Virtual reality helmet, augmented reality glasses or even mixed reality mask: the technologies that we put in front of our eyes are multiplying and the differences are becoming quite blurred. It’s time to take stock.
Metavers, virtual, augmented or mixed reality: brands have been increasing their attempts for several years to put an intelligent and connected object in front of our eyes. Whether it is to try to replace our smartphone or more simply to make us play video games with a new immersion, helmets follow one another with different technologies and whose terms can be confusing. It is time to see things more clearly.
Virtual reality: immerse yourself in another world
The easiest way is to start with virtual reality, which has been around for several years. VR headsets immerse you in another reality, a virtual world. They are particularly used in the video game since they allow to create an immersion without possible comparison.
Among the great representatives, we find the PlayStation VR 2, the Pico 4 or the Vive helmets or the Valve Index. Once the helmet is on your head, you are totally immersed in a 3D environment with no hold on reality. Modern helmets incorporate cameras for localization in space and to allow viewing of your real environment on demand. However, this is a very limited use case to see around you and avoid touching a wall or an obstacle.
VR is the technology most mastered by manufacturers today and also the cheapest to offer. Apart from video games, we can also mention other use cases: virtual meeting, watching a film in a virtual cinema or more simply physical exercise.
Augmented reality: digital in your life
On the other side of the spectrum, there is augmented reality. It is a question of starting from the very real environment and coming to graft additional information to help you in your daily life. Here, we often talk about goggles and not helmets: you are not cut off from your environment and the object is designed to be very light and not very restrictive.
Thanks to transparent screens, the user sees displayed in front of the eyes of the notifications or a light enough interface to increase its reality. Generally, we only speak here of 2D elements such as signaling arrows and not of virtual 3D objects.
Google and Microsoft are known to have attacked this market with Google Glass and Hololens in the 2010s. This is a technology that is still difficult to master, because it is necessary to miniaturize the transparent display, maintain performance and master autonomy in a very compact and light product.
Mixed reality: bringing the virtual into the real
We come to mixed reality, a new El Dorado pushed by Mark Zuckerberg for Meta. Here, we use a virtual reality headset, but we improve the cameras, motion recognition and computing power enough to recover and interact with the real environment.
You are not totally cut off from the real world as it continues to appear in front of you through the helmet’s cameras. The system can then offer you real 3D objects. We then imagine uses such as virtual board games or more simply the creation of virtual screens in your very physical work environment. The Meta Quest Pro and the Pico 4 Enterprise are the first headsets offering uses in this area.
It is also this sector that Apple should target with its helmet expected for the summer of 2023. The firm would work on a device at more than 3000 dollars to seduce developers.
Today, mixed reality is seen as a future that must be passed before reaching a more practical and less expensive use of augmented reality. Eventually, it is likely that the three names will disappear because all devices will offer each type of use. We can imagine that virtual reality headsets will be the first to disappear in favor of mixed reality.
Want to join a community of enthusiasts? Our Discord welcomes you, it’s a place of mutual aid and passion around tech.