Popular:
 Building Resilient Systems on AWS: Learn how to design and implement a resilient, highly available, fault-tolerant infrastructure on AWS.

Detect WebVR Support with JavaScript

By  on  
Note:  This blog post is no longer accurate as the API has changed.  Instead, take the time to read How to Detect XR Support with JavaScript.
It's been two years since I was heavily involved with WebVR at Mozilla but, despite not contributing every day, I can see VR making leaps and bounds, from Firefox making an increased effort to Chrome pushing VR and Oculus and HTC (Vive) improving their offerings.  Native games are getting better but, more importantly, browsers are getting faster and three.js and aframe are empowering incredible VR experiences with JavaScript. Before you can serve up VR experiences, however, you need to ensure the browser supports VR experiences.  To do so, you need to ensure navigator.getVRDisplays is available: 
const supportsVR = 'getVRDisplays' in navigator;

if (supportsVR) {
    navigator.getVRDisplays().then(function(displays) {
      // ... Load VR experience
    });
}
else {
    // ... Show "you need {x} browser" message
}
If navigator.getVRDisplays is present, it's likely that the browser supports VR and AR experiences. Virtual reality and augmented reality have the potential to change the world and enrich lives.  Learning how to code VR experiences will get you ahead of the curve, and as always, coding those experiences for the browser will break down the barrier of entry!
Request Metrics real user monitoring
Request Metrics real user monitoring
Request Metrics real user monitoring
Request Metrics real user monitoring

Recent Features

  • By
    I’m an Impostor

    This is the hardest thing I've ever had to write, much less admit to myself.  I've written resignation letters from jobs I've loved, I've ended relationships, I've failed at a host of tasks, and let myself down in my life.  All of those feelings were very...

  • By
    Write Simple, Elegant and Maintainable Media Queries with Sass

    I spent a few months experimenting with different approaches for writing simple, elegant and maintainable media queries with Sass. Each solution had something that I really liked, but I couldn't find one that covered everything I needed to do, so I ventured into creating my...

Incredible Demos

Discussion

  1. Cam

    Looks like 

    navigator.getVRDisplays

    is deprecated and should not be used any more. Oculus Quest 2 does not implement it, so it can’t really be relied on: https://discourse.threejs.org/t/navigator-getvrdisplays-not-working-on-oculus-quest-browser/23273

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!