a challenge (when accelerating in any direction). Of course we also use the cameras, they work together because the IMU has a higher frequency but lower accuracy. I’m working on it!January 24, 2024
In May 2023, Meta showed a demo using a Meta Quest Pro in a BMW, with the car’s own sensors controlling the headset’s IMUs. Unfortunately, this solution wouldn’t work for low-tech vehicles or commercial aircraft, where giving random people direct access to the aircraft’s sensors might not be the safest idea.
Option two could then be to introduce a simplified travel mode where these motion sensors are disabled. Instead, the headset would use scaled-back tracking data and reference points to enable stable versions of static experiences, such as watching a video or playing a game via the VR Xbox Game Pass app – becoming a headset version of the Display Xreal Air 2 and similar wearable AR glasses.
We’ll have to wait and see what Meta comes up with, but with Apple offering a solution to the problem of using a headset while traveling, and Bosworth saying a solution is in the works, we’re hopeful that Quest headsets will be in the spotlight. could be useful in an airplane or in a car in the too distant future.