Apple has limited a Vision Pro safe area to 10 feet by 10 feet, when using fully immersive VR experiences. It follows earlier news of a speed limit when using the device.
The limit is likely designed to prevent the sort of virtual reality headset accidents frequently seen in YouTube videos, but some are saying that it might prove too limiting for some types of gameplay, as well as proving a significant limitation for some commercial and industrial uses …
The limitation was raised by Hans Karlsson, chief technology officer of VR creative agency Mimir.
I just learned that Apple has crippled VR so that it stops when you move more than 1,5 meters. So Apple VR is for coach potatoes. No real volumetric video possible then outside the coach zone. No table tennis, nothing that makes you move outside a small box. Super bummer.
This is confirmed in Apple’s documentation:
When you start a fully immersive experience, visionOS defines a system boundary that extends 1.5 meters from the initial position of the person’s head. If their head moves outside of that zone, the system automatically stops the immersive experience and turns on the external video again. This feature is an assistant to help prevent someone from colliding with objects.
Since the movement can be 1.5 meters (5 feet) in any direction, that effectively means you are constrained within a 10×10-feet box.
Some are suggesting that this is simply an initial, conservative limit as Apple seeks to avoid early accidents. Once users are more familiar with the experience, then the limit may be increased or removed.
If so, this would be an understandably cautious approach on Apple’s part …
Others speculate that Apple may want to encourage seated use to minimize fatigue in order to get people used to wearing Vision Pro for longer periods than current VR headsets.
Analyst Neil Cybart believes that Apple wants to encourage AR usage more than VR – at least initially.
To be clear, VR is being positioned as a somewhat narrow subset of Vision Pro use cases out of the gate. Apple also has a vested interest in playing a heavy hand with how VR is used on device. However, the company is open to VR-related applications/development.
If you look at promo videos from Varjo, maker of even more expensive mixed-reality headsets for enterprise use, they show things like a designer walking all the way around a full-size virtual car – but that is in an AR environment, where the user can see the space in which they are walking.
If Apple’s 10×10-feet limitation is indeed limited to pure VR usage, then this sort of use would still be possible in Vision Pro.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment, and will update with any response.
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