10 ms·

This is the first standalone headset with an open ecosystem. That's a big deal. Meta Quests & Apple Visions require developer verification to run your own soft

by arnaudsm 10mo ago

This is the first standalone headset with an open ecosystem. That's a big deal. Meta Quests & Apple Visions require developer verification to run your own software, and provide no root access, which slowed down innovation significantly.

IshKebab 10mo ago
Not to mention Meta abandoned the Quest 1 very quickly. I bought a game when it came out and never got around to playing it (had kids). I tried to play it recently and it no longer even works! £30 down the drain, thanks Zuck. I guess I can't complain too much given that I got it for free.
- throwaway89201 10mo ago
  I bought an Oculus Go last year for € 30. Its support has been dropped for quite some time, and you can only activate developer mode and sideloading through an old version of the Meta Horizons app [1]. But if you do that, there are 71 GiBs of games to explore on the Internet Archive [2]. Some need patching to remove an online check to a server that no longer exists, but that is easy enough to do with a (regrettably Windows) tool someone published. The Go is not the best headset of course, but the games are a different style because of the 3DoF tracking without camera's. Somewhat slower paced and sitting down. A style I personally like more. You can also unlock the device to get root on it [3], which is quite neat, although there doesn't seem to be any homebrew scene at all. Not even the most bare-bones launcher that doesn't require a Meta login. [1] That doesn't even seem intentional, but it does mean that once the old version of the app can't communicate with Meta servers anymore, any uninitialized Go turns into a brick. [2] https://archive.org/details/gear-vr-oculus-go https://archive.org/details/gear-vr-oculus-go [3] https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/unlocking-oculus-go/ https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/unlocking-oculus-go...
- wayeq 10mo ago
  > £30 down the drain, thanks Zuck. I'm sure he put it to good use. Like 500ms worth of upkeep for one of his yachts.
- glenneroo 10mo ago
  That's not quite true - when did you get your free Quest 1? Only January of this year did Meta officially stop allowing devs to support those devices which IMO is not nice, but probably necessary to put resources towards newer devices since it was extremely outdated and very hard to keep supporting. The Quest 1 launched in May 2019, so it got almost 6 years of updates and if you have one, you can still install older versions of existing apps that choose to support it (which admittedly is very rare). I shut off support for my game back in 2024 when they recommended it, since the device is less than half as powerful as the Quest 2, very few users still had one, and the Q1 was a hard target to hit performance-wise vs newer devices. If you spend $50 to get a Quest 2 you'll get a couple years of updates or even better, spend $299 to get a 3S which is an amazing piece of kit and will probably be supported for at least 5 more years since it just came out.
Razengan 10mo ago
I just want a "dumb" headset that I can use as a portable private display for my laptop. That's it. I don't need 3D, I don't need VR, I don't need weirdass controllers trying to be special. Just give me a damn simple monitor the size of my eyes. Fuck off with your XR OSes and "vision" for XR, not even Apple could get it fully right, the people in charge everywhere are too out of touch and have no clue where the fuck to go after smartphones.
- krastanov 10mo ago
  I am currently writing this from an xreal one pro. I think it fits what you are asking for.
- iddan 10mo ago
  There you go https://www.sightful.com/ https://www.sightful.com/
- ehnto 10mo ago
  Then this is actually much closer than previous headsets? There is a lot going on to render the desktop in a tracked 3D space, all that has to happen somewhere. If you're expecting to plug a HDMI cable into a headset and have a good time then I think you're underestimating how much work is being done. OpenVR and OpenXR are really great software layers that help that all work out.
- scheeseman486 10mo ago
  HUD glasses kind of suck since having a display oriented to your head is uncomfortable. Adding 3DOF tracking only partially solves that, so you go 6DOF to maximize optical/vestibular comfort. Now you're rendering a virtual display within a virtual environment, but look at all that wasted space! So add more virtual monitors! Now you need some mechanism to manage them, so you add that and now you have a windowing system... so why are you rendering virtual monitors with fixed space desktops when you can just be rendering the application windows themselves? The best portable private display for your laptop will inevitably be a 6DOF tracked headset with an XR native desktop.
  - 10mo ago
contrarian1234 10mo ago
sorry, maybe i missed it. But how do you know the ecosystem is open? from the link we don't know if the OS can be changed (might be locked like many Android phones) or if a connected machine is required to run their DRM/Steam. The drivers may also not be open source
- mmis1000 10mo ago
  Even just have direct access to hardware apis is already a big win. On Oculus quest. The closest you can get is running with webxr. But webxr suffer from all those performance problem of web platforms. (And bug of meta softwares. The recent quest browser have bug that prevent you from disabling spatial audio, rendering it not usable for watch video at all)
- theknarf 10mo ago
  It said its running Steam OS, which is just Linux.
  - contrarian1234 10mo ago
    Android is also just Linux. But i cant install Debian on my phone
    - wombarly 10mo ago
      SteamOS at its base is just Arch with Steam and some additional software installed.
      - contrarian1234 10mo ago
        that doesn't in any way mean you can install an alternate OS. But i get your point that at least you can run Arch stuff. Isnt Arch ARM support unofficial? (its been ages since i tried) You dont hear of people running it on RPis for example
        10mo ago
utopiah 10mo ago
> first standalone headset with an open ecosystem What about the Lynx XR1? Running Android sure but officially rooted (details https://lynx.miraheze.org/wiki/Rooting_Process https://lynx.miraheze.org/wiki/Rooting_Process ) and with Linux proper (details https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Lynx_R1_(lynx-r1) https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Lynx_R1_(lynx-r1) ) even though experimental.
- stanlarroque 10mo ago
  Yes we released our headset with root access and an open bootloader. We are going to announce our next headset in a couple of months :-)
  - arnaudsm 10mo ago
    Sorry Stan, forgot about the Lynx, huge fan of your work!
  - m4rtink 10mo ago
    Cool! Do you have a link for a store where I can buy it ? ;-)
- m4rtink 10mo ago
  There is but one issue with the Lynx XR1 - no one really got it. A few backers randomly got a few pieces but many others (including myself) are still waiting for their device to arrive (and will most likely wait for ever). This has a serious impact on the developer ecosystem - there are still a few people who got their devices and are doing interesting work, but with so few users actually having devices the community is too small for much progress to be expected. It's kinda similar to the old Jolla Tablet - it was a very interesting device (an x86 tablet running an open Linux distro in 2013!) but it ended up in too few hands due to funding issues & the amount of Sailfish OS apps actually supporting the tablet (eg. big screen, native x86 builds, etc.) reflected that.
  - utopiah 10mo ago
    > many others (including myself) are still waiting for their device Sucks, sorry to hear that :(
KolibriFly 10mo ago
Valve giving users root access out of the box is huge. It puts the headset in the same category as a real PC
- teaearlgraycold 10mo ago
  Praise be to gaben

IshKebab 10mo ago

Not to mention Meta abandoned the Quest 1 very quickly. I bought a game when it came out and never got around to playing it (had kids). I tried to play it recently and it no longer even works! £30 down the drain, thanks Zuck. I guess I can't complain too much given that I got it for free.

throwaway89201 10mo ago
I bought an Oculus Go last year for € 30. Its support has been dropped for quite some time, and you can only activate developer mode and sideloading through an old version of the Meta Horizons app [1]. But if you do that, there are 71 GiBs of games to explore on the Internet Archive [2]. Some need patching to remove an online check to a server that no longer exists, but that is easy enough to do with a (regrettably Windows) tool someone published. The Go is not the best headset of course, but the games are a different style because of the 3DoF tracking without camera's. Somewhat slower paced and sitting down. A style I personally like more. You can also unlock the device to get root on it [3], which is quite neat, although there doesn't seem to be any homebrew scene at all. Not even the most bare-bones launcher that doesn't require a Meta login. [1] That doesn't even seem intentional, but it does mean that once the old version of the app can't communicate with Meta servers anymore, any uninitialized Go turns into a brick. [2] https://archive.org/details/gear-vr-oculus-go https://archive.org/details/gear-vr-oculus-go [3] https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/unlocking-oculus-go/ https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/unlocking-oculus-go...
wayeq 10mo ago
> £30 down the drain, thanks Zuck. I'm sure he put it to good use. Like 500ms worth of upkeep for one of his yachts.
glenneroo 10mo ago
That's not quite true - when did you get your free Quest 1? Only January of this year did Meta officially stop allowing devs to support those devices which IMO is not nice, but probably necessary to put resources towards newer devices since it was extremely outdated and very hard to keep supporting. The Quest 1 launched in May 2019, so it got almost 6 years of updates and if you have one, you can still install older versions of existing apps that choose to support it (which admittedly is very rare). I shut off support for my game back in 2024 when they recommended it, since the device is less than half as powerful as the Quest 2, very few users still had one, and the Q1 was a hard target to hit performance-wise vs newer devices. If you spend $50 to get a Quest 2 you'll get a couple years of updates or even better, spend $299 to get a 3S which is an amazing piece of kit and will probably be supported for at least 5 more years since it just came out.

Razengan 10mo ago

I just want a "dumb" headset that I can use as a portable private display for my laptop. That's it. I don't need 3D, I don't need VR, I don't need weirdass controllers trying to be special. Just give me a damn simple monitor the size of my eyes. Fuck off with your XR OSes and "vision" for XR, not even Apple could get it fully right, the people in charge everywhere are too out of touch and have no clue where the fuck to go after smartphones.

krastanov 10mo ago
I am currently writing this from an xreal one pro. I think it fits what you are asking for.
iddan 10mo ago
There you go https://www.sightful.com/ https://www.sightful.com/
ehnto 10mo ago
Then this is actually much closer than previous headsets? There is a lot going on to render the desktop in a tracked 3D space, all that has to happen somewhere. If you're expecting to plug a HDMI cable into a headset and have a good time then I think you're underestimating how much work is being done. OpenVR and OpenXR are really great software layers that help that all work out.
scheeseman486 10mo ago
HUD glasses kind of suck since having a display oriented to your head is uncomfortable. Adding 3DOF tracking only partially solves that, so you go 6DOF to maximize optical/vestibular comfort. Now you're rendering a virtual display within a virtual environment, but look at all that wasted space! So add more virtual monitors! Now you need some mechanism to manage them, so you add that and now you have a windowing system... so why are you rendering virtual monitors with fixed space desktops when you can just be rendering the application windows themselves? The best portable private display for your laptop will inevitably be a 6DOF tracked headset with an XR native desktop.
- 10mo ago

contrarian1234 10mo ago

sorry, maybe i missed it. But how do you know the ecosystem is open? from the link we don't know if the OS can be changed (might be locked like many Android phones) or if a connected machine is required to run their DRM/Steam. The drivers may also not be open source

mmis1000 10mo ago
Even just have direct access to hardware apis is already a big win. On Oculus quest. The closest you can get is running with webxr. But webxr suffer from all those performance problem of web platforms. (And bug of meta softwares. The recent quest browser have bug that prevent you from disabling spatial audio, rendering it not usable for watch video at all)
theknarf 10mo ago
It said its running Steam OS, which is just Linux.
- contrarian1234 10mo ago
  Android is also just Linux. But i cant install Debian on my phone
  - wombarly 10mo ago
    SteamOS at its base is just Arch with Steam and some additional software installed.
    - contrarian1234 10mo ago
      that doesn't in any way mean you can install an alternate OS. But i get your point that at least you can run Arch stuff. Isnt Arch ARM support unofficial? (its been ages since i tried) You dont hear of people running it on RPis for example
      - 10mo ago

utopiah 10mo ago

> first standalone headset with an open ecosystem What about the Lynx XR1? Running Android sure but officially rooted (details https://lynx.miraheze.org/wiki/Rooting_Process https://lynx.miraheze.org/wiki/Rooting_Process ) and with Linux proper (details https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Lynx_R1_(lynx-r1) https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Lynx_R1_(lynx-r1) ) even though experimental.

stanlarroque 10mo ago
Yes we released our headset with root access and an open bootloader. We are going to announce our next headset in a couple of months :-)
- arnaudsm 10mo ago
  Sorry Stan, forgot about the Lynx, huge fan of your work!
- m4rtink 10mo ago
  Cool! Do you have a link for a store where I can buy it ? ;-)
m4rtink 10mo ago
There is but one issue with the Lynx XR1 - no one really got it. A few backers randomly got a few pieces but many others (including myself) are still waiting for their device to arrive (and will most likely wait for ever). This has a serious impact on the developer ecosystem - there are still a few people who got their devices and are doing interesting work, but with so few users actually having devices the community is too small for much progress to be expected. It's kinda similar to the old Jolla Tablet - it was a very interesting device (an x86 tablet running an open Linux distro in 2013!) but it ended up in too few hands due to funding issues & the amount of Sailfish OS apps actually supporting the tablet (eg. big screen, native x86 builds, etc.) reflected that.
- utopiah 10mo ago
  > many others (including myself) are still waiting for their device Sucks, sorry to hear that :(

KolibriFly 10mo ago

Valve giving users root access out of the box is huge. It puts the headset in the same category as a real PC

teaearlgraycold 10mo ago
Praise be to gaben