WebVR

WebVR is an experimental web technology designed to bring virtual reality experiences into web browsers. It provides JavaScript interfaces that allow web applications to access VR hardware such as head-mounted displays, obtain the user’s pose, and present stereo, head-tracked rendering through the WebGL pipeline. The aim was to let developers create immersive experiences that run across devices without native applications.

WebVR was developed in the browser ecosystem through the W3C WebVR Community Group and was implemented in several browsers, often behind experimental or early-implementation flags. It exposed APIs to enumerate VR devices, initiate immersive sessions, and render frames synchronized with headset tracking. The approach supported libraries and frameworks that simplified integration, such as those using WebGL for rendering and device pose data for scene updates. However, the API faced fragmentation and evolving hardware capabilities, and vendors gradually explored newer approaches.

In response, the WebXR Device API was introduced as the successor to WebVR. WebXR unifies virtual reality and augmented reality under a single, extensible API, offering more robust features, broader device support, and improved security and performance controls. As a result, WebVR support was phased out in major browsers during the late 2010s and early 2020s, and by the mid-2020s it was largely deprecated or removed. Developers transitioning from WebVR commonly moved to WebXR or used abstraction layers and libraries such as A-Frame, Babylon.js, or Three.js to target WebXR.

Usage typically involves checking for navigator.xr support, requesting an immersive session (for example, "immersive-vr"), and implementing an animation loop that renders XR frames for each eye using the XRView data.