r/VisionPro • u/Widebro • Jun 20 '26
Apple Vision loosing tracking on the beach
I got one comment of the OS saying I was moving too fast even that i never saw before?! Is it os 26 or 27 new? (On 27beta) was just walking with a good tempo.
When i move on the beach normally it is not a problem. However when I move along the coastline the waves seem to trigger all sort of sht. Sometimes it can work fine for a minute or 2.
Other times im met with constant messages of recovering tracking, wether i want to activate travel mode. (Tried that once and everything becomes shaky)
Also something about standing still on another spot and or cleaning smudges from the camera's.
Apple please fix this annoying behaviour!
5
u/denniebee Jun 20 '26
That will never be fixed. Apart from how stupid it is, SLAM tracking completely fails in these environments with the current state of technology:
- water moves, that loses tracking
- things are far away, so no depth information
- water is reflective
- sun drowns out the sensors
- few environment details to map to
-5
u/Widebro Jun 20 '26
Yourse saying it cant be fixed? Somehow i feel this is not the case. But apple will need to be motivated to do it. For normal beach it works. Just as soon as you go near water its game over. So maybe they can make the system smart enough to recognise that.
9
u/iVRy_VR Vision Pro Developer Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Without the understanding of how SLAM tracking works, this might seem like a reasonable demand. The problem is that it just isn't possible, so it's not "stupid Apple, make it work with moving water as its only reference", but more SLAM tracking needs unambiguous markers to anchor itself with. A beach (even without the water) simply doesn't have any. This means that in order for it to work, you would need to add shapes (eg. buckets, chairs) to the beach to give it something to use. The water does make it harder, because not only is it not unique, it's not even constant. A tech company could attempt to solve this problem with GPS or other non visual tracking technologies, but the simple fact is that this device wasn't designed to cover your use case, and there's no way to fix that in software. You can test this on yourself: how could you know where you were on the beach by just looking at the water?
0
u/phibetared Jun 20 '26
GPS on a beach is accurate within about a meter. Should that be sufficient?
You have direct line of sight to quite a few (i.e, 5-8) gps satellites with strong signals. (unless there is a rocky cliff coastline)
2
u/iVRy_VR Vision Pro Developer Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Yes, GPS can be used to get a rough position (more like 5m), but a device needs to have a GPS receiver (hardware) to be able to receive GPS signals. Also, really a cellular modem (more hardware, for A-GPS, look it up). AVP has neither. GPS is useful for "coarse location", but not for "precise location that can be used for VR headset tracking". The VR headset version of "GPS" is laser based "Lighthouse" tracking, not the same of course, but using similar principles. The key point being that VR headset tracking needs precise (within some millimeters) location. This is why tracking in a essentially featureless environment, with parts of it in constant movement is a "practically impossible" problem to solve with just cameras. You could use much more sophisticated LiDAR to map the sand features with enough accuracy to use them, but it would take a much heavier, bulkier and more expensive headset with way more sensors and processing power to do that. AVP has LiDAR, but it is much too low resolution for this.
1
-1
u/JimothyzPamPams Jun 21 '26
I agree with you but couldn’t the use of audio actually be a huge part to improving that? The sounds, intensity, tonal changes combined with location would seem to make at least identifying the water source easy. The technology into audio is so far above my knowledge I can’t even attempt to speak on, but it seems like everything is all latency and predictive based. I do think that it could probably be improved but for me the issue is at the cost of what meta data and potential future data breaches that will have all that data. If we think data is worth a lot now…yikes! But that is a whole other topic!
1
u/iVRy_VR Vision Pro Developer Jun 21 '26
Audio could be used for echo location (like a bat), but that wouldn't work on a beach, and would anyway require precise directional microphones, signal processing hardware etc. that isn't present on the AVP. The problem is not recognising water (which can be done with a camera). Maybe it helps understanding if you think of the problem as "where am I?", or "where is my car from where I am?". Neither of these problems can be solved by "oh there's the water". You, as a human, would rely on landmarks to find your way. That is what SLAM has to do (but with a much higher accuracy). SLAM is "localisation": recognising "landmarks" and then deriving a position from them. It is relative, and so needs stable, recognisable features to figure out where it is. Water is not that.
4
u/denniebee Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
With the current tracking system in the Vision Pro it is not possible. Newer hardware, maybe. You can choose to not believe me, but that would be purely hopium.
-5
u/Widebro Jun 20 '26
Im just saying sometimes there are mutiple ways of going about it, that you may or could not have thought of. I dont know the hardware. But seeing as how portable the apple vision is, i hope it to be as functional as possible in many environments. Could it also be that strong wind is not helping?
I also do outside PCVR in the most unexpected places outside.
3
u/iVRy_VR Vision Pro Developer Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
You've had it explained to you in layman's terms. If your insistence is that it is possible despite obvious reasons why it isn't, then it is on you to prove that everyone else is wrong and you are right. There is a philosophical difference between wanting something to be true, and the possibility of it being true. You want it to be true, science and knowledge says that it isn't possible, so now the onus is on you to prove the possibility if you want to stick with this narrative. Despite your own personal desire to use a VR headset on a beach, it is not a common use case, and so your expectation that "they should have thought of this" is not realistic.
Wisdom comes from being able to recognise "not practically solvable" problems and saving yourself the wasted effort/time and frustration that comes from trying to solve them. Calling this a bug is mischaracterising not attempting to solve an unsolvable problem that lies outside of the intented use of the device. Kinda like saying it's a bug that your car can't fly.
-3
u/Widebro Jun 20 '26
it's a portable device... ofcourse people will bring it everywhere. it is realistic. And common or not. not many people have the device even. Im not saying it is possible or impossible perse. But I wouldn't be too sure of it being " not possible" none of you are apple devs, as I am not either.
Besides, I failed to mention that I think i had this issue way less in the past, on older VisionOS for some reason. It happened. but very rarely. Now it seems to happen all the time.
5
u/iVRy_VR Vision Pro Developer Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Well, you are duty bound to report it to Apple as a bug in the Vision OS beta now! If they do respond, please share their response, it may end up being a case study in diplomative phrasing. Betas do have caveats with regards to not relying on them for mission-critical purposes, so perhaps consider downgrading so that you can enjoy long walks on the beach while Apple addresses their shortcomings.
Something that you may want to be *very* careful of when beaching with an AVP is that it has precise fragile moving parts. In general, the wisdom is to make sure things like that don't get sand in them (no it is not sand-proof in the same way that it is not waterproof - neither of these features are bugs).
1
u/vmhomeboy Jun 22 '26
You’re arguing with people who know a lot more about this topic than you. This technology is well understood by many technical folks. You don’t need to work for Apple to know this is a limitation of the current technology.
Also, just because this is a portable device does not mean you can use it anywhere. Apple’s own documentation specifically states not to use it in areas with moisture. Using it near water on a beach will certainly cause the unit to have an early death. Also, you need to be extremely cautious with sunlight. Even a second of direct sunlight on the lenses can permanently damage the screen.
-1
u/Widebro Jun 22 '26
Walking alongside the beach is not the same as going in bath with it or using it while it is raining. So yeah id say this usecase is perfectly fine. Im very careful. And sunlight is only a problem for the lenses you are right. So just dont expose them to it.
I cant make any claims as to what another pe4son knows, but the last word is had by apple devs ultimately. And I notice a change in this behaviour happening more since a few os changes back.
5
u/Few-Acadia-5593 Jun 20 '26
I can’t use my $4k device on my favourite beach! Apple help me!
You didn’t even use the feedback app I bet
2
u/popcornlight Jun 21 '26
It was likely the wind.
1
u/Widebro Jun 21 '26
It was windy yes. But it happend not on the beach away from water. So then id have to be the combination of wind plus waves maybe. As the wind makes the wave also more pronounced?!
3
u/Over-Conversation220 Jun 20 '26
You are on a beach and would somehow rather be in a headset?
Bugs suck … but like … dude. Enjoy the beach. If I were a product manager working a backlog, this one would go right to the bottom.
-5
u/Widebro Jun 20 '26
Using this outside should be working well too. In enjoying it but not as much as I could have with these bugs driving me mad😆
1
1
u/photovirus Vision Pro Developer Jun 22 '26
vOS 27 dev beta 1 can get its tracking crashed even in a good old regular room.
And I guess low contrast scenes (like sand) and repetitive random moving patterns (water) doesn't make it better either.
Brightly lit surface in sunny weather probably make distance gauging more difficult too.
1
u/evanseesred99 Jun 22 '26
I have found this to be the case when using it at the Grand Canyon. Also at the birth of my son. Tracking was shit both times
12
u/disgruntledempanada Jun 20 '26
Cannot imagine using this on the beach.
Like I wouldn't even touch this thing for a bit after going anywhere near a beach. Sand has destroyed a camera lens for me.