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over the past Over the week, many people have reported returning their Vision Pros for a variety of reasons, including issues related to headset comfort and illness. The returns are equal for any new technology course. No matter how sophisticated a first-generation product is when released, there is a very real sense in which it largely serves as a public beta.
There’s a big difference between testing a product with dozens or hundreds of people and actually releasing that product into the world for anyone to use. All product testing has some flaws, but if you’re lucky, those instances are limited to a few outliers. However, motion sickness is definitely not a big deal among the population.
According to studies, about one-fourth of people suffer from this condition. This may cause nausea, Headache, dizziness, fatigue and vomiting. If you’re lucky enough to never have to deal with this, just trust me when I say it sucks. Very. There’s a good reason why millions of over-the-counter motion sickness product units are sold in the US each year.
Undoubtedly, everyone is familiar with this situation as it relates to car rides, boat trips, and especially eventful flights (the bag in the back pocket of your seat is not for storing peanuts). Extended Reality Motion sickness is a much less known phenomenon due to the low accessibility of augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality headsets. However, it’s a very real thing – and certainly not endemic to Apple’s first headset.
Meta Quest, HTC Vive, and PSVR users have experienced this. Reports of people returning new tech products within a few weeks of purchase will always raise a few eyebrows. This is especially the case when you see Apple releasing a device that was in the works for over a decade, priced at $3,500.
The company was certainly conscious of motion sickness during the R&D phase. Reducing latency and increasing display resolution reduces its potential. But if there is a method to avoid motion sickness in all users, no one has found it yet.
“With the emergence of new VR technologies, high-quality stereoscopic [head-mounted displays] are now able to simulate real-world visual and spatial properties,” notes a 2020 paper on the topic. “Despite improvements, current technology still falls short of replicating how humans see and perceive depth under natural viewing conditions. There are software solutions that can help reduce discomfort by blurring during motion, however, this technology may not be effective for everyone.
The underlying cause is the same in all these examples. Motion sickness begins when your brain receives unrelated information from your eyes, body, and inner ear. These different senses are processing the present moment in different ways. It’s easy to imagine how these symptoms might arise from using a headset effectively designed to trick your brain’s perception of reality.
Apple was smart enough to know that this would present itself to a certain portion of Vision Pro users, and considering how many of us suffer from motion sickness in some form or another, it’s quite likely that a large number of people Will experience some symptoms. Before the release of Vision Pro, Apple released guidelines Designed to reduce and address potential motion sickness.
Before we get into the details of Apple’s guidelines, allow me to state a clear fact: The best way to avoid VR sickness is to avoid VR at all. Speaking from first-hand experience, the second best approach is to limit your usage. If you’re prone to motion sickness (as I am), don’t expect to make the leap to Infinite Desktop full-time any time soon. I keep my sessions between 20-30 minutes. That’s enough time to do many of the things you’d want to do with a headset, but it’s a far cry from actually being in the thing. I’ve also found that I’m much less likely to experience it while sitting.
I didn’t experience motion sickness in my initial Vision Pro demo. Once I got it home and started engaging in activities that required me to stand and move around, I was faced with a wall of nausea. I overdid it and opted not to wear the headset for the rest of the day.
If you suffer from motion sickness, Apple also recommends you avoid wearing the headset for long periods of time and moving around a lot. You might want to think twice about wearing a headset on an airplane for this reason. Apple also suggests reducing “scene speed”. The company writes:
Visual motion can come from apps in which you appear to be moving, or from the movement of objects or content within the app. To reduce visual speed:
Reduce the window size, or increase the distance from the window.
Reduce the immersion level by rotating the Digital Crown. This helps provide a sense of stability by allowing you to see more of the space around you.
Turn on the Reduce Motion setting on your device: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion, then select Reduce Motion.
Before I leave you, one more obvious advice: try it before you buy it. Go to an Apple Store, borrow from a friend – get your hands on it first, before losing that huge amount of money. You may be one of the lucky few who never experiences any discomfort from these products. God bless you and may you continue to be seen in what we are now calling the Metaverse.
However, if you’re like me and prone to getting sick on boats and in the back seat of Ubers, proceed with caution. Even the best VR experience can be frustrating if your brain and body disagree on the fundamentals of reality.
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