Apple keeps saying not to put their Apple Vision Pro over my prescription glasses, but I really wanted to see if I could. I needed to figure out if it was worth doing.
Loads of people wear glasses at some point in their lives. Estimates say there are hundreds of millions in the US and even billions worldwide. I've been a glasses-wearer for ages. Back in 2013, when I got the Oculus Rift DK1, it was like the only option for VR stuff at home. That one came with three different lenses you could switch out to help with vision.
I found that the "C" lenses in the Rift DK1 were okay, but combining the "A" lenses with my own glasses gave me the best view. Yeah, it meant I lost a bit of what I could see, but I've been dealing with limited vision since I was six and got my first glasses.
As VR gear got better, they stopped letting you switch lenses. That meant I had to stick with my own glasses. I even got smaller frames like Harry Potter's to fit better under the headsets.
It's been hit or miss. Some headsets, like the Oculus Go and the original PSVR, seem like they're made for glasses. But twice, my glasses ended up scratched from being too tight in there.
I've never scratched a headset lens, but I waste so much time cleaning smudges off my glasses after using VR.
Now it's 2024, and both Meta and Amazon are part of this group called the Vision Council. They say they make 90% of the glasses people wear in the US. They reckon 80% of adults in the US wear some kind of glasses or contacts. So, if a company's making stuff for your eyes, it should either work with glasses or have its own lenses.
Some companies are making prescription lenses for popular headsets now. Like Zenni Optical, they've got lenses for the Meta Quest 3. That's a $50 fix for a headset that costs at least $500.