Future VR: VR contacts?

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boomboy2k1

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 11, 2014
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In 10 years or so maybe OLED tech can be imprinted on a pair of contacts and some sort of micro battery or some new battery tech powering them and a wireless kind of connection to a computer. This tech may be a bit far off but I can see it coming in near future.

How awesome would it be? Would you wear them or why not?
 
boomboy2k1 said:
In 10 years or so maybe OLED tech can be imprinted on a pair of contacts and some sort of micro battery or some new battery tech powering them and a wireless kind of connection to a computer. This tech may be a bit far off but I can see it coming in near future.

How awesome would it be? Would you wear them or why not?
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When you go to sleep and wake up, how would you know if you are in the real world.....or the virtual?
 
Oscar Meyer said:
When you go to sleep and wake up, how would you know if you are in the real world.....or the virtual?
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If you ever wore contacts, you'd experience dryness and irritation in eyes if you sleep with them. You'll know you are still in the virtual world or when the battery has run out and you are back in the real world.
 
It would be cool, but I sincerely doubt the technology will exist in 10 years.
 
Oscar Meyer said:
When you go to sleep and wake up, how would you know if you are in the real world.....or the virtual?
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Because you'd take the contacts out before you went to sleep, lest you wake up with your eyes glued shut by eye mucus.
 
Honestly if we had 2x4k wireless goggles in ten years I'd be happy. Contacts are way further out.
 
I have to wear contacts anyway lest anything more than a few inches from my face turns into a blurry, unfocused mess. Turning them into AR displays would be pretty sweet.

However, I can't imagine them being cheap to produce, which can especially be a problem when they have become dislodged from my eyes every now and then just from the mere action of blinking. (It's not common, but really annoying when it happens and I'm not near a sink.) Prescription contact lenses are expensive enough as is; now imagine losing some really high-tech equivalents!

Then there's the matter of making sure the displays are oriented properly. What's going to ensure that they're always facing right-side up no matter how you insert them?

The biggest challenge of all, of course, is the form factor. Needs to be transparent, maybe except at the very edges. Needs to be flexible too, for comfort reasons. Power delivery is also a problem, unless they find some way to power the lenses just by blinking.
 
Power could be similar to how you can charge phones, using wireless charging. I don't see this tech in 10 years either. I do see lightweight glasses though which can be either AR or VR depending upon what you want to do.
 
In 15-20 years perhaps... but ya, not happening any time soon on this front... just way too many tech hurdles to overcome.

Lightweight, sunglasses or swim goggles form factor, high resolution VR is what I'm looking forward to... within 10 years... 8 if we are lucky.
 
If you already have to wear contacts and it gives a decent life advantage, fair enough.
Otherwise no, I prefer less risks and the cost will be silly (if they are any good).
Lightweight glasses are the better option unless you need to hide their use.
 
I had lasik so I wouldn't have to wear contacts anymore. I can't see any reason vr glasses wouldn't be just as good...
 
bobzdar said:
I had lasik so I wouldn't have to wear contacts anymore. I can't see any reason vr glasses wouldn't be just as good...
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Plus real easy to take off if there is an issue. Now if a special connection is made to the optic nerve . . . :rolleyes:
 
I am not sure how your eyes are going to focus on something that is literally right against your eyeball...I would think you would need at least a bit of distance from your eye.
 
MavericK said:
I am not sure how your eyes are going to focus on something that is literally right against your eyeball...I would think you would need at least a bit of distance from your eye.
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Different method, light is projected right onto your retina, will not need all the lenses, flat screens etc.
"The technology is called Virtual Retinal Display (VRD), and it uses a projector which sends its image directly onto the retina, in much the same way that a CRT television projects a picture onto the glass of the screen"
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme...t-beams-the-display-directly-onto-your-retina​
 
The problem with the idea of an 'AR contact lens' is that you cannot focus on an image placed on your eyeball. Because of this, any AR contact lens would itself need to contain extremely powerful thin-film optics to allow you to focus on a close to 0 focal distance. Such optics do not currently exist. And if they did, putting the in the lens would now preclude you from being able to view the rest of the outside world.
 
EdZ said:
The problem with the idea of an 'AR contact lens' is that you cannot focus on an image placed on your eyeball. Because of this, any AR contact lens would itself need to contain extremely powerful thin-film optics to allow you to focus on a close to 0 focal distance. Such optics do not currently exist. And if they did, putting the in the lens would now preclude you from being able to view the rest of the outside world.
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See the post above yours.
 
'Virtual Retinal Displays' using direct laser projection currently do not exist outside of lab prototypes, and are limited to low fields of view.

The Avegant thing however is pure grade-A marketing wank. What they have is a bog-standard LCOS microdisplay setup (same as the setup using a DMD chip). Of course it 'focuses an image onto your retina': EVERY HMD must focus an image onto your retina as part of its basic function! If they didn't, you wouldn't see an image!
 
You expect it to be on sale now?

ps the point of a laser (or similar) is to allow a tiny device to overlay an image.
It can use its own focus mechanism.
No array required.
 
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