【Neglected wife movie - Jumpin at the Bedside (1976)】

On the eve of CES,Neglected wife movie - Jumpin at the Bedside (1976) where virtual reality is set to dominate, the loudest chatter around VR seems to be focused on the dawn of tetherless, high-end VR headsets.

The basic idea: to bring the kind of mobility you enjoy with something like the mobile phone-based Samsung Gear VR to premium VR devices like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Some feel that once these higher-end headsets are untethered, VR will truly take off, as we'll be able to fully immerse ourselves by walking around freely in the real world while jacked into the virtual world.

SEE ALSO: 2016 was supposed to be the year of VR. Instead, augmented reality ruled

In recent months, two major reveals have only added fuel to this idea.

The TPCast, an add-on for the HTC Vive that makes the headset tetherless (with next to no latency!), is already on sale for Chinese consumers for just over $200.

Around the same time, Oculus showed off its wireless prototype called Santa Cruz, which will also allows for high-end VR experiences without the supposed burden of wires tethering you to a stationary PC.

And if my CES instincts are correct, there will be at least a few, mostly unknown companies that will arrive in Las Vegas next week heralding the arrival of tetheress, high-end VR via new headsets.

But after testing a wide variety of VR experiences on the Vive, Rift, PlayStation VR and Google Cardboard -- in situations offering large spaces and small, tethered and untethered -- I'm convinced that ditching the wires from high-end VR headsets may do more harm than good.

Why wireless isn't the answer

I think back to roughly two years ago, when Oculus co-founder and vice president of product, Nate Mitchell, gave me a demo of the Crescent Bay prototype of the Oculus Rift. The demo was a huge step up from my experience with the DK1 version of the device, and I found myself attempting to reach out and touch things (alas, Touch had yet to be revealed) and walk around the environments.

Most people do not and will not have such a perfect environment for VR.

Despite the fact that the headset was tethered, this demo unit had a very long connector, allowing me a lot of freedom of movement. Adding to that freedom was the fact that we were in a spacious, empty room, conveniently outfitted with foam along all the walls.

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Yes, I (happily, in my VR glee) ran into those foam-protected walls. And at a few points, I was given a helping hand of guidance when it looked like I was about to stumble in the real world due to my VR-guided movements.

That experience has stayed with me primarily because it was the perfect environment in which to experience VR: a large, empty room with protective padding and a couple of people around to help you if you lose your bearings. Most people do not and will not have such a perfect environment for VR. Whether it's the living room, office or even a personal library/recreation room, walking around in fully immersive VR while alone, untethered, is one of the most dangerous things I can think of regarding mainstream tech use.

Have you ever stubbed your toe? Banged your knee on an end table? Tripped on a carpet, toy, backpack? Of course you have. And you suffered those minor, yet painful accidents with full sight, not encumbered by a high-tech blindfold. Now imagine those minor household incidents magnified by being sightless to real world structures as you enjoy the frequently convincing realities of VR.

I almost put a hole in the wall of my office playing 'Superhot' … I read the same story from other fans of the game.

Last week, I almost put a hole in the wall of my office playing The Matrix-stylebullet time game SuperHotwhile trying to punch out a bad guy. I thought I was alone until I read the same story, over and over again, from other fans of the game in VR communities across the internet.

And this is happening while we're tethered, no more than three to five feet away from our PC boxes. It's difficult to explain just how important being subtly reminded (via PC tether) to stay somewhat stationary is until you truly lose yourself in a high-end VR experience.

At this point that I'd like to point out that the tetherless VR demos (see videos above) for both the TPCast and Santa Cruz Oculus Rift feature people who, for some odd reason, do notwalk around the room freely (which is the natural instinct in VR, primarily reined in by, you guessed it, a PC tether).

To be fair, both the Vive and Rift offer virtual guidance boundaries (called Chaperone and Guardian, respectively), but having frequently used both in room environments, the "boundaries" can sometimes vary in accuracy relative to reality based on sensor tracking, which means you still have to be very careful. And while the Vive has a front-facing camera that allows you to "peek" into the real world to check your positioning, such frequent real-world position checking kind of breaks the immersive effect of your VR experience.

It's not a leash, it's a lifeline

When new technologies come along we often focus on how they can be improved or made more powerful and convenient. Those are all important considerations that are vital to innovation. But along with technical considerations, it's incredibly important to remember the basics: How will real people use it? Is it safe? Is it practical? Just because it canbe done, that doesn't mean doing it will necessarily deliver a better experience.

So is tetheress, high-end VR good for any use case? For now, only if you're safely sitting in a stationary (preferably swivel) chair. And since most public spaces aren't generally blindfold- or swivel chair-friendly (yet), it's difficult to come up with ways that tetherless VR headsets would be safe and practical in such environments. If an easy solution for this safety/practicality gap exists, I haven't seen it yet.

Something like the Virtuix Omni Gaming Treadmill, which allows you to walk and run in VR without leaving a single spot, could eventually make wireless high-end VR headsets an attractive option. But like home treadmills and elaborate exercise machines, the extra space needed and additional cost will likely make this a solution for only the most hardcore VR users (at least in the short term).

Alternatively, beyond the safe seating and omnidirectional treadmill options, tetherless VR while walking inside or outside your home is a recipe for an array of VR accidents we can't even imagine yet. The truth is, what some early VR adopters think of as a limitation is actually one of the things keeping them safe and, in the process, helping to keep VR's overall future promising.

Like a swimmer's lifeline to a boat floating in the middle of a massive ocean, that leash keeping you close to your PC is your best friend in the innumerable immersive VR worlds yet unexplored -- at least until we get a real holodeck.

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Topics Oculus Virtual Reality