Idk dude, VR headsets have already sold to millions of consumers and new applications pop up by the day. Not only that, but unlike most of the technologies you mentioned, VR has massive backing already from some of the most powerful companies in tech.
It has billions in investment already, FB is putting hundreds of millions into Oculus and funding applications/games. HTC has basically pivoted their entire company to the Vive.
This isn't going away, VR/AR is going to replace current keyboard/mouse/screen interfaces, because why wouldn't it? The aforementioned are even further from replicating what I am trying to do on a computer. Why do I have to move a mouse in two dimensions or tap on a flat display to interact with many concepts much easier to work with in 3D?
2016 VR sales were below almost everyone's predictions. Rift and Vive under 500K units. PlayStation under 1M (with market analysts backtracking on their estimates last month).
For FB, I see it as a moonshot project much like the various things Google does. Being a moonshot project doesn't guarantee you success.
As for investments, I think we've entered an era where everyone is afraid of being disrupted by a startup or missing out on a unicorn. Now, you have large companies putting money into VR projects and VCs scrambling to fund anything VR-related. I think a similar thing happened with smart watches and wearables.
I don't know enough about the state of VR interfaces for work, but it seems ideal for specialized industries (medicine, military, etc.).
First, where's the evidence that the Apple Watch is about to fail? Every day I keep seeing more and more Apple Watches in the wild. Just the other day I was getting lunch and noticed that at the table next to me every single person had an Apple Watch on. Every time there's a get-together in my family, I notice one or two extra relatives who've ended up getting one. That's pretty impressive for something that's on the verge of failure. It actually feels comparable with how smartphones slowly started assimilating into our lives years ago.
Second, consumer VR right now is for video games, period. Maybe that will change later on, but that's what VR is all about right now. So comparing it to laptops/desktops/smartphones seems strange. What are the dimensions of this comparison? Turning on Steam VR, then putting on the headset doesn't feel all that different to me from turning on the TV, then sitting down on the sofa.
It has billions in investment already, FB is putting hundreds of millions into Oculus and funding applications/games. HTC has basically pivoted their entire company to the Vive.
This isn't going away, VR/AR is going to replace current keyboard/mouse/screen interfaces, because why wouldn't it? The aforementioned are even further from replicating what I am trying to do on a computer. Why do I have to move a mouse in two dimensions or tap on a flat display to interact with many concepts much easier to work with in 3D?