AR glasses are not the (only) answer
Exploring the Distinct Value of VR in an Integrated Ecosystem

In the extended reality (XR) landscape, there's a pervasive narrative that augmented reality (AR) is the ultimate frontier, with virtual reality (VR) merely a stepping stone towards achieving that future. This perspective, however, overlooks the fundamental differences and unique value propositions of each technology. As a designer deeply immersed in the XR space, I argue that VR's capabilities are essential in their own right, offering unparalleled opportunities for professional and consumer applications that AR cannot replicate.

Reality Check: The Tech Divide

Optical See-Through AR Challenges:

  • Limited Black Rendering and Color Uniformity: Achieving true "black" in optical see-through designs remains a challenge, as well as maintain true color accuracy. Light bending inherently prohibits perfect opacity, and technologies such as active dimming or pixel dimming, while useful, exacerbate visual flaws of the system. And as each color wave bounces across materials color uniformity remains a difficult beast to tame. 

  • Field-of-View (FOV) Trade-offs: Achieving a large FOV with perfect opacity remains elusive. In birdbath designs, a larger FOV necessitates a bulkier form factor, while waveguide designs (diffractive or reflective) experience compromises in color uniformity, edge clarity, and visual fidelity as FOV increases.

  • Compact Form Factor Challenges: Miniaturizing the system architecture for AR glasses poses significant hurdles, including managing power, heat dissipation, and overall weight, ultimately impacting device capabilities and comfort.

VR headsets, leveraging dedicated displays placed in front of the users’ eyes, excel in immersive experiences with superior color accuracy and pixel control. This advantage, bolstered by advancements in pancake and liquid crystal lenses, will likely widen the visual fidelity gap between VR and AR in the near future.



Optical See-Through AR Challenges:

  • Limited Black Rendering and Color Uniformity: Achieving true "black" in optical see-through designs remains a challenge, as well as maintain true color accuracy. Light bending inherently prohibits perfect opacity, and technologies such as active dimming or pixel dimming, while useful, exacerbate visual flaws of the system. And as each color wave bounces across materials color uniformity remains a difficult beast to tame. 

  • Field-of-View (FOV) Trade-offs: Achieving a large FOV with perfect opacity remains elusive. In birdbath designs, a larger FOV necessitates a bulkier form factor, while waveguide designs (diffractive or reflective) experience compromises in color uniformity, edge clarity, and visual fidelity as FOV increases.

  • Compact Form Factor Challenges: Miniaturizing the system architecture for AR glasses poses significant hurdles, including managing power, heat dissipation, and overall weight, ultimately impacting device capabilities and comfort.

VR headsets, leveraging dedicated displays placed in front of the users’ eyes, excel in immersive experiences with superior color accuracy and pixel control. This advantage, bolstered by advancements in pancake and liquid crystal lenses, will likely widen the visual fidelity gap between VR and AR in the near future.

Different Tech, Distinct Value Prop

Within the XR landscape, AR serves specific niches, notably in professional scenarios where digital overlays on physical environments, such as maintenance guidance or BIM data for construction, demonstrate its utility. AR also presents great potential in consumer applications, enhancing everyday experiences with hands-free navigation and notifications, hinting at its broader potential.

Yet, VR stands out in the XR domain when it comes to truly immersive experiences. For creative professionals, when the digital creations is what matters most, It allows for deep, immersive interactions with 3D models, providing an invaluable tool for comprehensive designing and visualizing. Beyond professional use, VR revolutionizes gaming and media consumption. Here, VR transforms entertainment into an enveloping experience, establishing it as a versatile tool across both professional and consumer applications with high visual fidelity and leveraging passthrough as an augmentation of these comprehensive scenarios.

A Vision for an Integrated Future

The narrative that smartphones would eclipse PCs and laptops has circulated for the past two decades, yet both categories continue to thrive for distinct use cases. This discussion mirrors the current discourse in the XR world, where AR glasses and VR headsets are often pitted against each other in a similar manner.

AR glasses, akin to smartphones, excel in providing portable and convenient access to digital interactions for brief, on-the-go tasks. VR headsets, paralleling laptops, offer a deeper, more immersive engagement, with multi-modal interactions and the computing power necessary for more complex and demanding applications (over 200M laptops are sold globally every year).

This analogy serves as a foundation for advocating a more integrated approach within the XR industry. More energy should be spent on developing a cohesive ecosystem that leverages the strengths of each platform within a broader ecosystem. We must ensure that the technological advances in XR contribute to a versatile and comprehensive digital landscape that encompasses a wide range of computing devices and use cases.



The narrative that smartphones would eclipse PCs and laptops has circulated for the past two decades, yet both categories continue to thrive for distinct use cases. This discussion mirrors the current discourse in the XR world, where AR glasses and VR headsets are often pitted against each other in a similar manner.

AR glasses, akin to smartphones, excel in providing portable and convenient access to digital interactions for brief, on-the-go tasks. VR headsets, paralleling laptops, offer a deeper, more immersive engagement, with multi-modal interactions and the computing power necessary for more complex and demanding applications (over 200M laptops are sold globally every year).

This analogy serves as a foundation for advocating a more integrated approach within the XR industry. More energy should be spent on developing a cohesive ecosystem that leverages the strengths of each platform within a broader ecosystem. We must ensure that the technological advances in XR contribute to a versatile and comprehensive digital landscape that encompasses a wide range of computing devices and use cases.