Everyone seems to be talking about the wide FOV lenses that are starting to ship. However, I have not seen any update on the status of the 42PPD lenses. Does anyone know when those will start shipping to pre-order customers?
Thanks.
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If I do not remember wrong again, the 42 PPD lenses are completely and forever cancelled by Pimax since a couple of months in favour of the wide FOV lenses and only the Wide FOV lenses will be available for purchase and therefore two lens systems will be usable for the Crystal at the end.
Interesting news, Pascal. I had not heard that and I do not see that posted or reported anywhere when I search for status of 42PPD lenses. As someone who preordered the Crystal, I’m entitled to a second set of lenses. I know they gave the opportunity of pre-orders to change from 42PPD to wide FOV for a reduced fee of $59. Anyone who did not select that offer was still going to get the 42PPD lenses. I have not received any correspondence from Pimax indicating this has changed.
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I think that they have stated something like that regarding the 42 PPD lenses, but I am pretty sure that I heard a while ago from somewhere or someone that the 42 PPD lenses are completely cancelled in favor for the wide FOV lenses, as many crystal owners wanted more FOV instead of more PPD.
Pimax even seems to have problems to get the wide FOV lenses under crystal owners, so I do not think that a third different lens desgin and production will help in that case to speed things up…
BTW a user on pimax reddit posted that he heard from someone that in 2023 some people left the 12K project, as the crystal was not selling great. So it really does not look great for the 12K to be ever released… sadly enough.
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Well if they did do that with the 42ppd lenses. It will likely cause some backlash. As they had changed 42ppd to plastic and did say beyond those who opted to still get the 42ppd that after those were fulfilled. The 42 lenses would no longer be made.
Pimax really needs to get their communication improved as no official channel that I have seen has made the statement that 42ppd was completely cancelled. In lieu of the 42ppd lenses then they should at least ship those folks a spare set of 35ppd lenses.
As for the 12k I believe while late as anyone should expect is still being worked on to be released. Though it does seem from one of Nordic 's posts that it may have some redesigns slowing things up. Ie iirc no standalone?
On the other hand maybe their realizing the 12k really needs to be fully ready before release. That and possibly need the next GPU series released to adequately power it. Trying to have 35ppd in the 12k is going to be a monster
Where like iirc you said Vrgineers has simply continued to make lens improvements to the Xtal models lenses. While sticking with 170 wide. Expanding to 200 may improve immersion but at what cost in performance?
Most with the 8kX for example use Normal FoV at 140 Wide versus large at 160 wide.
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Yeah, that is for sure regarding the communication of Pimax. TBH this is a very old complaint to Pimax and they still not resolved that up to this day. It has improved to some point, but still away to be on a good level.
At this point in time for me personally I stopped carrying about the 12K with my XTAL 3.
I do not have longer the patience to wait for any “new updates” regarding the 12K, as pimax stated many times to us updates will come about the current state of the 12K and until now - nothing - and that for now nearly entire two years!
Man, once you saw the 170 ish hFOV of the XTAL 3 in conjugation with the very nice PPD and no distorsions, there is now way for me to go back to any other HMD, really. For me the XTAL 3 is the best VR HMD and will be for a very long time too. It is a heavy HMD for sure, but anything else is just awesome.
This is how VR should be, just awesome and stunning. Do not get me wrong, other HMDs will of course work for others better. It is just so sad for me that the main efforts of the VR industry shifted to PPD instead of FOV! FOV is still for me above PPD and anything else, even comfort!
I just want full human FOV and no black bars anymore!
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Agreed and often it seems the very top levels of pimax works against the efforts of their public facing employees.
The 12k at this point they did have a dum tease of things in CES. To just be a limited don’t talk about what they showed in a tent. 
VRgineers though should have something good as the 170 wide has been in their hmds since the 2 non SteamVR headsets made prior to the Xtal series. Marek was impressed enough with the 8kX they made their Xtal 8k; though the first reveal was rushed it seems.
However for what is it 10k? It has better be great.
One of the problems pimax has is the vision. They want to make an easy plug n play no hassle headset. But keep releasing poorly tested software that many end up needing to do too much troubleshooting. For the most part have been lucky on that side of things.
But yeah at this point pimax needs to start learning and push hard to get their internal structure running better. From what I have learned many Chinese companies often struggle due to the top position not listening to the lower tiered employees.
While not entirely just a problem there.
I have worked for a few companies that do not put a high enough appreciation of what the employee base brings to the table if they support engagement.
To that end ATM don’t have much interest in the 12k. Too much hype without any real Delivery. Ever demo of it cancelled. Meaning they really have very little to show of interest.
At this rate VRgineers will have a headset using Hypervision’s pancake prototype wide FoV lenses with micro displays.
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I received a reply from the support ticket I created. With Pimax, I never know if I’m communicating with an AI bot or someone who just doesn’t speak English, but either way, I gather they are suggesting that they will not be shipping the 42PPD lenses and that they will change my preference to wide FOV, which may ship sometime in April?
Greeting ~
I found that you’ve make the choice of 42PPD by XXXXXXXXX@XXXX.com with XXXXXXXXXXX (number of final payment）.
I’ll revise as following,
​Mail : XXXXXXXXX@XXXX.com
Order : XXXXXXXXXX
Choice : Wide Fov lenses
When big FOV can be shipped is expected to be released in April. I have been following your tickets and will synchronize the information with you at that time.
Thank you again for your understanding and for waiting.
Julie
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So the question is at no extra cost as they marketed ppl would need to pay iirc $59 US extra for the Wfov lenses
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The 170 FOV claim from Vrgineers back in that time with the VR Hero 5K and the first XTAL 5K was pure diagonal, not horizontal! hFOV was around 150 degrees with both devices. With the XTAL 8K release they changed the official FOV adversment from diagonal to pure horizontal and reached around 170 hFOV (more like 160 degrees), depending heavily how near your eyes are on the lenses.
With the XTAL 3 and the new wide FOV lenses they expanded the hFOV to 180 at max.
You only get somewhere between 170 and 180 hFOV if your eye lashes are touching the lenses.
This is nearly impossible with the thick leader face foam, so therefore I am using a face foam from the originall vive HMD to get as close as possible to the lenses while preserving some comfort.
With that I have a bigger hFOV than with the Pimax 8KX and no distorsions. Comfort with this modification is still great.
As it looks right now, you could be right, sadly enough!
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Interesting to read! So I am betting to nearly 100% for now that the 42 PPD lenses will never emerge from Pimax. Unfortunaley it is not so uncommon for pimax to secretly cancel announced accessiores for pimax HMDs.
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Very nice Read. Seems the only headset to not get grilled over 32:9 aspect ratio vs 16:9 is the Original StarVR
The impressive part though is how close pimax was to what VRgineers has at the time. Had Pimax used custom aspherical it would have been interesting to compare on that level.
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Very much agree. Pimax has quietly cancelled too many things. Even small things like the Cooling fan module and the RGB patterns of the front chevron.
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Hello,
Based on the replies, it appears that the wFoV will indeed be shipped out.
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I’m reconfirming with the hardware engineering team. I anticipate having an answer shortly after the meeting.
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