Varjo makes quality headset with a proven track record. Crystal costs £1600 with built in eye tracking and audio. The VR-1 if priced around £2000 will only attract those with deep pocket who prioritise FOV. The only way the VR-1 can work is if it matches Crystal.
The other thing to think about is when you have several people eating the pizza there’s less slices for each person. So even if all three companies made great headsets the high price does not increase the size of the pizza. So less sales per company, less profit if any and no future. Varjo, Pimax and Somnium are all operating on investment and not profit. They can’t all survive long term.
Nah. Better FoV, smaller & less weight than the Crystal, those 2 alone already make it very interesting. And then I understand it’s going to be totally open source which is REALLY nice.
But yeah, at a 2k+ price point their market is going to be small I guess.
Not to mention if Crystal Wider FoV lenses do well. Then VR-1. has less appeal save less weight and much smaller form factor. There maybe a couple of other bullet points I have missed.
Well it hopefully for the implied price point being exceptionally higher than Crystal. But this could be very interesting to see how it turns out.
While we have heard what seems to be most that have both Crystal & Varjo Aero…That Crystal lenses seem to be much better on Crystal. It would be more interesting with Context displays off to see Crystal lenses/clarity vs is the higher non consumer model Varjo VR3? As I believe if correct we would have glass vs glass.
Though pimax could just send @Neoskynet the lenses from each hmd to evaluate.
I would trust his lenses evaluation comparing their properties to each other.
Personally I don’t think dual lenses are a good idea. Simplicity is a good idea. Cost reduction is a good idea. If Somnium spend twice on twin lenses but end up with spiralling costs due to bad yields it’s a bitter pill to swallow if Pimax are getting similar results for half the cost using a single lens.
No doubt the VR1 FOV is bigger and Chomatic aberration may be less but Somnium are already behind Crystal and might never catch up if they have the same production problems as Pimax.
I honestly think a 140FOV mass market Pancake HMD is in the works and it’s going to cost less than £1500. BSB2 would be a strong candidate using those Hypervision lenses.
Success and survival is going to boil down to lower cost reasonable return on investment, speed to market, and value for money. Glass aspheric lenses goes against this even if the end result looks good.
There are too many companies now with a 3 year product cycle which means zero profit and the reliance on investors.
I love that finally a company is taking the lens part of their optical stack seriously and personally, I don’t care if it’s €1.500 or €4.500
I like Artur‘s approach of aiming for the best technically possible HMD and if it turns out similar to the Index in terms of build quality and comfort, I will definitely get one.
My only gripes with my current VR-3 are lack of brightness and severe lack of FOV. So if the VR-1 solves that, they get my money. 125x100 degrees is a super nice step up.
You seriously underestimate the simming crowd‘s disposable income bud.
This is an ideal headset for those who won’t bat an eye to invest €30k+ for a proper simrig.
Well, I say this as if I knew that it will release in the first place and at what quality, which obviously I don’t.
But if they execute well on what they announced, they will be moving large volumes.
Additionally, I love that fact that it’s an entirely European product. Given the choice at feature parity, I‘m more than happy to spend 30-50% just for it to not be produced in China.
I think you’re over estimating how many there are of them. Not enough to sustain a business that requires high levels of investment. We’ve seen how much Varjo and Pimax have received. Somnium is going into the same unsustainable business model.
Two years ago I bought a £5k projector. So I don’t have a problem spending on equipment that I thinks going to be of value over 5 years. But VR is churning out HMDs at a phenomenal rate. Are people who bought Crystal going to wish they’d bought the VR-1? Are people who bought the VR-1 going to wish they’d waited for the 12k?
I’m happy to wait with my Pico4 which is wireless has a good FOV and is a fraction of the price over the Crystal. If people want to buy HMDs every few months I say good for them.
I for one just LOVE it that they’re giving this much attention to the lens design. I also think that that’s where they can really differentiate from Pimax and Varjo. Haven’t tried the Crystal yet but I’m pretty sure its lens is still quite far from perfect. If Somnium can really achieve a great feeling of presence by correct and stable geometry while achieving high sharpness, then I think they might gain a fair market share in the high end market.
Then again, it’s also possible that they’ll disappoint us, pretty much like VRengineers disappointed me with their lenses (after all the hype on the internet). But I’m getting excited
You should try the Crystal, maybe the lens surprise you
I didn’t test the Aero, but the sharpness of the Crystal is awesome, and I didn’t saw any distorsion at all (if I keep the HMD centered).
Of course in the edge of the lens the clarity is not as good as in the center, and also it have a little bit of cromatic aberration, but in the 90-95% of the lens is perfect. At last with my eyes and face shape.
The only bad thing is that I only get 90° of vertical FoV (100° of horizontal), but in general, impressive visuals.
The jump over a Pico 4 or 8KX is like night and day.
It really depends on the margins. You can make a small profit off of a wide customer base or make a massive profit off of a smaller customer base. If the numbers work out A can equal B.
Benefit of B smaller production volume can be easier for a company to manage manufacturing vs not being able to keep up with demand. If a company is stressed trying to keep up with demand, they may scale up too quickly and end up making less due to both internal & external defect ppm.
Meanwhile both A & B’s ppms being equal. Because B makes considerably less volume their margin works better due to base cost to produce is actually less. Material/BOM doesn’t change between A & B.
While I don‘t belong to the group which would invest 30k into a simrig, I guess I am part of the next tier which has probably invested some 8-10k into my simrigs (just a Playseat with the TM Warthog HOTAS, a good yoke (Fulcrum) and some standard Honeycomb B-Q & Logitech rudders & a entry-level cost Yaw 2 with a Fanatec CSL-DD motion rig).
And while I would be willing to dish out 3-4k for the perfect headset, I don‘t consider any of the mentioned candidates to be anywhere near that level: as Atmos pointed out, whichever headset we are talking about here will just be the next step in the evolution, but not reaching a plateau of which one would think „this is it, I don‘t need more in the coming five years“. Unless you consider being content with it to count as such, in which case the G2 is already doing a decent job. But all these still bulky headsets with limited FoV and tether are destined to be replaced some 2-3 years later at latest. I wouldn‘t want to dish out 3-4k for a max of 36 months, that would equal a monthly fee of roughly 100€ paid for a nice but not revolutionary upgrade beyond what I use today. As said, I am not that wealthy that I wouldn‘t care about the cost anymore.
agreed.
Focussing on FoV: Currently I do not belive, the 3-4 years approach for a true big step, it is beyond. Just let´s take PIMAX, the successor for 8KX will be 12KX, but not Crystal, that is a side step (even if it is a very good one). 8KX released in 2019, 12K will be released … when it will be released. For sure not this year. which means 5 years +. It will only work out properly, if Nvidia can deliver a NextGen consumer card, being able to drive the mininmum specs. So end of 2024 seems reasonable, rather it may be 2025 spring. Competitors are either not focused on FoV, or more in a professional league, at least from the price tag.
Last Bradley word I heard, he thought the device Valve recently submitted for certification, to be a (stationary) games console.
Never relinquishing the VR hopium pipe, he figured part of this to be something Valve is doing instead of adding standalone capability to their HMD lineup, serving whatever level of VR such a console can deliver to non-PC players, who are not already ensconced in whichever console war trench.
EDIT: Heh… and within minutes of my posting this, it looks like he uploaded a new video about it… I guess I’ll have to watch it tomorrow evening… :7
EDIT2: Turns out it it wasn’t a video of Brad’s the recommendation engine suggested to me, but an excerpt from something called the “Crucast”, which he was on. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MudRKKwGsDw, if anybody cares to watch.)
