Augmented Reality (AR) vs. Virtual Reality (VR): What's the Difference?

 Curious about the difference between Augmented reality(AR) and virtual (VR)?  From the Apple Vision Pro to the Meta Quest to the Microsoft HoloLens, we break it down for you. 

The terms virtual reality and augmented reality get tossed around a lot. VR headsets, for example, the Meta Quest 2 or the Valve Index, and AR apps and games, like Pokemon Go, are popular. They sound comparable, and as the  technologies develop, they seep into one another somehow or another. This is promptly clear in the new Apple Vision Pro, a headset that won't go on sale until early 2024.

But VR and AR are still two very different concepts, with defining characteristics that distinguish one from the other. 

WHAT IS VIRTUAL REALITY ?

VR headsets completely take over your vision to give you the impression that you're somewhere else . The PlayStation VR2, the Meta Quest 2, the Valve Index, and other headsets are opaque, blocking out your surrounding when you wear them, if your them on when they're tuned off, you might feel as if you're blindfolded. 

when the headsets turn on, however, the LCD or, OLED panels inside are refracted by the lenses to fill your field of vision with whatever is being displayed, it can be a game, a 360-degree video, or just the virtual space of the platforms 'interfaces'. Visually, you're taken to wherever the headset wants you to go-the outside world is replaced with a virtual one. 

For both games and apps, virtual reality supersedes your surrounding. When your are physically doesn't matter. In games, you might sit in the cockpit of starfighter. In apps, you might virtually tour distant locations as if you were there. There are tons of possibilities in VR, and they all involve replacing everything around you with something else. This doesn't mean your surroundings are completely out of the picture, though; most current VR headsets are able to scan your surroundings or at least set boundaries to keep you in the area you've cleared to use them and not trip over your furniture.  

What is Augment Reality?

While virtual reality replaces your vision, augmented reality adds to it. AR devices, such as the Microsoft Hololens, the original Google Glass, and various enterprise-level "smart glasses," are transparent, letting you see everything in front of you as if you're wearing a pair of glasses. 

The technology is designed for free movement while projecting images over whatever you look at. The concept extends to smartphones with AR apps and games, such as Pokemon Go, which use your phone's camera to track your surroundings and visually overlay additional information on the top of it.

AR displays can offer something as simple as a text overlay that shows the time to something as complicated as Holograms of furniture floating in the middle of a room. Pokemon Go projects a Pokemon  on your screen that rests on the top of whatever the camera is pointed at. The HoloLens and other smart glasses, meanwhile, let you virtually place floating app windows and 3D decoration around you. 

These displays tend to be expensive, however, and we've yet to see an AR headset bot realistically priced and with enough features to be considered a true consumer product. Because of this, the majority of AR experiences available to most people are via smart phones --using your phone's camera and screen to augment your reality in a very limited view.

Augmented reality has nearly limitless possibilities. phone's-based software has been recognizing surroundings and providing additional information about what is sees for years now, offering live translation of text or pop-up reviews of restaurants as you look at them. Dedicated AR headsets, such as the HoloLens, can do even more, letting you virtually place different apps as floating windows round you. They effectively give you a modular, multi-monitor, computing setup. However, purely AR headsets are still too expensive and bulky to be considered everyday computing items. The Middle Ground: Mixed Reality.

AR and VR were mutually exclusive concepts at first, but slowly they've merged into a new catch-all range of reality-shifting technology: mixed reality. sometimes called MO or XR, mixed reality is when primarily VR headsets incorporate AR aspects into their use.

It's a broad term, and, ultimately, mixed reality can describe any part of the AR/VR spectrum, but we're seeing more and more of a firm middle ground between them. The Meta Quest Pro, for example, has color camera that provide a much clearer view of your surroundings and project virtual screens on your desk, letting  you work as if you had multiple monitors and even use your own keyboard and mouse instead of virtual representations of them. The upcoming Apple Vision Pro also appears to have these features, and will similarly display virtual objects across your real environment. Apple calls its products a Spatial Compute.

effectively, though, both of these experiences are more VR than AR. Unless you're dealing with a transparent display that overlays information about an environment that you can look at directly, any headset is still going to completely determine what your eyes see, pixel. Pass-through video gives a taste of AR, but you're still wearing a VR headset.  

Looking Towards the Future

The line between AR and VR won't e going away fully any time soon, but in the short term, it will become less defined as mixed reality becomes a bigger factor among VR headsets, Outward-facing cameras and environment-scanning technology will improve over time and you'll be able to get a clearer look at your surroundings when wearing a headset--effectively making every VR headset a mixed reality headset as well. 

In the longer term, however, that line will probably become sharper once again. For the moment, processing requirements and display technology still limit how small and affordable AR displays can be. The electronics that go into AR glasses are still expensive and take up a fair amount of space. Once the components become small enough to install on a pair of glasses without significantly adding to its heft, and are relatively inexpensive, dedicated AR displays will pull away from full vision-covering VR headsets and really bring the augmented reality concept into a consumer-friendly reality. For now, your choices are big goggles or staring at your phone.