FocusVR: Effective and usable VR display power management

• Main Authors: Tan, Kiat Wee, CUERVO, Eduardo, BALAN, Rajesh Krishna
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Software Engineering
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4206; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5209/viewcontent/FocusVR_2018_afv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

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.