Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer (shop.simulavr.com)
We call our headset a “VR Computer” (or a “VRC”) to distinguish it from gaming headsets. When Simula was founded, most people thought the future of VR was in games & entertainment. The truth is that VR offers a superior way for performing knowledge work, but until now there haven’t been dedicated VR computing devices available on the market. While existing headsets are optimized for gaming, ours is optimized for productivity: it features bleeding edge high-resolution displays, has a detachable compute pack with specs comparable to a premium office laptop (x86 architecture), and runs a VR specialized Linux distro optimized for clear text.
VRCs offer several advantages over Laptops & PCs: they provide unlimited screens of any size, improve work focus & immersion, are usable outdoors (no laptop glare), improve privacy (no one around you can snoop your screen), and their compact design frees up desk space. They also promote better posture and freedom of movement: with a VR computer you can change positions, sit up, lean back, stand, lie down, or even walk while you compute.
Our project started out as an open-source VR window manager (https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula), which you can try out today on the Valve Index or HTC Vive. It's built over Drew Devault's wlroots and the Godot game engine. Once our compositor became relatively stable, we ran into the issue of “no other manufacturer wanted to offer us Linux support” (thinking there was no market for something so niche, I imagine?). So we decided to build our own =] We are happy to answer any question (technical or otherwise) about our project.
408 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 323 ms ] threadIf it was $1,000 or so, maybe I'd be open to trying it, But at nearly 3K there's no way I'm risking that much money.
If your company goes bankrupt tomorrow, and the headset bricks itself, I'd have no recourse.
At the same time, I hope you're able to raise funding or something and get the cost down to $1,000.
I would absolutely love to have an open source VR headset.
We also have a pricing option to reserve a headset with a partial deposit: pay $1,499 now, and then $1,499 right before we ship (Q4 '22/Q1 '23 target). This allows you to reserve a headset now at a lower price, see more proof throughout the year that we are performing our manufacturing duties diligently (via weekly updates), and then only paying the remainder of the balance ($1,499 + taxes/shipping) once we have the headset fully ready to ship to you.
We also just made a discount code for this thread: "DISCOUNT_HN" (limited to 10 for now) which adds an extra $100 off.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29923197
We'll talk when it actually ships.
You do understand 3k is a ton of money right ? The other issue is even if I did pre order , the second you miss a release date I'd file a charge back.
Get too many charge backs and payment processors will stop accepting orders for you.
To be honest it would make more sense to develop an ultra cheap option, anything 1k or less, and you'll find people ready to take a risk. You might still get in trouble if you miss your ship date though.
You can buy an HTC Vive for 800$, and a PI4 for 60$. Where is the other 2k in markup coming from ?
Is the experience seamless, does the display ever lag or cause nausea (I've had this before in VR envs) - does it get better/worse with long-term usage. Can you see via the cameras clearly enough that you never need take the headset off, even in the given "café" scenario? Is the headset comfortable enough for long-term use as a monitor replacement - does it get hot or sweaty?
As such, I'll wait for the reviews..
RE cameras: we're pushing for high-resolution RGB cameras (a lot of existing headsets have pretty low quality/low fidelity cameras). If you aren't able to go for longish periods without taking the headset off (when needing to see your surroundings at least), then we are definitely doing something wrong. For latency considerations, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30445428
RE headset ergonomics & sweatiness: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442745
Over the coming days/weeks, we're pushing out blog updates which discuss the technical details of these issues (leading up to review units). If you're interested, you can sign up at newsletter.simulavr.com.
Why would anyone use Dropbox?? You can just use SFTP, CVS and a 5$ VPS... [0]
Seriously though, let's treat your comment as non-trolling:
The HTC Vive - a 6-year-old device - does not have anything close to the per-eye resolution needed to do any kind of desktop computing, AND it uses outside-in tracking, meaning you need external lighthouses so it's not really portable.
You would have been better off saying "You can buy an Oculus Quest 2 for $629" instead.
The PI4 does not provide the computing power to drive a VR display like that. That's kind of it right there. Bad example again.
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
That's my big concern here, your talking about a new 3k device from a company that's never shipped hardware before.
Plus with Dropbox they didn't ask early adopters to drop 3k!
I get being cynical, but damn, ya'll need to shut up and stop trolling. This first edition is about testing the market. Proving people will buy it in a limited run and get the ball moving. If this first run goes well then there will hopefully be a v2 that is cheaper and enjoys the economies of scale.
It's like you never want a new manufacturer to exist. If you aren't going to buy it, then just don't buy it. You could say "hey this is too pricey for me right now with the risk, maybe in the future I'll be in the market" and go on about your day.
Good luck running SimulaVR on a PI4...
Everything (including the hardware design) is open source, so yeah you absolutely would have recourse.
> I would absolutely love to have an open source VR headset.
And this is what it takes to get that.
Can you give me any information that would increase my confidence, or is this something that you would instead recommend to someone who can afford a speculative bet?
edit: I did get the original PP though so I have faith just not used to buying something, waiting a long time to get it.
Of course, it's up to you whether you consider taking that initial risk acceptable.
The cost is too high for even high-paid engineers. Are these hand-built?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29923197 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30441454
It has amazing specs, but $2k for a tethered headset is way too high. It needs to be below $1000 for the tethered, bring your own compute option.
Also this scene of him being outside typing while using VR ha. It'll be interesting, the shot using it in a coffee shop too hmm.
The keyboard is Durgod Fusion btw (non-split one).
There's a split one?
> Compute with freedom of movement
Isn't the Index just the headset? This is a headset + attached computer, different type of beast.
Anyway I preordered one (half up front), I'm down, will practice on my Index in the mean time. I am curious about their choice of Godot in case I ever get to the level to mess with rendering. Would be nice to have curved panels, maybe that snap together vs. floating square ones. Excuse to learn a new language I guess.
Curved panels etc are doable. We primarily use Haskell as a "scripting" language for at least some type safety, but it should be fairly manageable to get into.
Looks like a great way to cause your neck muscles to spasm horribly painfully.
If I were designing these, they’d either be completely transparent so AR or the headset would be only the LCD and maybe sensors.
Our headset supports an "AR Mode" with two front-facing high-res RGB cameras.
I guess the real answer is in the dog-food. Does your team use VCRs to develop it?
RE battery: our target is 3 hrs (for reference: the Quest has a 2-3 hour battery life).
Here's the link David was referring to: https://youtu.be/FWLuwG91HnI. It shows me dog-fooding Simula's software on the HTC Vive.
[1] This is still a preliminary number, which might change as we make tradeoffs in battery life vs. thermal solution vs. weight.
If I'm wearing an entire computer on my head, I would have thought it would get pretty hot, especially if I do CPU intensive work?
[0] https://shop.simulavr.com/
At $3,000+, you are leaving very little room for people who want to see you succeed to support you.
Best of luck.
Edit: standalone is ~$2k. At these kinds of prices, will have to wait it out and see if they can deliver.
The price has to come down somehow to make this more readily available / accelerate use.
I would say this might necessitate an investor injecting liquidity and selling the headset below margins to generate a community initially, while also putting manufacturing pressure on you all to find creative ways to lower cost without compromising quality.
Hate to say it, but at $2k min for a tethered device, I would just go with a Quest for $300 or a Hololens for $3000.
I hope it succeeds and future iterations are either more affordable OR gains so much traction that its easy to justify the cost. At this price point I could only talk myself into it if the Simula was my primary computer which I think I'd have a hard time using it as such.
Anyway, I am probably one amongst many who are watching this space waiting for experience reports and emerging ecosystems from braver early adopters.
We're expecting review units to be available in a few months.
It basically includes a whole computer. I am curious if one can simply plug in a regular monitor somehow and use it that way. If so, it would be something of a hedge against it being a useless brick if the VR part doesn't work out. Compact computers are kind of fun for lots of other reasons.
Assuming that this is serious and not parody, then you have a very different vision of a utopian future than I do.
I'm personally a fan of "Definite Optimism" views of the future.[1] Western culture used to portray technology really positively in Sci-Fi dramas (e.g. Star Trek), and then sometime around the 1970s, our culture flipped to portraying technology mostly under a dystopian point of view.
[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/vr-and-definite-optimism/
(I seem to recall Citrix can do this, though I'm not sure if there are any FOSS/less enterprise-y options that do the same.)
EDIT: Actually I think Xpra does this? Not sure if it'll run on Wayland, or if X11 apps work in Simula via XWayland. If so though, that might work.
I was subscribed to the Newsletter, read every blog post and generally was pretty hyped for the Simula One. Up until I read the blog post about the pricing. That's when I unsubscribed the newsletter and forgot about SimulaVR.
Sure, other AR/VR headsets cost as much, but for me its just too expensive. I can't spend nearly $3k for a headset I haven't even tried. This product is already targetted to a niche without considering the price, add in the pricing and that niche gets even smaller. Basically, the only people who will buy these are rich silicon valley nerds.
Wish SimulaVR the best of luck, but for the moment it seems like I can't really support them.
This is the part that doesn't make sense. I don't need a computer from a product manufacturer focused on something else. I already have 10+ computers within reach; 3 of them can stream just fine to my Oculus Quest.
Really, is the only way to create a VR PC to eschew all of that in favor of some controlled hardware ecosystem? I don't/won't buy it.
1. You need a dedicated PC for this, or the friction of having to set everything up will lead to you never using it.
2. VR on Linux is a compatibility nightmare. Focusing on one configuration as our baseline makes things so much simpler.
2. Ok. Welcome to life in Linux?
If these justifications were serious, I should have the option to buy just the headset and navigate the compatibility problems if I chose. We're talking about Linux after all.
Having this one option and hiding behind the excuses I've seen indicate they've jumped the shark sooner to consumerism than I would've hoped.
I also love Simula One and would love to get the 2nd or 3rd gen version, but at the moment it's simply too expensive because of the low manufacturing volumes. The price is bound to reduce if it becomes popular, and I'm counting on that.
That's what I'm hoping for, because I do actually really like the product. I just can't afford it, sadly.
In that capacity, I've done a lot of pricing out of VR kits and evaluation of devices. It became pretty clear early on that A) our students need the simplest possible setup that we can ship to them, B) the market is still too volatile and the current dominant players are too platform-oriented to commit fully to any one headset, and C) we need to be able to iterate rapidly, on our own, away from any app store.
Balancing all of these requirements eventually led us to building a WebXR app. It runs pretty much everywhere (any VR headset that matters[0], desktop, mobile[1]). We had high hopes for the Pico Neo and the HTC Vive Focus, but we primarily target the Meta Quest 2.
Mozilla was the biggest factor in that decision to focus on the Quest 2, because they really dropped the ball with Firefox Reality. Firefox Reality's last update was over a year ago, despite many desperately needed fixes for major show-stopper defects. Stuff like not being able to handle non-default IPD without massively distorting the image. Stuff like not being able to anti-alias the framebuffer the VR context uses. Stuff like janky ImageBitmap support forcing all of our texture pre-processing into the main render thread. Lesser stuff like being based on the pre-standards WebVR API, which lacked all but the most basic of VR features.
Quest's Oculus Browser is based on Chromium, with support for some experimental WebXR features that drastically improve the experience such as the Layers extension and the high refresh rate support. The lack of a serious browser competitor to Chrome across the entire market--but especially in a greenfield market like VR, when Mozilla has Hubs as a revenue-earning concern--has been the single biggest impediment to our ability to be truly cross-platform. But now Igalia has picked up the torch with Wolvic, so we're looking forward to seeing where that goes.
Wanting to stay out of any app stores and not wanting to require our users to have to share any data (see above on who we serve, Facebook login is a hard stop), we bought 35 headsets through the Oculus for Business program over the course of last year. Then with the Meta announcement Facebook also announced they are shutting down Oculus for Business.
So needless to say, this has been a very rocky journey. An open source, high-end, standalone, not-tied-to-a-platform VR headset can't come soon enough.
I'm curious if you have any plans on making any lower spec models at a lower price point? I've found that, given all our needs, we can't get any combo of kit together for less than roughly $1000, after you add up all the licensing and accessory costs. We're really comfortable spending that amount of money per headset. PCVR is a no-go for us--we already have enough problems getting linguists to figure out how to use the Quest 2 that I'm not going to toss a tethered VR setup at them--but if we were to go there it'd be around $2000.
We'll probably be able to get by with our current fleet of headsets for at least a year, but at that point we're going to be looking at depreciating them out. We have enough to cover about 10% of our student body at any one time, which is more than enough now, but my hope is to grow the app and start encouraging instructors to use VR as well. We basically choose the number of headsets we have based on how much we can afford, and then we push it out to students based on how many we have available, so any reduction in price is directly transferable to growth for us.
[0] I don't know of any currently that don't have some browser support available, though see my notes on Firefox later.
[1] Minus iOS, for well-known reasons, but tha...
You know the Apple II (~1500 in 1977) is 5k in modern dollars, and sold over 5m units, right?
If the device solves a genuine productivity problem for you, 3k is cheap.
I don't know why anyone would buy this contraption that costs more than a Oculus / Meta Quest or a HTC Vive and is targeted at consumers.
Like you said; it is a 'first gen' which usually means this is an instant don't buy. Even if you wait for it to be cheaper, the use-cases are already limited with the consumers getting frustrated and will just purchase an Oculus VR headset from Meta.
The next consumer product that will have a mass adoption like the iPhone, will certainly be AR glasses from either Apple, Google or Meta.
Definitely not VR headsets and contraptions like this one which that ship has already sailed.
It has been more than 10 years.
Right. So how on earth does this 'Simula One' stand a chance against the rest of the competition, especially when Apple, Sony, Microsoft plan on or are already competing against Meta?
Compared to the competition, price and adoption, the 'Simula One' is a first-gen obsolete contraption.
> I always wonder if when people like you make a comment if you actually look at figures or just go with your gut because you don't like something.
Then you are just as bad as I am. Pulling figures without sources and then saying 'actually look at figures' isn't evidence. Where is the source for the 12 Million and 20% YoY? Just Google it isn't evidence either.
Then this this also you:
> an entire generation of US kids are growing up with VR right now because of the perfect storm of lack of consoles, a pandemic keeping them home...
The US is not the world and people (and kids) simply won't stay in-doors forever, since lockdowns aren't forever. It's quite silly to think that kids would want to stay in-doors like they did in the pandemic to justify the 'need' for VR other than playing games in the metaverse.
For devices like Simula One, it's dead on arrival due to the mindshare of the Oculus / Meta Quest. If there was the next device to surpass the iPhone, it is simply AR glasses. Otherwise, why exactly is Google [0] Meta [1] trying to get there before Apple eventually does?
> ...and widely available cheap hardware from Meta.
Thank you for confirming that the 'Simula One' stands no chance at all against Meta Quest.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/google-acquires-north-augmen...
[1] https://www.roadtovr.com/project-nazare-ar-glasses-facebooks...
I don't understand why you (and other users here) compare this to Oculus. Oculus is a Redmi phone of VR. Yeah, people buy it, and most individuals (~70% of steam users) buy 1080 monitors.
Still, there is a considerable market for 6k Apple Displays or 4k monitors. And people still buy top-tier phones for ~1k USD when they can buy a model for 250-300 and get 90% features and performance (usually except camera) of a 1k device.
I got Oculus Quest and used a few other VR and still will consider Simula because it's a device for me, someone who buys 6k Apple Display, 64 GB ram laptops, and 3080Ti GPU. Someone who wants crisp fonts, high PPI, optimized DE for Linux system. Because I need it for my needs, and there are million people like me.
> your argument was a generalization against the whole of VR.
My generalization of VR is towards its limited market and use cases to special VR games or VR training. Other than that, what other uses cases exist for it?
Also, where are the sources to that 12 million and 20% year over year figures that you just brought up?
I think we both know how limited and niche VR headsets are towards games and VR training.
I admitted that the Simula doesn't compete against the Quest, but they're not in competition with one another and they never were. So I'm not sure what you think you've gotten here, other than intentionally misinterpreting me in bad faith to fit a bad argument.
> Also, where are the sources to that 12 million and 20% year over year figures that you just brought up?
Here are some sources,
https://www.pcgamer.com/meta-quest-store-revenue-quadrupled-... https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22785469/meta-oculus-que... https://www.protocol.com/vr-growth-forecast-pwc https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/vir...
Each one of them actually deeply exceeds my quoted growth number, both for hardware and software. The only one to note is it was 10million units back in November of last year based on statements from QUALCOMM, which from how you've been going so far, I'm going to assume you're going to interpret in the worst light possible.
VR is used by a lot of people for chatting, watching movies, fitness, some people work in it pretty regularly for development it's pretty varied and you'd know that if you actually knew anything about the space which is why I really can't take your arguments seriously.
You're so confidently negative without actually having used any of it, not a great look, but that's your choice I guess.
So basically specialist VR apps and VR training. Who is going to run in the park with that contraption on their head or go to a restaurant with that? Even previously with the first-gen AR glasses, we had the Glassholes. Now we have a first-gen VR contraption that claims it can be used in public with AR. And it is even worse.
> I'm going to assume you're going to interpret in the worst light possible.
There is a reason why I said the Simula One is late to the market and is obsolete on price, form-factor and its target market against Meta Quest, HTC Vive, or even the expensive HoloLens 2. I don't see why anyone other than Linux VR developers / geeks spending thousands would want a first-gen contraption like that. A very very limited target niche market for the Simula One.
> It's pretty varied and you'd know that if you actually knew anything about the space which is why I really can't take your arguments seriously.
I can assure you that no one will take the adoption of VR beyond VR games or VR training seriously, or even as the next platform of computing like the PC and iPhone, unless it shrinks into the form of glasses. That will certainly come from either Meta, Apple or Google and certainly not from hobbyist gadgets like the Simula.
> You're so confidently negative without actually having used any of it, not a great look, but that's your choice I guess.
Given one of the sources you linked [0] and [1] [2] I am even more confident that AR glasses (or even XR only in the form of glasses) are the next mass adopted computing platform after the iPhone. Not the current VR headsets or even the Simula which is appeals to its limited market of Linux VR enthusiasts.
[0] https://twitter.com/anshelsag/status/1460631153564659716/pho...
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/30/google-acquires-north-augmen...
[2] https://www.roadtovr.com/project-nazare-ar-glasses-facebooks...
I am waiting for something like the metaverse and I do realize that it will not happen as hoped.
I got 3D glasses in 2005 or so when I had a crt display and it was a fun novelty.
I watched 3D movies in the cinema and it's a nice novelty but I do prefer a brighter screen.
I watched 3D movie on a flat screen display and it was okay.
I got a HTC vive pro with wireless and valve index controllers and it's also a nice novelty so far.
VR is in my opinion a success if it becomes normal but no one really uses it day to day.
20 million devices? From a global company? In a market were 14 year old kids already own a 1000$ phone? Success I don't know.
People bought 3D televisions as well so that's that.
My personal expectation was that VR is going to be used for training people to drive, industriel training and lighthearted sports. But as something central like I imagined the metaverse or what ready player one proposed? We are far away from that.
That portable Linux VR headset will lay around at plenty of places of nerds having fun of it for a bit and then it becomes obsolete. An expensive toy.
I think pretty much all the members of my family regularly play games in VR (on their own headsets).
> But as something central like I imagined the metaverse or what ready player one proposed?
We don’t actually want that. That movie was supposed to display something dystopian. Meta is something dystopian.
With that said, I personally don't mind Meta selling Quest units at a loss. It's been a net good for the ecosystem (IMO), and has exposed a lot of people to VR who wouldn't be able to afford a headset otherwise. I just think their product direction & focus is otherwise shit.
[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/we-dont-want-the-metaverse/
You have to look at the curve of adoption VS total number, the trajectory they're on. In only 3 years they've managed to grow to that number. If it continues they will be at console numbers in under 10 years. Which a quick Google has told me before is about 85-100 million consoles.
Gaming and media, fitness and social are massive multi 100s of billion dollar markets and I see that being the long term success of VR not this live your life in it type deal.
Also friendly reminder a lot of these cyberpunkesque films and shows are dystopic in nature it's not to be emulated it's to depict failings of society that led to those states. I love the aesthetic of cyberpunk as much as anyone else but the societies they live in are warnings to us, not desired outcomes.
> If the device solves a genuine productivity problem for you, 3k is cheap.
Exactly! I expect my productivity to go up significantly when I upgrade from a few 2D monitors to a 3D virtual space.
Also, "if you're not paying, you're the product" still applies when you pay $300 for a device like the Quest that slurps your data straight to Zuckerberg as fast as humanly possible.
This is speculative. We have yet to see how well Simula OS will do and how well it's supported by the company.
I think the difference might be in the price point of all your competitors, or the increased marginal utility of your product.
Using this headset over any of the existing ones, what benefit do I get? The software is already open, so I can use it with any headset. My sole concern is getting the absolute best headset.
> While existing headsets are optimized for gaming, ours is optimized for productivity: it features bleeding edge high-resolution displays, has a detachable compute pack with specs comparable to a premium office laptop (x86 architecture), and runs a VR specialized Linux distro optimized for clear text.
Sure, if you can find a standalone headset with comparable resolution, CPU, and OS, use that!
Here's a more down to earth video of us testing it last summer in our compositor: https://youtu.be/6H5-mdGpKZg Note this is just an early test with a single fish eye lens (grainy; distortion not corrected). Our actual AR mode is much higher quality than this.
If you want to see a product that is open end to end and is not part of an ecosystem selling your information, then it has to be funded.
I realize most of the people reading this don't want a moral argument for spending $2k-$4k on a HMD, but thats what I am offering.
We should have multiple openXR compatible headsets to choose from, and specialized window managers that 'just work' in VR. Fund the FOSS projects you want to see in the world so others will follow.
Costs must go down before they'll see the kind of units moving they need to fund development.
I might buy one if I could find a way to experience it first.
Based on your wording, seems like you are involved with the project?
If so, I love the idea you all are chasing.
As a software developer, I've often thought about how great it would be to be able to take my setup with me without having to compromise on display. The current generation HMD is obviously not the end-game everyone is looking for, but you all obviously get the paradigm.
I'm super, super interested in this type of product, but it's about 4x outside of my casual toy budget. Based on experience with other VR and AR headsets I'm not comfortable putting down the money until I see the optics myself.
Re (software) development: Yes it will need funding, but it's there right now https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula and is agnostic/works with any openXR headset.
The closest device in comparison to this one is not a Quest 2 or even a Valve Index. Those are both secondary devices that do not offer anything other than canned, theme-park-like experiences that sit completely aside the rest of your computer. The closest competing device is actually a HoloLens 2. HoloLens with Windows Holographic is the only device on the market that has support for a general purpose computing interface. And HoloLens 2s are still US$3500/ea.
Whether you agree a VR computer as a primary device is a good thing is a different issue.
Seems to work for Apple. All they have to do is provide a superior product. That's the hard part.
Also: for an additional headset discount, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30441697
[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/kickstarter-pricing/
I'm more surprised that the quest is so cheap, but then I remember exactly what you said: the quest is not the product, I am the product.
Then I remember why I don't use Meta products anymore.
Unfortunately, I think socioeconomic pressures are also pushing people to compromise in ways that are not in their best interest, even if they do get it. In other words, they'll get the 'cheap' product that invades their privacy, sells their data, and shows ads to them, because they don't have the money for a product they own (see: television market).
An argument could be made that even thinking about the slave trade is inconsiderate when billions are shown ads on Facebook properties today.
Also the cliche of it’s not the product, you are is cute but played out. If you’re getting your bang for buck on it as a consumer (and I know I am), then moral arguments are useless. As with all things the market makes the ultimate decisions, not the individual.
You could use the same train of thought for Soylent Green.
Cute, cliche, and played out? If you dismiss it in three different ways are you magically correct?
It might be a losing battle in the face on increasing complacency and bad incentives, but it's not over no matter how many different ways you want to dismiss it.
I have one of these - a little overpriced but looks absolutely amazing.
Meta forced Oculus users to transition to a Facebook login after they had already bought the device.
They are a surveillance company who collects, correlates and sells personal information. They aren't going to stop at the VR boundary and suddenly change their mission.
It seems like prioritizing the integrated computer and the untethered experience increases the cost for little benefit. This is especially true considering this thing likely won't have great battery life so operating completely wirelessly won't be possible for extended periods of time anyway. What would this device cost if the primary design objective was to create an open wired headset and the software to accompany it? Whatever that is, it would be a more attractive value proposition for me personally and therefore likely for other customers too.
The benefit is pretty crucial: friction. If you have a tethered VR headset, the amount of work you need to do to set it up is insane. Especially with lower-level software like Simula.
It is only replaceable and upgradable if this company sells these compute modules separately. There is no discussion I saw on that website that they are committing to do this and there is no guarantee they will be around to still sell you one in the future. Even if they do, you are locked into their ecosystem.
>The benefit is pretty crucial: friction. If you have a tethered VR headset, the amount of work you need to do to set it up is insane.
I have never used a VR device on Linux and maybe the work involved there would be truly "insane", but I have used a few on Windows and they are basically completely plug and play after you install the software. Although even with the work involved, this seems to be an enthusiast device aimed at techies. If these customers are looking for a frictionless experience, they probably wouldn't be daily driving a Linux machine in the first place.
The friction is both what we experienced as part of adoption and in my personal experience. Actual personal experiences may vary, of course.
I didn't realize you were involved in this company until I read your other comments. It is unclear what "You're locked into some of our custom components" means. Can a average techie, maybe someone who is comfortable opening their laptop to add RAM or new storage but wouldn't be comfortable making any other hardware changes, upgrade this with off the shelf parts? If the answer is yes, that should be in your marketing material. If the answer is no and you can't commit to selling these custom modules, then I stick to my original point.
Yes, about as easy as opening a laptop. Unscrew some screws, lift a cover, install a new M.2 SSD or whatever. This is a picture of the "standard" assembly: https://i.kane.cx/NFIpf4 -- compute element slots into a connector, and there's the standard M.2 slot etc. Ours won't be too different, just a different form factor/connectors/additional features.
We're committing to selling all custom parts for at least a few years, but I can't give a hard number on how long. I'd say 4 years for sure.
Untethered also allows you to be much more active, you can change seats or switch to standing as easily as if you were just holding a phone or tablet. It'd be nice to stretch my legs while I catch up on email or check a dashboard or flop on the couch while I watch a video or read an article.
If the battery life isn't great, you only need to be plugged in while your sitting at your desk and can easily unplug the cable when you want to get up. Hopefully they made the port easy to find while wearing the headset.
Some of which can be addressed by being able to try before you buy, and the rest will come out in the product reviews....but right now there are no product reviews, and signing up for a preorder at this price is taking a lot on faith.
I wish this team all the success in the world, but I'll probably wait for V2.
That's really going to be the new RSI waiting to happen: Moving your hands in the air constantly. Try this: Pretend you're scrolling a really long web page a little bit at a time by holding your hand in the air (in front of your face) and doing a pinch with your fingers like you're grabbing something, lifting it up, then dropping it again. Do this motion very slowly (like you're reading) for like 10 minutes straight, over and over again. Now do the same thing, pretending you're looking up at a VR "window" or down at one. How do you think your arms will do after existing in this VR environment for hours at a time? :D
As long as we can scroll/navigate with the keyboard everything should be good though
I'm just ready to give my money to someone who wants to build on openXR, has a vr window manager in development, and the chops to build ambitious hardware (on Linux).
https://discord.com/channels/603723949586644997/603723949586...
1. We have up to 17mm of space for glasses for casual use
2. We're going to be compatible with prescription lens inserts out of the box, e.g. Reloptix.
3. It's possible that we'll include diopter adjustment as well
It would be very helpful to have this information somewhere prominently in your marketing materials.
But I think I'll try to use my Index more see if I can get into that idea of using VR for work.
I hope they figured out the blurry edges of text when you don't look at it just right, maybe that's a lower resolution display issue. I'm interested in the concept but it's definitely expensive for me at the current cost/mental mindset.
Our optics are currently in prototype production but we'll have the first units in a few weeks. Can post some through the lens shots then and check for any issues like that.
That sounds good. Good luck, I've subscribed to one of your guys YT channels to keep up.
edit: ehh I've lost $2.5K on crypto already, I'll just do the 50% pre-order for this.
> It can sometimes just feel weird working on sensitive or private things out in the open.
... all while the GIF next to it seems to have people glaring at the weird person with the VR headset on. Clever marketing hidden way down there. But who knows, maybe this is the future if Zuck throws billions at it.
To each, his own.
To me, the videos of the guy sitting in the park surrounded by trees and birds and nature, but completely blocking them out with his headset is dystopian. The world is wonderful, and if I have to work in it, I prefer to experience it, not pretend it doesn't exist. I say this as someone who regularly does my work on a laptop at a park.
Your vision of blocking out the existence of all of the fellow human beings at the coffee shop is, again to me, similarly dystopian. What's the point of even going? Why not lock yourself in a closet and program a pretend coffee shop to display in your goggles? Coffee is cheaper at home, too.
In 3 years or so, this will be normalized, right? People will want to wear their apple VR things, to coffee shops.
and
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)...
and
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29404551/
aaaand
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29786830/
* Technically, there's another +-2mm of allowable eye center x/y/z movement that we've reserved for the headset moving around + eye relief. So in theory the maximum IPD would be closer to 81mm, but that puts your right on the edge of reaching our target picture quality.
RE glasses & lens inserts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442633
RE ergonomics and comfort: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442745 Possibly also of interest to you as well.
Hope this answers your questions. We appreciate your interest.