Pimax CES 2024 Coverage

???

I don’t think there has ever been any suggestion they’d be multi-material…(?) Why would they be?

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It’s been on the Pimax website since 2021.

That says nothing about materials, though – argueably that description fits the 8k lenses, too, as does it the Rift CV1 and Vive, and so on.

So do you think the 12k lenses are all glass or all plastic?

Plastic - have a hard time imagining them being glass.

My understanding was they were taking the glass Aspheric of the Crystal and the plastic of the 8kX fresnel and creating a new hybrid lens getting the best from both technologies.

But if the whole thing is plastic what’s the difference to the to 8kX?

Hopefully a YTer get a Pimax rep and asks these questions.

I’m not sure why the 12k would cost 1k more if you’re getting an optical downgrade over the Crystal.

If one can take the concept renders from the old announcement video as indication of anything whatsoever, it looks to me like it’s a two element lens train, where the near-eye element is essentially an 8k lens, except the frensel part on the far face diminishes toward the centre, becoming just a flat surface, leaving only the thicker-than-on-the-8k conventional aspheric “egg yolk” on the near side, for most of the part it covers. And the far element is plain fresnel all the way to the center, providing a second stage of refraction (EDIT: Divvying up the sharp turns EDIT2: …perhaps even collimating in the space between the elements)).

The “yolk” could be convex on both sides, but if it is, that means longer distance between the elements.

I have several doubts about the concept, but maybe not so much the material – plastic does not necessarily equal bad.

So do you think the 12k lenses are all glass or all plastic?

None. It won’t be glass or plastic . It’ll be paper lol for now since it does not exist lol.

There still selling Crystal to an audience that at this high end would not move to it so soon. No need to pump up the volume this early on in dev when there attention should be on what there selling now.

But the 12k was announced before the Crystal HMD.

Not only that but it was Pimax themselves who announced showing the 12k at each of the last 3 CESes.

How much longer does the 12k need?

Pimax USA (Kevin) on Reddit 9 months ago talking about the 12K shown privately at CES 2023:

"They are very similar devices. We showed an early version of the 12k privately to people at CES and its just the lenses that allow you to tell them apart.

The lenses are also different, the 12K uses a hybrid lens which is both Fresnel and aspheric and is a poly lens rather than optical glass. There might end up being other differences as well but overall they are indeed similar devices".

And regarding Crystal Vs 12K:

“The Crystal does have its advantages. The pixel density is spread more evenly and not nearly as dramatic on the falloff from the center as it is on the 12k. The optical glass lenses are amazing and highly noticeable with the visuals. The light transport they allow is also better than poly lenses and distortion correction is also less dramatic. There are also some performance benefits as well with less pixels to push”.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pimax_Official/s/dLvtajsgO8

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But it was meant to be public. Even in 2022 when Pimax pulled out at the last minute they said this.

LiveStream NextGen Technology Event

A short time after CES has ended we will be doing a livestream event to show the public our next generation VR technology and more. Plus we will be answering your questions! We will provide a press release with more details about this upcoming event.

12 months later there was nothing.

Now this year Nordic says there would be a roadshow in 2023. INTERVIEW HERE

Nothing.

Now Pimax are silent on the 12k at CES2024.

But only 5 days to go for another reality check.

I really hope the 12k is there, Pimax need it.

I doubt the 12K will have much if any presence at CES, the Crystal hasn’t long come out, it isn’t a complete product yet, and is probably still creating sales for Pimax so why have a competing product from the same company? We all know the complete BS that they came out with in previous years, afaik this year has been better? I’ve not followed closely but afaik Pimax hasn’t made promises about the 12K and CES 2024 recently? Personally I’m really looking forward to when it does finally become available, I have my 8KX boxed up ready for the trade-in, as long as the 12K has what was promised or atleast mostly what was promised.

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I will assume that to be rhetorical since even Pimax wouldn’t know but a guess would be several months after one of it’'s launch dates :laughing:

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I think Pimax are waiting for Crystal owners to die off one by one so they don’t have to include them in the trade in programme.

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Knowing Pimax pretty well by now I am relaxed about the 12K being delayed like forever. I never expected Pimax to deliver it on time, and not even only a year later. And Pimax no longer communicating about it is actually a plus in my books because I prefer companies who don‘t talk if they can‘t back it up with actions/products.

What I am concerned about is that they very actively lured customers into buying their old stuff without any meaningful discounts with the marketing promise that they‘d be able to trade it in for a 12K within say 12 months. And now these poor souls are not only waiting for 2+ years for the promise to be fulfilled, but don‘t even have any clue if and when the 12K will ever materialize, meaning they‘ll have to make a call if they try to sell of their 8KX, 8K‘s etc. for what-ever the 2nd hand market is going to offer them to not have suffered a complete loss here. While the trade-in program as such is generous and cool for all who already held an eligible Pimax headset or were firmly set to buy one no matter what, it is pretty vicious for those who had their sights firmly set on the 12K with all of its promises and thought they‘d effectively get to play around with an 8KX, etc. for a couple of months for free.
Pretty rude wake up call for them.

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I don’t think Pimaxes Investers can wait forever. When you need around 6 million a year to keep 200 staff employed you need to sell headsets. Crystal has limited capacity dues to BSB, Aero and VR-1 taking chunks.

I would stake Pimaxes whole future on the 12k and even that has a limited life span when XTAL4, Lynx and Sominium start getting those Hypervision headsets out there.

The clock is ticking and Pimaxes 30million wont last forever.

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Integrating eye tracking is not going to Eliminate the difficulty of driving two 6K displays.

The 4090 doesn’t even have the latest Display port connection which means The HMD is going to be limited just as the original base 8K kick starter unit was limited by its components.

Eye tracking is a Band-Aid not a magic bullet

Using foveated transport and DSC actually offers more bandwidth even via DP1.4a than the RTX4090 is realistically able to compute @90+fps.