Connect with friends easily using the VR Portal from your room or office

A VR developer has presented a new concept for staying in touch with friends and colleagues. The idea is a virtual portal that connects your space to theirs, creating a more natural and inviting form of casual communication than what is currently available with Meta's Horizon Worlds or Horizon Workrooms for business meetings.

Stephen Rogers, a VR developer with BrushWorkVR, is the creator of CoasterMania, a mixed-reality roller coaster construction game available on Quest 2 and Quest Pro through Meta's AppLab.

Rogers has envisioned a new way to interact in VR, one that emulates the way coworkers or roommates hang out. Each person is in their own space, but a connected wall, enabled by a portal, makes it easy to chat and even pass virtual objects back and forth, as demonstrated in a Twitter video Rogers posted recently.

Video: Stephen Rogers

Rogers used Meta's Presence Platform to create the prototype, where furniture becomes 3D objects, and the other person is represented as an avatar. However, there is potential to take this concept even further with improved avatar technology and room-scanning capabilities, allowing the display of both the real room and the real person. With enough encouragement, Rogers may develop this idea further, presenting endless possibilities.

Hangouts and meetings in VR

When participating in VR meetings and chats, you are transported to a virtual world or room to communicate with others. This can be quite enjoyable, especially when combined with friendly games such as Walkabout Mini Golf and Gym Class. These games provide a comfortable and engaging environment to socialize with friends while having fun. Although Horizon Worlds is still improving, it has yet to achieve success. When it comes to office meetings, Horizon Workrooms is an adequate platform for focused discussions. However, it may not be the best choice for daily work interactions due to its limited virtual whiteboard and room options.

Apple's Vision Pro offers a FaceTime experience with floating windows that take advantage of the device's crisp displays. While the virtual windows are quite large, the view is rather flat and offers few advantages over a Zoom meeting on a computer monitor.

Recently, a Shared Wall MR prototype was showcased on Reddit by Rogers and gained a lot of popularity. Although this prototype is not yet available to try, House Defender is a mixed-reality game that utilizes a similar concept of connecting players in a shared virtual space to fight off monsters in a spooky graveyard.

Now is an excellent time for VR developers and manufacturers to think outside the box and create solutions that take mixed reality experiences to new heights. This will prepare for the next generation of AR headsets and glasses that will make mixed reality practical for all-day use. Just imagine being able to connect with several households or office spaces and can glance over at your virtual neighbor throughout the day. Distant friends and family will seem much closer when you can share an invisible wall. This could one day revolutionize long-distance relationships.

Sources: Meta Reddit