If Meta’s top researcher is right, VR headsets and AR goggles will coexist for “a very long time.”
Eyewear for AR and VR use cases are evolving along somewhat similar paths as they rely on related technologies — and every week there seems to be new marketing jargon to confuse people as to what exactly is — but Michael Abrash, head of research at Meta, sees technological differences. each of which is on the road to succeeding our current paradigms in mobile phones and personal computing.
During Meta’s recent press tour of Washington state research labs, Abrash responded to a question from UploadVR about confusion about the differences between AR and VR. Here’s his full answer to whether VR headsets are just a transition technology for AR glasses:
“I think they’re both equally important for a very long time because of technological differences.”
“Because VR glasses have infrastructure, they don’t have to be usable everywhere, they don’t have to be something you can walk down the street with. So of course their ability to get you to do your job would be more powerful – if you have a wider field of view , you have a higher resolution, if it can take longer – all these things.
“I think AR glasses are the things you always have with you, except maybe when you’re using VR. It’s the way your phone is always with you…if you think of it as the PC as the productivity device and the phone as the always connected device, AR feels like the successor to the phone and VR to me in the near future feels like the successor to the personal computer.”
“And it’s worth noting, you know people rarely realize this, but there are over a billion personal computers in use today and those really are the productivity devices. So if you think about that breakdown – there are definitely more smartphones and they’re being used more often – but PCs are extremely valuable and VR could be a better way to do the same work you do with PCs through quite a bit in the long run.”