Stargazing from the comfort of your own home with mixed reality

Ever wanted to see the stars, no matter where you are or what time of day it is? Whether it’s raining, cloudy or just cold, you don’t always want to leave the comfort of your own sofa. That’s where Skygaze comes in.  

Skygaze is a mixed reality app that lets you transform your ceiling into your very own magical planetarium. You can explore the night sky in breathtaking detail and look closely at stars and all the visible planets in our solar system, accurately calculated in real-time.  

Skygaze is currently in its experimental phase and available to Meta Quest 2 users via App Lab. Using the Meta Quest’s pass-through feature, you can see your surroundings, mark the corners of your room and slowly open your ceiling to reveal an amazing night sky. They’re all above you in real-time and the interactive features allow you to find out lots of information about them, including how far away everything is from you in light-years.

Mixed reality means a blend of reality and virtual reality and Skygaze is the perfect example of this genre. With the app, you see the room you’re in, but this blends with a high level of technology that enables you to open your home to the solar system. The mixed reality genre has not yet hit the mainstream for consumers and businesses, so our experiences are limited for now. However, there are some great examples out at the moment:  

• Cubism
  This is a puzzle game that uses pass-through and hand tracking. The aim of the game is to assemble increasingly complex shapes out of colourful blocks using your hands.  
• Dungeon Maker
  This is another incredible game. You can build your very own dungeon using Meta Quest passthrough. You scan the outline of however many rooms you’d like to play in before creating your own (or loading a randomly generated) obstacle course. You’ll dodge swinging axes and avoid holes by jumping through the course.
  
   

Mixed reality is something that we should expect to see lots more of in the coming years. As well as its entertainment value, there are also lots of ways for businesses to use it too. It could be used to showcase a product in an interactive way, like a new car, to a client that is hundreds of miles away. It could also be used for training sessions by giving users an experience in a simulated environment.  

The possibilities are truly endless and it’s safe to say that the future of mixed reality is looking bright! 

If you want to try the Skygaze app for yourself, check it out here -  https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/5092297537484845/ 

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