I can actually help with this because I specifically had to do research about it!
These are my glasses:
The dimensions of my glasses are 1.7in height and 2.5in width on each lens and 5.5in depth on the arm. I ended up going with the HTC Vive because it has a lot more room for your glasses. In addition to that, it has a lot of ways to adjust them and bring them into focus as well as straps for the comfort of your head.
When you place the VR headset on, I've seen it recommended that you put the glasses inside of the headset and then put it on over your head, but I've found all that does is simply smudge up your glasses before you get the whole thing on your face and sometimes make it so the arms of the glasses aren't properly around your ears since some glasses have specific adjustments that don't take into account how you're putting the headset on.
When placing the Vive headset on my face I simply:
- Have my glasses on and I look down as if I'm staring at my feet
- Lift the back harness of the headset up
- Place my face inside of the headset
- Slide the harness over the back of my head going across the top of the head
- Finally, I then take the side straps and tighten it just enough so that when I'm looking down and around it doesn't slip.
When taking it off, you simply look down, place on hand on the front of the headset on the side, take your other hand and reach behind your head and pull the harness slowly over the top of your head. You have to be careful with this because sometimes the VR headset itself will take your glasses off with it depending upon how correctly you do this and also how hot it gets inside for you.
To adjust the headset when it's on your head if you feel the vision isn't perfect there are
TWO adjustments. Most people just know about the small knob on the left of the vive which looks like this:
This is just a fine adjustment that is meant for smaller increments. On the sides as you see here near the Vive logo you see a ring:
These rings are on both sides of the headset.
To adjust properly:
- Place your hands on each side of the headset and onto the rings.
- Pull outward until you hear the mechanism unlatching.
- Once both sides are pulled outward, rotate counter clockwise or clockwise to make larger coarse adjustments to your vision.
- After you've done this, you can then set the fine adjustment again to fine tune the larger change.
Here are some things to note about using decently large frames in the VR Headset:
- Initially you're going to mess up and press your glasses against your eyes and smudge them making it look like the VR is blurrier than it really is. You should clean your glasses properly before attempting to use VR.
- VR is not perfectly crisp (this depends on a lot of things) so if you see some fuzziness it is normal because that comes from resolution of the game itself, the headset, or many other things so it's normal for it to not be perfect
- You can press your glasses onto the lenses on accident if you try to tighten the headset to your face too hard with the lens adjustment too close. DO NOT push the headset against your face after you've already adjusted the straps. If you feel it slipping, simply adjust the straps instead.
- VR can get hot! It might get sweaty and steamy on the inside of the headset and this may cause condensation on your glasses to appear (this is rare). Take the headset off of your face for a bit if you find yourself getting too hot and clean off your glasses as well.
- Microfiber cloths work amazing for glasses and your headset. You can use the one provided and it does a pretty good job for your headset, but I've used aftermarket ones just fine (the brand I use for my glasses) and it's done a better job as long as I specifically use it for the headset only. Do not use cloth you clean your glasses with for your headset since its likely filthy. Have a totally seperate one that gets used ONLY on the headset.
- Try to make sure there is no discomfort on the sides of your ears, if that happens to be the case readjust the arms of your glasses outside of the headset and also adjust the straps to make it more comfortable.
- If you have long fluffy hair AND have glasses, you might want to set the straps very loose initially to make sure you can get it over your head at all and then tightly them gently. Brush all hair toward the BACK of the headset to make it a bit easier. You don't have to slide the harness all the way down the back of your head so its okay to have the harness resting closer to the top of your head as long as it feels secure.
Hopefully this helps out people who are looking into using glasses with VR. I recommend the Vive for this and have tested it myself and own it. I have no brand loyalty and just simply wanted something that worked the best for my glasses as I didn't want to use lens inlays since I want to share my VR with friends without the extra hassle (and cost).
