XRSession: visibilityState property

Limited availability

This feature is not Baseline because it does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers.

Experimental: This is an experimental technology
Check the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.

Secure context: This feature is available only in secure contexts (HTTPS), in some or all supporting browsers.

The read-only visibilityState property of the XRSession interface is a string indicating whether the WebXR content is currently visible to the user, and if it is, whether it's the primary focus.

Every time the visibility state changes, a visibilitychange event is fired on the XRSession object.

Value

A string indicating whether or not the XR content is visible to the user and if it is, whether or not it's currently the primary focus.

The possible values of visibilityState are:

hidden

The virtual scene generated by the XRSession is not currently visible to the user, so its requestAnimationFrame() callbacks are not being executed until the visibilityState changes. Input controllers are not being handled for the session.

visible

The virtual scene rendered by the XRSession is currently visible to the user and is the primary focus of the user's attention. To that end, the session's requestAnimationFrame() callbacks are being processed at the XR device's native refresh rate and input controllers are being processed as normal.

visible-blurred

While the virtual scene rendered by the XRSession may currently be visible to the user, it is not the user's primary focus at the moment; it's also possible the session is not currently visible at all. In order to optimize resource utilization, the user agent may be handling the session's requestAnimationFrame() callbacks at a throttled rate. Input controllers are not being processed for the session.

Usage notes

It's important to keep in mind that because an immersive WebXR session is potentially being shown using a different display than the HTML document in which it's running (such as when being shown on a headset), the value of a session's visibilityState may not necessarily be the same as the owning document's visibilityState. For instance, if the viewer is using a headset tethered to a computer and the immersive scene is obscured by a configuration UI, the user could peek out from behind the headset and still be able to see the document itself on their computer's monitor.

Specifications

Specification
WebXR Device API
# dom-xrsession-visibilitystate

Browser compatibility

desktop mobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
visibilityState
Experimental
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 79 (Release date: 2019-12-10)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 79 (Release date: 2020-01-15)
footnote Full support
Firefox – No support
Firefox
footnote No support
Opera – Full support
Opera 66 (Release date: 2020-01-07)
footnote Full support
Safari – No support
Safari
footnote No support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 79 (Release date: 2019-12-17)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – No support
Firefox for Android
footnote No support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 57 (Release date: 2020-03-30)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – No support
Safari on iOS
footnote No support
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 11.2 (Release date: 2020-03-22)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – No support
WebView Android
footnote No support
WebView on iOS – No support
WebView on iOS
footnote No support

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support
No support
No support
Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.

See also