Oculus for my Baby Boomer Parents

Here is a list of the little things that might be unnatural in the beginning.  Will update this post as \my parents & I learn what we find tricky versus natural. Adjust Your Headset Regularly to Focus.     This took me a bit to get used to. I have perfect vision, but it took me a while to adjust to reading in Oculus VR ( link HERE if you need help setting up Oculus with glasses). The key I found to adjusting focus is: A. Adjusting the "between-eye-space" & B. Physically securing the headset The biggest tip I have is that  physically adjusting the headset can be distracting in the beginning, but keep adjusting and don't give up. When I took my Oculus out of the box, I easily adjusted the space between the eyes by snapping them into three different settings (like binoculars). The head straps are adjustable, but I didn't immediately realize how important adjusting the straps is. While my eyes seem to adjust best to the "most narrow between-eye" setti...

In considering whether to buy a Virtual Reality device for our parents, my brother asked a great question: Would mom's dizziness or vertigo be a problem?   I recently purchased an Oculus Quest 2. My goal is to introduce my baby boomer parents to VR, to help alleviate isolation and boredom due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Dizziness is a good question for VR, especially for someone like my mom or myself who have experienced motion sickness and vertigo in the real world to varying degrees. But I was not afraid to experiment, especially after hearing from a friend who works in Occupational Therapy who uses Oculus headset with his patients. He recollects only 1 out of about 50 patients reporting dizziness. I would be willing to assume that Oculus apps used in healthcare settings are designed with high comfort for patients.  Two Most Useful Things I've learned About Dizziness in Oculus VR: 1 - Comfort Ratings for Oculus apps  2 - VR dizziness might go away with experience ...

I had to get input from my my siblings and friends, cus I found very little about buying VR devices like Oculus for baby boomers online. Purchase Considerations TL;DR: I am buying an Oculus Quest 2 for my baby boomer parents. What to buy? There is a ton of online content for "which device to purchase" so I will keep this short.  I was drawn to the Oculus specifically because it is stand-alone. Other devices on the market expect that you have a video game console or laptop loaded with games. In short, I am not a gamer, and neither are my parents. My decision was solidified after I read this line in PC Magazine : "Oculus is phasing out the Rift S and focusing entirely on the Quest platform going forward."   Oculus Quest is made for someone like my baby boomer mama. She is exactly the type of customer for whom Steve Jobs changed the world: she understood the value of computers but had no time to tinker. MacBooks, iPhones and iPads (not to mention user-friendly software...

WFH Log:  It's month 10 of pandemic + quarantine and everyone hates it (except me?) Maybe due to growing up on an isolated farm or cus I am a computer nerd, or maybe it's the overwhelming relief  in my career of being judged for my work itself, rather than my appearances, now that real-life meetings are obsolete. Regardless- I am doing great but most people, not so much. My family is in another country and I am in US, so we haven't seen each other in over a year. I am a millennial and feel *almost* satisfied with online connections, but I do worry for my parents and friends. I'm also saving more money than usual cus I can't travel abroad or go to bars & parties :( I first tried Oculus in 2017 at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It was cool, got to explore a VR spaceship, but slightly dizzying. Then in 2019, I tried Oculus at a friend's party, and LOVED shooting at VR zombies.  I've imagined buying VR devices to connect my family for ...