October 07, 2024
Your question needs a little specificity, as glasses could either mean spectacles or an HMD (head mounted display) aka VR headset
Let’s answer both:
While you can wear glasses inside most VR headsets, they can get pretty uncomfortable as the best views are when your eyes are close to the lenses. This closeness reduces any light leakage as well as improves clarity of the lenses by getting your eyes closest to the sweet spot.
However, there is a cost, and that is the squeezing from the headset straps can make your normal glasses press into your face.
The good news is that almost every major VR headset manufacturer offers a free adapter face plate that is easily swappable. These adaptors are simply a little deeper than normal face plates and therefore act as a spacer or separator giving you more room and less pressure.
More good news is the many people who require glasses report that they don’t need glasses while experiencing VR. I believe this is because VR handles much of the focusing for you, so things that appear far away, aren’t really far away, the headset merely cleverest tricks your brain. As a result, glasses are often not needed
As a side note: it is reported that there are numerous other benefits of VR for eye ailments.
When developers create games, apps, experiences, and solutions they have the option as to which output viewing devices they want to support. These include 2D screens (monitors), touch screens, mobile phones, iPads and tablets, Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality WMR, Vive, Vive Pro Eye, and more.
Each of these viewing devices requires custom code for interaction (Eg picking up an object with your hands using hand tracking, with a keyboard, using a mouse, or using a VR hand controller, etc). In addition, each viewer requires certain graphical optimization, owing to the processing power of each device.
As a result, developers choose their output devices carefully and build only for the devices they need.
Our company takes accessibility as a high priority and therefore we always try to offer experiences that are viewable across many devices. But this is not the norm, and that’s because multi-device applicability takes time effort and money - something us developers have to be cognizant of, especially when it’s our clients or investors money that we are dealing with.
As VR progresses the support for multi-platform, multi-device options are becoming easier thanks to things like Open-XR. However, there is still a ways to go before optimum compatibility between decides exist.
In both answers to your question, we have a potentially positive outcome, and this is only getting better.
