The XR industry is constantly evolving. As headsets get smarter and more of us tap into a virtual reality, the demand for improved immersivity is intensifying.
From haptic feedback to sensor suits, XR developers have stepped up their game when it comes to transporting users into a hyper-realistic world. With the ability to leverage a wide number of senses ranging from touch to even smell in a modern-day digital environment, the sky has become the limit for XR experts.
The question is, could eye-tracking technology pave the way for a new era of immersion?
“As eye tracking becomes an integral feature of XR devices, I think we can expect to see devices with varifocal displays that dynamically adjust focal distance depending on gaze direction,” says Emma Bauer, senior Vice President at Tobii. “This kind of next-gen display system will support intuitive interaction with virtual objects and help address the vergence-accommodation conflict, reducing eye strain caused by mismatching cues between vergence and accommodation of the eye.”
In fact, eye-tracking technology alone is now predicted to be worth over $1.75 billion by 2025, rendering it one of the most important XR developments to watch out for in the coming years.
So, how exactly is eye-tracking transforming the next era of XR development?
Humanising VR
On the back of the Covid-19 pandemic, social VR has become an industry game changer in the XR world. Led by tech giants like Meta and Microsoft, social VR continues to transform classrooms, remote workspaces, and even game-play-based communication.
Eye-tracking technology is now taking social VR one step further. With the ability to track the realistic eye movements of VR headset users, avatars now appear more human than ever before. Introducing new levels of emotion, facial expressions, and non-verbal cues, users feel as if they are face to face, no matter what location they tap in from.
Meta is just one tech giant pioneering eye-tracking technology in their newest Meta Quest headset. Able to showcase eye movement, blinking, and even object focus, eye-tracking has stripped away elements of a one ‘robotic’ looking meeting space and innovated a realistic 3D social environment.
Humanising social VR spaces could be the key to improving remote communication, according to Meta. In a new era of hybrid working, remote learning and digital onboarding, introducing a new gaze-driven input to the meeting room could allow for more realistic communication and genuine interactions.
A training tool
Eye tracking has also been picked up by a number of manufacturing industries as a key digital training tool. Introducing headsets with vision-tracking features has transformed onboarding and even on-the-job learning.
Take hazard perception training as an example. Using eye-tracking technology, employers can leverage VR to qualify situational awareness.
If a user looks at a hazard, for instance, eye-tracking technology can help enhance real-time feedback within the virtual environment. XR developers can create prompts for each hazard that is triggered when the user focuses on a certain object or situation.
Hyper-realistic gaming
It’s no secret that the gaming industry has become the master of all things XR, but eye-tracking could take the sector one step further.
Aiding XR experts in understanding player focus and intent, eye-tracking can help game developers generate customisable scenarios that are based upon a user’s eye movements alone. Not only can they introduce more personalised outcomes for each movement, but they can enrich multiplayer communication too.
“Multiplayer environments become richer as characters and virtual avatars can read more than just the body language of other players within virtual worlds,” says Sol Rogers, CEO of REWIND. ”They will gain the ability to read faces and emotions, and in turn, have their own reactions analysed by the game AI to affect their response and outcome.”
Take the game, The Lab, for instance. Using visual tracking to control the position of your hands, you can use your eye movement alone to point, click and even select items on the menu. Better still, for a more realistic lab experience, the edges of your vision remain blurred when you’re not looking at an object directly.
Healthcare & Research
It’s not all about gaming, either. The healthcare industry has also reaped the benefits of VR/AR technology in the modern-day medical landscape.
While there is a broad range of use cases when talking about the impacts of eye-tracking in healthcare, one interesting example comes from SyncThink.
After receiving over $3.5 million in series A funding, the Berkeley-based eye-tracking developer has released a VR-powered headset that can help diagnose concussions in seconds. The Eye-Sync technology can automate the traditional ‘follow my finger’ exam and analyse ocular-motor impairment on a much more detailed scale.
“The EYE-SYNC technology was initially developed to identify changes in brain function after injury; however, its application has evolved significantly in recent years, and we intend to leverage our core technology to expand the many ways we can help people get the most out of their daily life activities,” says Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, Neurosurgeon at Stanford.
What’s next?
XR technology still has a long way to go. While eye-tracking tech may have ushered in the next era of human connection and remote realism, consumers will only demand more from immersive aids in the future.
A multi-sensory XR industry could be on the horizon, in a virtual world that's more powerful than ever before.
