More than 20 years after their first introduction it is fair to say that Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) have not yet become the "wow" product of early boosters. Even though they are well-established (and even indispensable) in a variety of niche markets their broad use has yet to materialize.

Mike Kalmanash
Insight Media Consultant

In an effort to find out why, Sensics (Baltimore, MD; www.sensics.com) conducted a broad worldwide survey earlier this year among academic, commercial, and government users of virtual reality systems. The survey was designed to understand user perceptions of current head-mounted display (HMD) technology as well as ranking the importance of needed improvements. The survey included over 2,000 VR professionals to participate, and 218 responses were collected, nearly half from academia. Of the areas of application, the most often cited were academic research, training and simulation and virtual design. Interestingly, "Entertainment" was cited by about a fifth of the responders.

The majority of participants considered most existing HMDs to be not ‘good enough’. Users described the most important HMD attributes to be panoramic field of view (defined as "over 100 degrees horizontal"), very fast dynamic response (defined as "no smear or fade effects"), high contrast, high resolution and light-weight.

While these findings are quite interesting (and in line with Sensics’ own development efforts), the "big picture" is perhaps more complex.

In the real world HMDs have many potential applications and come in many "flavors." Some are "immersion" type, with no view of the outside world, while others have a see-thru capability, where the HMD image in projected onto the real world view. These latter of course require higher HMD brightness. A smaller field of view is not an issue for certain applications, though it clearly is an advantage for virtual reality. Low power is most important for HMDs intended for battery operation, while durability is key for other applications (eg, military or industrial). Finally (always) is cost. The price tag associated for quality HMDs can vary from a few hundred dollars to several tens of thousands of dollars.

Sensics HMDs are able to deal with most of the issues cited in the survey and uses an array of OLED microdisplay imagers, coupled with a patented optical design. We’ll cover their solution more extensively in our Mobile Display Report, due to publish on August 15.

So, which is better? Is a 180 degree field of view at 2 lbs better than 32 degrees at 2 ounces? Is a high brightness CRT better than a high resolution OLED array? Asking whether performance is "good enough" is a valid endeavor, but in HMDs (as in life), one size does not fit all.

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