I wondered what the thoughts of the team are about WebXR and why this is not a Unity feature yet.
WebXR has been adopted on many mobile devices and as far as I know all (standalone) modern XR devices.
Platforms, like 8th wall and zappar, are making XR accessible via a QR code without any downloads.
WebXR user flow: Scan QR, (give permissions if browser hasn’t already,) Play
App based XR flow: Scan QR, Ask for Wifi for play store, connect, scan QR again, click download, wait for download, open app, give permissions, play
This makes Unity unviable for instant AR/VR/MR experiences, which are required for marketing projects and social domain projects
There are unofficial plugins for WebXR. That’s your best shot at the moment.
You can’t really compare App XR with WebXR at all. WebXR is effectively barely more than “turn the camera on as a background and render a 3d model onto it”. It works fine for a quick fix to impress a technically inept customer at point of sale or by themselves. But of course, friction is everything for some apps.
Granted, I haven’t used WebXR in 3+ years but it wasn’t really technologically moving forward in the years prior either. Somehow, it feels like WebXR is treated by everyone like a tech toy - it kinda works, so it’s okay, let’s get back to working on WebGPU.
Have you been using WebXR lately? I wonder if it’s gotten way, way better (actually useful) with standard things such as tracking your position in the room without digital content heavily sliding around.
Also, I remember so many times talks with stakeholders were like: “no, that won’t be possible - but i’ve seen it on my mobile - yeah but that was an app, it isn’t available on the web”.
Yeah, depanther’s plugin is great!
Sadly pitching unofficial support to costumers isn’t always appreciated.
WebAR has gotten quite good over the years. Especially with tools like Niantic studio/8th wall or snap studio (they do have proprietary tech, but still) you can do almost everything most Unity AR apps do. I’ve seen this be done for many huge projects, including at the Dutch Olympic site.
WebVR should have quite some possibilities. I know Pico has great web app support as well. Especially with Web GPU this could be interesting (but not as practical as WebAR)
We have a standard answer for this question in our FAQ as I think you know:
Is Unity working on WebXR support?
Currently, there are no plans for Unity to support building for WebXR. We’re keeping track of requests on this, but haven’t seen enough demand to make it into our priorities. Please feel free to submit a feature request at XR roadmap | Unity. In the meantime, there are third-party tools available that can help you enable WebXR support for your project.
I asked our product team today, and they confirmed that this is still Unity’s stance.
This looks like more of a missing-web-tech issue - WebVR is deprecated, WebXR is being developed and has some initial Chrome/Edge support, nothing (edit: experimental only) from apple or Firefox.
One day web will be the all-platform-supporting beast it should be, including VR because why not!
WebXR is definitely being considered, but it’s a matter of resources for both development and support. It’s understandable to be hesitant to put production trust on a third party solution (though they’ve done an amazing job), and it’s understandable to not put the weight of demand on a third party developer. Without Apple or Firefox, WebXR still has limited reach, but there are many important use cases within those limitations. There are no current plans for WebXR support, but it is on our radar, we see the value of it, and votes on the roadmap help prioritize efforts.
