Lily Snyder

I woke up today feeling like it was Christmas morning. There was a HTC Vive in the guest room! Hopefully, Everest VR had completed downloading. It was one of the promo games that came with the Vive. I downloaded Richie’s Plank Experience the previous night too but hadn’t had a chance to play it yet.

I was also excited to see how much work I could get done in the Vive. Yesterday I figured out how to switch to my desktop from inside the headset. I experimented opening Gmail, highlighting emails to read for later, and deleting ones I no longer needed. I was even able to catch up on a Hangout chat from the browser!

After checking my email went to my hobby site, Columbusga360, to see how my 360-degree photos displayed. They worked just as well from inside the Vive as outside of it. It was cool to drag the images for the full 360-degree view. I recommend you try it.

I still need to figure out how to view my photos directly. I read that the Virtual Desktop on Steam will let you do this. I’m not sure how this differs from viewing the desktop directly. If any of you know a good way to view 360 photos on the Vive, let me know.

My last meeting of the day was in rumii. I was most excited for this because there’s nothing like meeting with other people in virtual reality. I hope you don’t envision me as some geeky loner in a virtual world all day. My colleagues are scattered across the country. To make up for it we meet in our virtual office. I left the meeting feeling energized. It was a good day working in VR.

Pros of the Day

• It is awesome being able to switch to my laptop’s desktop from inside the Vive.
• I was really excited to have a meeting in rumii in virtual reality again. I liked being able to stand for a meeting instead of hunched over at my desk.
• Meeting in rumii forces you to stand in a power stance because it’s too awkward to cross your arms or fiddle with your hands while holding the controllers.
• I remembered I had a doggie gate to keep Sugar out so I wasn’t totally shutting her out behind a closed door.
• I met with five other people in VR today; all from the comfort of my own home.

Cons of the Day

• Either my laptop or Steam froze switching between the desktop and the game. I had to take the Vive off to restart it on my laptop.
• Our meeting in rumii was about 45 minutes. After a while, I could feel my face getting hot and a little sweaty, even though I had the fan on overhead.
• My feet started to hurt. I’m either out of standing shape or 45 minutes is too long for a standing meeting.
• I still couldn’t figure out how to take a screenshot from the Vive.

There you have it! I would say it was a successful Day 2 working with the HTC Vive.