A simple question that was asking the survey participants what the key benefits they are interested in obtaining from a wireless HMD. About 170 people answered this survey and the benefits they identified were as follows:
Survey participants could choose more than one benefit, so it's ok that the total number of benefits selected exceeds the number of respondents.
These responses also came with an area for entering free text. Many of the free text responses associated with this question dealt with the complexity and inconvenience of having an HMD being tethered. For instance, some respondent wrote “Detangle the user, prevent them from pulling on the cord and knocking the HMD off”, and “The main reason I have for obtaining a wireless HMD is that users get entangled with the cables VERY often, causing discomfort and frustration”.
This is perfectly understandable. A key attraction of using HMDs is the potential for a portable, personal experience with 360° freedom of movement. However, as long as HMDs are connected via an 'umbilical cord' to a PC, movement is restricted and cables become a major distraction.
I do think early implementations of wireless goggles will have the wireless receiver and perhaps a battery pack as some sort of 'belt pack' from which a short cable will run to the HMD. This still provides very substantial mobility benefits. Just try rotating 360 degrees with wired HMD! As far as we have seen, the level of integration and power consumption is not there yet to combine power and wireless in package that is so small and so light that it can be worn on the head next to the goggles.
1 comment:
I think there is a possibility to make HMD's even more lightweight and compact.
The only components required inside the HMD are the (OLED) Microdisplays, optics, movement tracking sensors and the micro/speakers. Most of these components exist already in a very compact and lightweight version (cf Mobile phones)
All of the other electronics can be put in a small backpack: Battery, wireless data receivers, image buffers, driver electronics etc...)
The backpack is wired to the HMD through a flexible fibre optic cable (for the data stream) and a copper wire for the power supply.
In front of the glasses and at the back, you can place small high-def cameras to capture the real world, around you and create a 360° panorama live video stream that can be viewed by other users...
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