Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

9-2018

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of FocusVR, a system for effectively and efficiently reducing the power consumption of Virtual Reality (VR) devices by smartly dimming their displays. These devices are becoming increasingly common with large companies such as Facebook (Oculus Rift), and HTC and Valve (Vive), recently releasing high quality VR devices to the consumer market. However, these devices require increasingly higher screen resolutions and refresh rates to be effective, and this in turn, leads to high display power consumption costs. We show how the use of smart dimming techniques, vignettes and color mapping, can significantly reduce the power consumption of VR displays with minimal impact on usability. In particular, we describe the implementation of FocusVR in both Android and the Unity game engine and then present detailed measurement results across 3 different VR devices -- the Gear VR, the DK2, and the Vive. In addition, we present the results of 3 user studies, with 68 participants in total, that tested the usability of FocusVR. Overall, we show that FocusVR is able to save up to 80% of the display power and up to 50% of the overall system power, with negligible impact to usability.

Discipline

Software Engineering

Research Areas

Software and Cyber-Physical Systems

Publication

Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies

Volume

2

Issue

3

First Page

142:1

Last Page

25

ISSN

2474-9567

Identifier

10.1145/3264952

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1145/3264952

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