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Passthrough blacking out: Potentially dangerous to users.

Mild-Dog
Expert Protege

When I want to move to another room, possibly to use a different boundary without taking the headset off, it blacks out the passthrough screen when it realizes it can't find the previous boundary.

 

I think this is a really dangerous design decision as opposed to just leaving passthrough on so the person can still see where they're going.

 

Did the programmers want the user to trip over something because they'd been blinded by this?

 

If Facebook/Meta is going to be so controlling with their user interface, I hope they're prepared to control their legal responsibility for any injuries resulting from this design choice.

 

I hope we don't have to wait until that happens for this to be corrected.

13 REPLIES 13

TomCgcmfc
MVP
MVP

Pretty poor practise to walk around from room to room with the headset on.  Just take it off or tilt it up on your forehead and put it on again afterwards, and long press the right controller oculus button to re-centre.

i9 13900K water cooled, RTX4090, Z790 MB w/wifi6e, 32Gb 6400 ram, 2x2TB SSD, 1000W PSU, Win 11, QPro, Q3, w/Link and Air Link, Vive Pro1 with Etsy lens mod and Index Controllers

I wouldn't rely on passthrough to show me anything important in my path. It's better that the headset forces you to remove itself if you stray from the known clear guardian area.

I think sometimes you just have to plan for the fact that someone is gonna be too lazy to take it off and just use passthrough to exit the room.

 

The device deliberately blinds the user in an attempt to control where they're going. I doubt it's still the user's legal responsibility at that point.

Passthrough isn't that blurry for me. Not to mention, if I'm just switching to another guardian, it's just a nuisance.

When you setup a guardian, you are effectively stating that you have checked the area and it's free of obstructions and hazards. That's on you . Outside that area, all bets are off and Meta don't really want the "Quest broke my legs" headlines that would ensue if you could wander around outside the guardian with, let's be honest, extremely poor, grainy monochrome vision.

Accidental second comment, how do I delete this?

If an old lady can successfully sue Mcdonalds for millions of dollars because they didn't put the lid on her coffee very well, I think I'd bet that someone could have a case against Facebook/Meta for an injury from being deliberately blinded by their interface while using passthrough.

 

I'm pretty sure they had warning labels on the cups and/or lids that tell customers to be careful, the contents are hot, but she still won the case.

 

This isn't just about "people should just be smarter so it's on them", this isn't the Darwin Awards forum.

 

It can happen and if it does happen, common sense seems to point to Facebook/Meta being liable in court.

In my (completely non-educated) legal opinion, allowing people to wander around half-sighted is worse than encouraging them to remove the headset that's obscuring their vision.

 

In your McDonalds example, the liability was because the company employee failed to fit the lid properly. "Mcdonalds failed to properly protect me against my own stupidity". As a non-American I find it entirely laughable what people in litigious societies will claim for, that that's another discussion. If Meta allowed you (in fact encouraged you by enabling passthrough) to walk around in an area that hadn't been definitely cleared of hazards, the cry would be "Meta failed to protect me against my own stupidity". Sound familiar?

 

If you have to remove the headset to move around safely, that's all Meta can reasonably do. The choice to move around in the dark wearing a headset that can easily be removed is down to the user. Maybe full colour, high res passthrough in future headsets will make the restriction unneccessary.

 

Of course, the guardian is a safety feature and you can turn it off, although the headset will tell you not to. Problem solved. Roam at will.

"In your McDonalds example, the liability was because the company employee failed to fit the lid properly. "Mcdonalds failed to properly protect me against my own stupidity""

 

Yes, the employee did accidentally. The cup spilling scalding hot coffee on her was not a design choice.

 

The Quest 2 blinds people while using passthrough. If someone gets injured because of that, it was because of a design choice.

 

There's potentially (none of this is legal advice since I'm no lawyer) even more of a lawsuit here.

 

And the Mcdonald's lady won. It doesn't matter how stupid the case was, it's in Meta's best interest not to put themselves in a similar position.