How Do Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Differ?

It feels as though every day reveals a new technological breakthrough in virtual reality or augmented reality. But what does it all mean — is there a difference between the two or are they used interchangeably? The answer may surprise you.

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What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality is the combination of real life and a virtual life. You can still see features of the real world, but you interact with computer-generated images that appear to float in space right before your eyes. So, augmented reality allows its users to play around with these virtual items while the user is still aware of the space where they are. They can tell the two apart.

At the moment, Microsoft’s Hololens and Magic Leap, which received a mind-blowing $500+ million investment from Google in 2014, are examples of augmented reality software. The rumor mill believes that Apple is gearing up to announce its own augmented reality release, but at this point, no one is quite sure what that could mean or what it could look like.

What is Virtual Reality?

Virtual reality, however, is a computer-generated world that leaves your house, apartment, or condo behind. No longer will you hear or see the familiar surroundings of home (wherever that is). Instead, you will experience a virtual world using a headset.

The goal of the headsets is to completely immerse you inside of a virtual world. It should be hard to tell what is real — and what isn’t. While there are some kinks, and some episodes of nausea that some suggest are due to wearing contact lenses, it is always improving.

When it comes to virtual reality, the two big dogs are currently HTC Vive, which is a platform using elements from game tech company Valve, and Facebook’s Oculus. Playstation VR for the PS4 and Merge VR (for mobile phone play) are other big names in the virtual reality gaming space.