Can VR glasses save VR?

VR 眼镜能拯救 VR 吗？

Meta’s VR Glasses aren’t the glasses the industry promised. They might be better. Meta 的 VR 眼镜并不是行业曾经承诺的那种眼镜，但它们可能更好。

I’m pretty sure I won’t be buying the $1,299 Meta VR Glasses. That’s too rich for my blood in today’s economy, and my feelings about Meta are… conflicted. But I want you to understand that Meta just changed the game. We’ve had glasses, but we’ve never had glasses like this. 我很确定我不会购买这款售价 1299 美元的 Meta VR 眼镜。在当下的经济环境中，这个价格对我来说太高了，而且我对 Meta 的感情也……很复杂。但我希望你能明白，Meta 刚刚改变了游戏规则。我们以前见过各种眼镜，但从未见过这样的眼镜。

The Meta VR Glasses are not an opaque VR headset. They are not a pair of transparent AR glasses. They might be the best of both. After playing with the Meta VR Glasses, Valve’s Steam Frame, the Apple Vision Pro, and the Google / Xreal Aura back to back, I think they’re the first design that could convince regular people to give VR a chance. Meta VR 眼镜既不是不透明的 VR 头显，也不是透明的 AR 眼镜。它们可能是两者的最佳结合。在连续体验了 Meta VR 眼镜、Valve 的 Steam Frame、Apple Vision Pro 以及 Google/Xreal Aura 之后，我认为这是第一款能够说服普通大众尝试 VR 的设计。

It’s not because they look like glasses. It’s not just that they’re five times lighter than a typical headset at around 100 grams. It’s certainly not the $1,300 price tag, even if that’s much less than a $3,700 Vision Pro. 这不仅仅是因为它们看起来像眼镜，也不仅仅是因为它们重量仅约 100 克，比普通头显轻了五倍。当然，更不是因为那 1300 美元的价格——尽管这比 3700 美元的 Vision Pro 要便宜得多。

It’s about what you see and feel — and what you don’t see and feel — when you put Meta’s VR Glasses on your head. 关键在于当你戴上 Meta VR 眼镜时，你所看到和感受到的——以及你所“没”看到和“没”感受到的东西。

You aren’t fully enclosed. You aren’t isolated. Because the Meta VR Glasses are glasses, not goggles, you have real peripheral vision. You see a live video feed of your room in the center, thick “rims” around that, then an actual naked-eye view of your surroundings around those rims. Even when you’re in a game, you still have peripheral vision. 你不会被完全封闭，也不会与世隔绝。因为 Meta VR 眼镜是眼镜而非护目镜，你拥有真实的周边视觉。在视野中心，你看到的是房间的实时视频画面，周围是厚厚的“镜框”，而在镜框之外，你依然能用肉眼看到周围环境。即使在玩游戏时，你依然拥有周边视觉。

I know people who aren’t comfortable in VR at home because they can’t afford to feel isolated from their kids or pets. I’ve personally never felt comfortable wearing headsets on a plane or train or in a park because I don’t like being surrounded by strangers I can’t easily see. 我认识一些人在家里使用 VR 时会感到不适，因为他们无法忍受与孩子或宠物隔绝的感觉。我个人也从不在飞机、火车或公园里佩戴头显，因为我不喜欢被一群我无法轻易观察到的陌生人包围。

Women have told me VR is a nonstarter because they have long hair or wear makeup. Many headsets balance their weight by sandwiching your head between a back strap and a front cushion, and they don’t want to deal with the hassle of a high ponytail or smears every time they strap in. 曾有女性告诉我，VR 对她们来说根本行不通，因为她们留着长发或化着妆。许多头显通过后带和前垫夹住头部来平衡重量，她们不想每次佩戴时都要处理高马尾带来的麻烦，也不想弄花妆容。

Glasses are a potential solution, resting on your ears and floating before your eyes instead of pushing on your head. For years, the industry has suggested headsets will eventually make way for glasses. 眼镜是一个潜在的解决方案，它们架在耳朵上，悬浮在眼前，而不是压在头上。多年来，业界一直认为头显最终会让位于眼镜。

But typically when we talk about glasses, they’re transparent. We’re imagining indistinguishable-from-eyeglasses spectacles that let you see the real world in all its glory, then magically make virtual objects appear within the entirety of the frame. 但通常当我们谈论眼镜时，指的都是透明眼镜。我们想象的是那种与普通眼镜无异的设备，让你能尽情观察真实世界，然后神奇地在整个镜框内呈现虚拟物体。

Today’s transparent-display glasses have made leaps and bounds, but they’re not there yet. While the basic lenses might look like glasses and give you a glasses-like field of view, the displays inside the glasses light up a much smaller area. When I sweep my head left or right, up or down, I see virtual objects disappear even when I’m still looking roughly in their direction. 如今的透明显示眼镜虽然取得了长足进步，但尚未达到理想状态。虽然基础镜片看起来像眼镜并提供了类似的视野，但眼镜内部的显示区域要小得多。当我左右或上下转动头部时，即使我大致还在看向那个方向，虚拟物体也会消失。

In 2013, I briefly wore Google Glass — a tiny screen above my right eye with a postage stamp-sized 15-degree diagonal field of view. In 2015, I tried Microsoft’s HoloLens, with a 34-degree field of view. Four years later, HoloLens 2 achieved 52 degrees diagonally, the Xreal One Pro glasses I’ve been testing offer 57 degrees, and the Xreal Aura will finally push transparent glasses to 70 degrees diagonal this fall. 2013 年，我曾短暂佩戴过 Google Glass——那是一个位于右眼上方的小屏幕，视野仅有邮票大小，对角线视野为 15 度。2015 年，我尝试了微软的 HoloLens，视野为 34 度。四年后，HoloLens 2 达到了 52 度对角线视野，我正在测试的 Xreal One Pro 眼镜提供了 57 度，而今年秋季推出的 Xreal Aura 将最终把透明眼镜的对角线视野提升至 70 度。

But even with the Aura, 70 degrees diagonal is more like 60 degrees horizontal by 40 degrees vertical. Humans have roughly 120 degrees of binocular vision alone, and VR headsets like the Meta Quest 3 and Steam Frame offer around 110 degrees horizontal so you can feel like a virtual world is all around you. 但即使是 Aura，70 度的对角线视野也仅相当于 60 度水平乘以 40 度垂直。人类仅双眼视觉就有大约 120 度，而像 Meta Quest 3 和 Steam Frame 这样的 VR 头显提供了约 110 度的水平视野，让你感觉仿佛置身于虚拟世界之中。

Transparent glasses are also, well, transparent. Glasses like the Aura have to make their projected light compete with the real world while still letting you see through. That often means projectors right up against your brow. Virtual objects can seem ghostly unless you activate electrochromic lenses, which turn the clear lenses dark at the push of a button, blocking your view of the world. 透明眼镜，顾名思义，是透明的。像 Aura 这样的眼镜必须让投影光线与真实世界的光线竞争，同时还要保持透视效果。这通常意味着投影仪必须紧贴你的眉骨。虚拟物体看起来会像幽灵一样，除非你激活电致变色镜片——只需按下一个按钮，透明镜片就会变暗，从而遮挡住你对现实世界的视线。

Even then, you can see games, movies, and virtual desktops far better in a VR headset, where virtual light and real light don’t have to compete. You see the real world through what’s called “passthrough vision” — a live camera feed — with virtual objects realistically appearing at the correct depth and blocking real-life objects behind them. 即便如此，在 VR 头显中观看游戏、电影和虚拟桌面效果依然好得多，因为虚拟光线和真实光线无需竞争。你通过所谓的“透视视觉”（即实时摄像头画面）观察真实世界，虚拟物体能以正确的深度逼真地呈现，并遮挡住其背后的现实物体。

That’s how the Steam Frame, Meta Quest, and Apple Vision Pro all work. But again, they weigh four to eight times as much and are fully enclosed. What if there were a lighter, open-air set of glasses that used passthrough vision instead of transparent lenses? You see where I’m going with this. 这就是 Steam Frame、Meta Quest 和 Apple Vision Pro 的工作原理。但再说一次，它们的重量是这款眼镜的四到八倍，而且是完全封闭的。如果有一款更轻、开放式的眼镜，使用透视视觉而不是透明镜片会怎样？你明白我的意思了吧。

Instead of 60 degrees horizontal by 40 degrees vertical, the Meta VR Glasses offer 70 degrees by 66 degrees, and let me tell you, it feels like a bigger difference than it sounds. But the difference isn’t just the raw field of view — it’s that my real and virtual fields of view are the same. Anywhere I look inside the lenses, virtual objects can fill that frame, instead of getting abruptly cut off where the display part of the transparent display ends. Meta VR 眼镜提供的不是 60 度水平乘以 40 度垂直，而是 70 度乘以 66 度。我得告诉你，这感觉比听起来的差异要大得多。但这种差异不仅仅在于原始视野——关键在于我的真实视野和虚拟视野是重合的。无论我透过镜片看向哪里，虚拟物体都能填满整个画面，而不是像透明显示屏那样，在显示区域边缘戛然而止。

It also doesn’t hurt that the VR Glasses offer much higher angular resolution than most AR or VR devices (37ppd), making it easier to read text. 此外，这款 VR 眼镜的角分辨率（37ppd）远高于大多数 AR 或 VR 设备，这使得阅读文字变得更加容易，这也是一个加分项。

What you don’t get at 70 degrees by 66 degrees is full immersion. Some nerds like me will argue that the Meta VR Glasses don’t offer… 在 70 度乘以 66 度的视野下，你无法获得完全的沉浸感。一些像我这样的极客会争辩说，Meta VR 眼镜并没有提供……