#1473: Learn XR’s Dilmer Valecillos on Teaching XR Development & Meta Connect Announcement Impressions

I interviewed Dilmer Valecillos of the DilmerV YouTube Channel and Founder & Engineer LearnXR.io , at Meta Connect 2024. See more context in the rough transcript below.

This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.

Music: Fatality

Rough Transcript

[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: the Voices of VR podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So in today's episode, I'm going to be talking to Dilmer Velazulios, who has a YouTube channel doing a lot of training and education in the context of coding projects within XR. So he's the founder and engineer for learnxr.io. So I wanted to get some of his takes on what was being announced there at MetaConnect, but also some of what he's been doing in terms of trying to educate the broader XR community for how to work with a number of the different XR platforms. So that's what we're coming on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Dilmer happened on Wednesday, September 25th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.

[00:00:57.765] Dilmer Valecillos: So my name is Dilmer Valisillos. I've been in XR for about seven years. Early on, I started my career working with ARKit as I was doing indie development. From there, I was posting a lot about what I was doing on social media, Magic Leap, so a lot of the work that I did. and all the different learning experiences that I had with the device. It was my first entry into augmented reality. Fast forward today, I've been talking about everything that I do, teaching developers around the world with technologies such as Meta SDK, Magic Leap SDK, anything that Unity is releasing as far as XR. A lot of work with AR Foundation, that's pretty much how I started doing a lot of videos about. And nowadays, I launch LearnXR, which is a platform that helps developers get into virtual reality, augmented reality. Also, some designers have been joining me in there as well. While I'm doing that, I do a lot of videos on YouTube where I teach developers. And right now, I'm transitioning my career from doing YouTube full time to working on a new company, which I'm going to be announcing next week. that uses Magic Leap 2, and possibly they're going to be using what we saw here today in the morning when it becomes available to third parties. So yeah, that's been my career.

[00:02:21.129] Kent Bye: Great. Maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and all the different disciplines that you're fusing together.

[00:02:26.567] Dilmer Valecillos: Yeah, so my background is I do a lot of development on Unity C Sharp. So I'm a full stack developer. I do a lot of development with web services, with different mobile applications. I started back then doing a lot of mobile development and then nowadays my work today is mainly doing consultations for bigger companies, companies that want to develop solutions, they have questions about which headsets, what is the case. A lot of people, especially in the universities, are looking into eye-tracking solutions, so i'm normally doing a lot of consultation on that but my main work is xr prototyping so if a company wants to develop like i had a project where they had to develop a stream technology to communicate with the submarine and they wanted to see if the magic leap 2 device would work well with that so i was part of that team mainly working on looking at what technologies would work and doing a lot of prototyping to see if that was the right device to use going forward.

[00:03:37.369] Kent Bye: So yeah, we just had a chance to meet very briefly last week at the Snap Spectacles Summit and then the Lens Fest that was happening. And so you had a chance to get a pair of the Snap Spectacles, but also this week at MediConnect, they were just announcing the Orion AR glasses. Have you had a chance to try out the AR demo at all?

[00:03:54.744] Dilmer Valecillos: The Orions? No. Other than seeing and reading about it, coming from looking at different devices, I haven't actually been able to try them. I'm working my way to making sure that I can try one of the prototypes. But yeah, all I can say is I'm excited about the technology, having wave guides. And I think that's how these ones are going to be versus pass through. I'm really excited to try more productivity type applications versus mainly games. That's where my love is, is more how we can build solutions that solve more practical applications versus gaming. So my channel is mainly focused on that, so using these glasses going forward for military training for medical surgeries like i just see the potential of having something that light you know to be used in the real world but no long story short i haven't been i haven't been the fortunate to try i talked to some people just barely from meta which i have really close contact to they've been trying it and they've been testing them and and it is what's actually shown today mind-blowing But I tried a lot of devices over the years, so I have to try them before I communicate what they told me.

[00:05:12.026] Kent Bye: Yeah, I'm the same way that I like to see it for myself if I can. But yeah, so it sounds like AR has been a consistent through line through the beginning of your career and also like with what you're doing with Spectacles. Magic Leap 2 is obviously an AR device. And now you're talking about the Orion with leading him for whatever you're doing next. So why AR over then like the VR for your own personal preferences for what you're interested in?

[00:05:34.804] Dilmer Valecillos: I mean, personally, I like to be out. I like outdoors. I mean, I'm community, right? I have community and people and friends. So spending, and this is my personal take, spending a lot of time in a headset versus going out, I feel like it's more practical. If I can wear the glasses, just like I do today with the Ravens, these are the glasses that I use everywhere I go. I have kids, so if I want to take a picture, I don't have to pull my phone out. So something like Orion, to me, it's a lot more practical, where I don't have to worry about carrying this huge Vision Pro with me where I go. Just put it on, it looks more natural, like even getting on an airplane on my way here, like I was just trying to imagine, and I was talking to some people that have Apple Vision Pros, I was like, we're wearing Apple Vision Pros, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm like, I don't know, I just... I wear the X-Real, it just felt more natural to wear something light. So yeah, I mean, that's more natural, that's more common. I think it's more practical for the day-to-day use versus, I mean, if I'm cooking or if I'm going out with friends wearing those, I think there's going to be more retention long-term with something like that than... for the person like me or the day-to-day person that is busy. Kids is a different story. Younger people are playing games. So yeah, I think it's more practical, in my opinion, using something like that device versus a full virtual reality experience.

[00:07:02.028] Kent Bye: Yeah, I heard someone on Twitter say that even though the Apple Vision Pro has, like, much higher resolution and fidelity for watching movies on a plane, that actually the X-Reel with birdbath that's in a more of a traditional glasses form factor was just a lot more convenient, even if it wasn't, like, as high fidelity. It was just, like, a lot easier to use and overall, like, a better experience for people that wasn't as bulky of a headset. But you still got a pretty good experience. So I don't know if that's your similar experience.

[00:07:28.337] Dilmer Valecillos: Yeah, no, I try a lot of devices. And I tried the Unreal when the company was called Unreal, and it wasn't there yet. But then this last collaboration that I had with them, they sent me the X-Real Air Pro, and then the Beam Pro. and i used it when we went to a snap partner summit on my flight there and it's just the ease of use being able to track your head as you're watching a movie being able to download movies and i don't have to have all the inconvenience of carrying a big device plus my backpack so yeah i i enjoy i think the sound was great Quality is not close to Apple Vision Pro, but I think in that realm, I think practicality for me, where I can carry more things in my backpack, wins over quality. I'm willing to give out a little quality, which I didn't even notice as much, because having good resolution that it has on the X-Reel, I don't need 4K when I'm going on an airplane. I just need to be educated or entertained, depending on what I'm watching. So, yeah, I love that device.

[00:08:36.044] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, I'm hoping to get my coverage out within the next week. But since you're announcing something next week, I'm wondering if you can maybe give me a bit of a sneak peek or whatever you can share in terms of what is the type of thing that you're going to be doing next after you've done the YouTube stuff.

[00:08:48.342] Dilmer Valecillos: Yeah, so I've been transitioning from full-time career without getting too deep into it, has been doing YouTube is awesome. I love bringing content, but as a content creator, there's no rest, right? And I want to work on a project that has a bigger impact. I'm still going to do community content, and I love helping the community. That's not going to stop. I'm still going to be making one video a week. contributing to developers and onboard them and educate them. That to me is passion. Like that's going to be my side project. But this next project, it's bigger than that in ways that it has a bigger impact. So I want to be part of that. Plus, it's going to be neutral. So it's not going to be Apple. It's not going to be Meta. I'm free. I'm used to talking to people without having any censorship. I'm not saying they have it, but I'm saying if you work for a company, there's always going to be people thinking that there's bias there. So this is more neutral, and it's going to allow me to talk. about any brand in my own honest opinion. So I think that's going to align better with what I want to do. I want to keep doing XR. I'm learning a lot more technology because I'm going to be working in XR here on a day-to-day basis. So that's going to funnel knowledge to the channel. I'm also going to be able to contribute to a bigger project.

[00:10:13.254] Kent Bye: Awesome. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of spatial computing might be and what it might be able to enable?

[00:10:20.785] Dilmer Valecillos: So spatial computer, it's going to allow us to extend, I mean, we see it today, it extends to reality, but in ways that are more practical. So if I need to do, for instance, I did a very simple prototype that I brought to the channel, and it was, I was spending a lot of time in my house, like mounting frames, doing decoration for my wife, because she wanted to put a new couch, and like, or spend a lot of time in my house in the office, so organizing. So something as simple as putting a headset on and being able to place virtual content on areas and getting references so that I do a better job, I think it's just going to add superpowers to us as humans and not replace us, but extend what we can do. And then having GI on top of that, I don't think any of that is a bad thing. It's not going to take other people's job. I think it's just going to extend what we can have. So like Terminator or Robocop, you know how they have screens. And it's just always more information that is going to help us make better decisions in the future. And that's what I'm excited about. It's like how we can use this day to day. And if I'm a coder and I want to ask a quick question, then I ask about it. I listen to it. I use that with like ChatGPT today. I just turn on the voice and I ask questions about something that I'm learning. And I just listen, and I can do multiple things at once. So I think a special computer is that, like enhancing human powers or humans, the capabilities that we have, and then extending ourselves. So really excited about that technology going forward.

[00:12:00.108] Kent Bye: Is there anything else that's left unsaid or any final thoughts that you'd like to share to the broader immersive community?

[00:12:06.860] Dilmer Valecillos: So to the community, yeah, I always tell people to jump into XR. A lot of people think it's too late, and it's getting easier and easier. I mean, they talk about that too late on multiple keynotes and developer sessions. There's building blocks that are being developed so that you can drag and drop components. There's a lot of things that I think people still think it's hard but it's not hard because all the different layers that are being added from a developer standpoint so i just suggest to check out you know start to look into some of the documentation that meta has i mean i'm gonna do a pitch here just look at my videos look at some of the things that i'm doing and then join the different hackathons that are xr hacks is another company that i've been working with and they do amazing work all around the world join a hackathon you're going to learn more you know a lot of different things that you wouldn't have you know without doing that is it learnxr.com or is it just your youtube channel yeah it's i would go to my youtube channel so yeah youtube.com forward slash dilmer v vs and victor and then yeah you can check out the videos there and you're gonna be bombarded with a lot of content but good content that is going to help you

[00:13:17.168] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Domer, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast to share a little bit more about your journey into the space and what you're doing to help educate the community, but also do your own rapid prototyping and exploring of the potentialities of where this is all going with your next venture that we'll be learning more about next week. So thanks again for joining me here on the podcast. So thank you. Thank you, Ken. I appreciate it. Thanks again for listening to the voices of VR podcast. And I would like to invite you to join me on my Patreon. I've been doing the voices of VR for over 10 years, and it's always been a little bit more of like a weird art project. I think of myself as like a knowledge artist. So I'm much more of an artist than a business person. But at the end of the day, I need to make this more of a sustainable venture. Just five or $10 a month would make a really big difference. I'm trying to reach $2,000 a month or $3,000 a month right now. I'm at $1,000 a month, which means that's my primary income. And I just need to get it to a sustainable level just to even continue this oral history art project that I've been doing for the last decade. And if you find value in it, then please do consider joining me on the Patreon at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.

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