If you’re wondering what the safe space is for an Apple Vision Pro headset’s immersive VR experience, it’s about 10 feet by 10 feet.
The limitation was raised by Hans Karlsson, chief technology officer of VR creative agency Mimir. Karlsson offered the following comment:
“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.”
The space restriction has been confirmed by 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 have suggested that this may be an initial, conservative limit established by Apple to avoid early accidents. Once users are more familiar with the experience, then the limit may be increased or removed.
Others have speculated that this may be a limit Apple is encouraging to minimize fatigue in order to get people used to wearing Vision Pro for longer periods than current VR headsets.
Apple has yet to publicly comment on this issue.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via 9to5Mac, developer.apple.com, and @VRmaninJapan