Compared to their predecessors that emerged in the 1990s, today’s VR headsets are much lighter and provide a much better experience. However, they are still too big and bulky, making any real-life VR applications for tech geeks and average humans impractical, to say the least.

Tethered vs. Standalone

Right from the start, there were two types of VR headsets available to the general public: the “traditional” type linked to a computer and the “standalone” type that used a smartphone as both the screen and the computer needed to play VR content.

The latter type was much more popular due to its price – you could even get one – admittedly, made of cardboard – for as little as a few dollars, and even the most elaborate contraptions cost much less than a dedicated VR headset.

(Photo: Oculus.com)

Then, like a combination of the two, Oculus released the Quest, an all-in-one VR headset based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 SoC and running Android 7. This seemed like a decent compromise: it had the processing power to run great VR experiences and the price – $399 for the 64GB model – to make it accessible to the masses. Still, it wasn’t enough for VR to go mainstream in 2019.

2020 – A great year for VR?

2020 is expected to be a great year for VR thanks to a game called Half-Life: Alyx, set to be released this March.

It is hailed as one of the most important pieces of software for virtual reality – it is, after all, the first Triple-A game released exclusively on the platform. Moreover, it is the continuation (or better said, a prequel) of a beloved video game franchise that the fans have been wishing to see for ages.

Photo: Steam

A lot depends on its success – many consider it a vital release for the entire VR industry, showing an unprecedented level of dedication to the platform by a major game development company. The first effects of the game’s announcement were felt at the end of last year already: Valve’s Index VR headsets instantly sold out.

Beyond 2020

As for the future, we have a few exciting innovations in the area to look forward to.

For one, there’s HTC’s Project Proton that is expected to add two new devices to the growing pool of VR headsets: a pair of AR/VR glasses – Proton Glass – tethered to an external processing module, like a smartphone, and an all-in-one headset that will be similar to Oculus Quest but much smaller, lighter, and easier to use. And both of them are expected to support superior connectivity through 5G. Will it be released this year? Well, there is no way to know it right now. But if it does hit the shelves, it may be another factor that can make 2020 the year of the VR.

Since this most recent phase of virtual reality technology has reached the mainstream, the emphasis has been on gaming. Whether it’s with Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headsets, the majority of the marketing has been focussed on VR gaming. It is certainly a growth industry. In 2015, the worldwide revenue for VR gaming was less than $670 million. That figure rose to $5.8 billion in 2017 and is expected to top $22 billion by 2020.

That is hardly surprising given the mainstream nature of VR gaming technology today. A lot of that is down to the launch of PlayStation VR back in 2016. Now, fans can choose from any number of different titles including Skyrim and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and just last week, Sony announced that they had sold over 4.2 million headsets worldwide.

That is an impressive figure but there are still some clear objections to the use of the technology in gaming. The equipment is costly and some users have issues with things like motion sickness and dizziness if they play for long periods of time. These are problems with the technology don’t really come into play in other sectors where VR is being utilized successfully.

Oculus has used the technology in the sporting world, allowing users to watch their favorite matches in an immersive experience. Elsewhere, the technology been utilized  by Betway to create an engrossing live casino while the Guggenheim Museum in New York has launched a feature which allows users to tour the site from the comfort of their own home. These have all proven successful but another sector seems to be using the technology better than almost any other: healthcare.

Founded in 2016, VRHealth is a company that creates medical and therapeutic applications using VR and AR technology. It was the first certified VR healthcare company on the planet and all of its applications are compliant with the FDA.

“We have applications for physical therapy, cognitive rehab, pain management, hot flashes,” says Eran Orr, the company’s founder.

“Our brain is like a CPU – 75% of that CPU goes to visuals and sound. When we overload our CPU with an immersive technology like VR, things like pain can get downgraded in the priority list. That’s why it’s amazing for pain management or pain distraction. Once you combine that with actual rehab, physical therapy or any other process where pain is another element, it’s a game-changer.”

But VRHealth isn’t the only company utilizing this technology in this way. Estimates suggest that the VR healthcare market will reach almost $7 billion by 2026. Its treatment uses don’t end with pain management. VR has been used as a way to treat other mental health illness as well as more physical afflictions including robotic surgery.

The technology is also being utilized in the world of diagnosis. A study at the University of Washington Medical Center demonstrated the usefulness of VR technology in certain types of procedures. In the experiment, researchers performed an intervention radiology treatment using a VR headset which displayed a real-time model from inside the patient’s blood vessels. When compared to traditional methods, the researchers needed a shorter mean time to reach the targeted blood vessels and less radiation exposure as the typical practice is to use an x-ray image.

“Virtual reality will change how we look at a patient’s anatomy during an IR treatment,” said Wayne Monsky, a professor of radiology at the University of Washington and the lead author of the study.

“This technology will allow physicians to travel inside a patient’s body instead of relying solely on 2D, black and white images.”

However, perhaps the most useful application of all has been in training. There are free apps like Operate Now and Surgery Squad which provide the user with an immersive training experience in a clinical setting without having to actually be there. It reduces costs for training providers as well as providing student doctors and surgeons the experience of working in a medical team and using the equipment.

It’s an interesting time for virtual reality technology. The equipment is still very much a work in progress and has a long way to go to appease its critics. VR gaming is growing but it seems as if the current technology is finding more success in other sectors like healthcare. Gamers may still have their hang-ups about VR but while that is happening, the technology is helping medical professionals and researchers to do their jobs.

If virtual reality is to become more than merely a fad, it needs to blow past early adopters or as we normally call them, nerds. Yep, it might not always sound nice but, more often than not, high tech doesn’t always equate to popular tech. Take WebOS as an example. During the early days of mobile, there were 4 players fighting their ways to consumers’ hearts. They were Symbian, iOS, Android, and WebOS. I doubt you would even recall Palm, the company, much more the innovative OS they developed. Go ahead and check on YouTube how much more feature rich it is compared to Android and intuitive versus iOS. For those of us who remember, I’d argue that given the dose of marketing and when paired with solid hardware, it could still give the modern OS’s we’re using these days a run for their money.

Enough about nostalgia. The point I’m drawing is that no technology has gotten wide adoption at first attempt. There needs to be breakneck innovation in its infancy and continued refinement as the years pass. For virtual reality to get a foothold in the homes of billions of people, like how smartphones are now entrenched in society. For it to have a chance of being ubiquitous, it has to dramatically impact the flow regular folks’ daily lives.

We’re only a few weeks short of arriving in 2017, and here are some awesome and inventive new trends that I consider willpower virtual reality into our future lives.

The boost of mass market VR thanks to Google Daydream

Not much time has passed since Google made the announcement about its Daydream VR during its Google Pixel announcement, but it has already reverberated enough of the tech industry that non-techie folks have heard about it. Its launch is Google using its weight towards the seemingly rudderless virtual reality releases of other companies like Oculus Rift, Gear VR, and HTC Vive. This is not to say that those we’ve mentioned doesn’t stand a chance against this recent virtual reality headset iteration, however, if there’s anything we’ve learned about how Apple has crushed its naysayers, it’s that design must be given top priority in every new product release.

Google’s Daydream VR platform has given VR not only the revolutionary technology, more importantly; it’s plainly trying to imbue aesthetics to it. Together with the sweet release of the Pixel phone, which has overwhelmingly received raved reviews, this headset’s tandem with Google iPhone killer gives it more than enough tech credence.

Affordable VR headsets are about to hit the market in 2017

Another welcome news is that VR headsets are set to arrive at lower price points. This year, we’ve seen the rise of large tech giants like Microsoft’s HoloLens, the partnership between Facebook and Oculus, and the HTC Vive. We might not be able to afford their offerings at the moment. But now that we’re assured that VR isn’t going to be dominated by a monopoly, expect that the race towards who’s going to deliver a more affordable VR headset is next.

Smaller outfits have already signed up into helping Microsoft put forth more VR headset solutions to Windows customers. The list includes our usual PC makers like Dell, Lenovo, Acer, HP and Asus. During this year’s Microsoft’s event, they declared $299 as the price masses can expect to buy mixed reality headset soon. Windows 10 is proving to be the biggest bet Microsoft has made since they decided to launch their operating system with a graphical interface. They are certainly betting big that VR, might be where our next desktop would be.

The rise of VR gaming thanks to PlayStation VR

PlayStation VR is a gaming platform that’s available to us currently. With it, people can experience the most immersive games in a way where it can take advantage of the technology by far. Entertainment is a no-brainer use case for VR since it is obviously the next big leap to entertainment next to 3D and motion sensing technologies we’ve released the past years. It makes gaming even more immersive that no 4k resolution TV or even an awesome projector can compete.

People have almost always given feedback on how comfortable it is to wear. The games in it are also well polished likely because Sony is screening each and every game that comes out of it. You won’t see any drop in frame rate which when it occurs, coupled with sloppy graphics, makes some gamers motion sick and less immersive.

The continuous penetration of VR into all aspects of life and business

Although entertainment industries like gaming are usually the de facto beneficiary of the advancements we’ve accomplished thus far in virtual reality, there are more use cases where it may be placed to good use. One of which is crime scene reconstructions. Crime scene experts from the University of Zurich are looking into using Oculus Rift headsets and its VR technology in order to aid investigations of criminal trials. The information that can be gathered for a complete 3D reconstruction of a crime scene is a huge step up from evidence submitted in papers.

Virtual workspaces can also be a thing in the near future as there is already a startup based in Reykjavik, that uses VR headsets to turn off outside interference to affect people whose supposed to do focused work. In education, Unimersiv has a huge resource of online content that is ready to be used with Oculus Rift or Samsung Gear Headsets. Students can attend immersive virtual reality classes from almost any topic.

Virtual Reality increases demand for high tech developers

With projected industry revenue swelling to over $120 billion in the next 4 years, according to finance experts, virtual reality is starting to appear constantly in job boards. Forbes.com has noted that the difference between today’s VR related job-search trend and two years ago is a staggering 800% increase.

Recruiting companies are clamouring for developers who can help develop 3D games, apps, movies, etc… They need to be able to create as close to real-world environments as possible. Because of the challenges, a single project’s completion demands many disciplines to work together. Some of the most sought-after jobs in this lot are Unity developers, VR game engineers, VR sound effects specialists, UX/UI Designers. Cutting edge developers has the launch of Oculus Rift to thank as the surge coincides when it first launched in 2014.

A Final Word…

Much like how smartphones have opened the floodgates for all kind of technology to penetrate our daily lives this past decade, virtual reality will bring the next wave of techs to our homes. Right now, almost everyone on the planet has a modern phone, meaning its market is already saturated. These 5 emerging trends we’ve mentioned above are very good indicators that the virtual reality industry may very well be the home of the next awesome innovations.