Feature

Hands-on: Samsung‘s Android XR Headset is a Curious Combo of Quest & Vision Pro, With One Stand-out Advantage

December 12, 2024 From roadtovr

Samsung is the first partner to formally announce a new MR headset based on the newly announced Android XR. The device, codenamed “Project Moohan,” is planned for consumer release in 2025. We went hands on with an early version.

Note: Samsung and Google aren’t yet sharing any key details for this headset like resolution, weight, field-of-view, or price. During my demo I also wasn’t allowed to capture photos or videos, so we only have an official image for the time being.

If I told you that Project Moohan felt like a mashup between Quest and Vision Pro, you’d probably get the idea that it has a lot of overlapping capabilities. But I’m not just making a rough analogy. Just looking at the headset, it’s clear that it has taken significant design cues from Vision Pro. Everything from colors to button placement to calibration steps, make it unmistakably aware of other products on the market.

And then on the software side, if I had told you “please make an OS that mashes together Horizon OS and VisionOS,” and you came back to me with Android XR, I’d say you nailed the assignment.

It’s actually uncanny just how much Project Moohan and Android XR feel like a riff on the two other biggest headset platforms.

But this isn’t a post to say someone stole something from someone else. Tech companies are always borrowing good ideas and good designs from each other—sometimes improving them along the way. So as long as Android XR and Project Moohan got the good parts of others, and avoided the bad parts, that’s a win for developers and users.

And many of the good parts do indeed appear to be there.

Hands-on With Samsung Project Moohan Android XR Headset

Starting from the Project Moohan hardware—it’s a good-looking device, no doubt. It definitely has the ‘goggles’-style look of Vision Pro, as well as a tethered battery pack (not pictured above).

But where Vision Pro has a soft strap (that I find rather uncomfortable without a third-party upgrade), Samsung’s headset has a rigid strap with tightening dial, and an overall ergonomic design that’s pretty close to Quest Pro. That means an open-peripheral design which is great for using the headset for AR. Also like Quest Pro, the headset has some magnetic snap-on blinders for those that want a blocked-out peripheral for fully immersive experiences.

And though the goggles-look and even many of the button placements (and shapes) are strikingly similar to Vision Pro, Project Moohan doesn’t have an external display to show the user’s eyes. Vision Pro’s external ‘EyeSight’ display has been criticized by many, but I maintain it’s a desirable feature, and one that I wish Project Moohan had. Coming from Vision Pro, it’s just kind of awkward to not be able to ‘see’ the person wearing the headset, even though they can see you.

Samsung has been tight-lipped about the headset’s tech details, insisting that it’s still a prototype. However, we have learned the headset is running a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 processor, a more powerful version of the chip in Quest 3 and Quest 3S.

In my hands-on I was able to glean a few details. For one, the headset is using pancake lenses with automatic IPD adjustment (thanks to integrated eye-tracking). The field-of-view feels smaller than Quest 3 or Vision Pro, but before I say that definitively, I first need to try different forehead pad options (confirmed to be included) which may be able to move my eyes closer to the lenses for a wider field-of-view.

From what I got to try however, the field-of-view did feel smaller—albeit, enough to still feel immersive—and so did the sweet spot due to brightness fall-off toward the outer edges of the display. Again, this is something that may improve if the lenses were closer to my eyes, but the vibe I got for now is that, from a lens standpoint, Meta’s Quest 3 is still leading, followed by Vision Pro, with Project Moohan a bit behind.

Although Samsung has confirmed that Project Moohan will have its own controllers, I didn’t get to see or try them yet. I was told they haven’t decided if the controllers will ship with the headset by default or be sold separately.

So it was all hand-tracking and eye-tracking input in my time with the headset. Again, this was a surprisingly similar mashup of both Horizon OS and VisionOS. You can use raycast cursors like Horizon OS or you can use eye+pinch inputs like VisionOS. The Samsung headset also includes downward-facing cameras so pinches can be detected when your hands are comfortably in your lap.

When I actually got to put the headset on, the first thing I noticed was how sharp my hands appeared to be. From memory, the headset’s passthrough cameras appear to have a sharper image than Quest 3 and less motion blur than Vision Pro (but I only got to test in excellent lighting conditions). Considering though how my hands seemed sharp but things further away seemed less so, it almost felt like the passthrough cameras might have been focused at roughly arms-length distance.

Continue on Page 2: Inside Android XR »

Inside Android XR

Anyway, onto Android XR. As said, it’s immediately comparable to a mashup of Horizon OS and VisionOS. You’ll see the same kind of ‘home screen’ as Vision Pro, with app icons on a transparent background. Look and pinch to select one and you get a floating panel (or a few) containing the app. It’s even the same gesture to open the home screen (look at your palm and pinch).

The system windows themselves look closer to those of Horizon OS than VisionOS, with mostly opaque backgrounds and the ability to move the window anywhere by reaching for an invisible frame that wraps around the entire panel.

In addition to flat apps, Android XR can do fully immersive stuff too. I got to see a VR version of Google Maps which felt very similar to Google Earth VR, allowing me to pick anywhere on the globe to visit, including the ability to see locations like major cities modeled in 3D, Street View imagery, and, newly, volumetric captures of interior spaces.

While Street View is monoscopic 360 imagery, the volumetric captures are rendered in real-time and fully explorable. Google said this was a gaussian splat solution, though I’m not clear on whether it was generated from existing interior photography that’s already available on standard Google Maps, or if it required a brand new scan. It wasn’t nearly as sharp as you’d expect from a photogrammetry scan, but not bad either. Google said the capture was running on-device and not streamed, and that sharpness is expected to improve over time.

Google Photos has also been updated for Android XR, including the ability to automatically convert any existing 2D photo or video from your library into 3D. In the brief time I had with it, the conversions looked really impressive; similar in quality to the same feature on Vision Pro.

YouTube is another app Google has updated to take full advantage of Android XR. In addition to watching regular flatscreen content on a large, curved display, you can also watch the platform’s existing library of 180, 360, and 3D content. Not all of it is super high quality, but it’s nice that it’s not being forgotten—and will surely be added to as more headsets are able to view this kind of media.

Google also showed me a YouTube video that was originally shot in 2D but automatically converted to 3D to be viewed on the headset. It looked pretty good, seemingly similar in quality to the Google Photos 3D conversion tech. It wasn’t made clear whether this is something that YouTube creators would need to opt-in to have generated, or something YouTube would just do automatically. I’m sure there’s more details to come.

The Stand-out Advantage (for now)

Android XR and Project Moohan, both from a hardware and software standpoint, feel very much like a Google-fied version of what’s already on the market. But what it clearly does better than any other headset right now is conversational AI.

Google’s AI agent, Gemini (specifically the ‘Project Astra‘ variant) can be triggered right from the home screen. Not only can it hear you, but it can see what you see in both the real world and the virtual world—continuously. Its ongoing perception of what you’re saying and what you’re seeing makes it feel smarter, better integrated, and more conversational than the AI agents on contemporary headsets.

Yes, Vision Pro has Siri, but Siri can only hear you and is mostly focused on single-tasks rather than an ongoing conversation.

And Quest has an experimental Meta AI agent that can hear you and see what you’re seeing—but only the real world. It has no sense of what virtual content is in front of you, which creates a weird disconnect. Meta says this will change eventually, but for now that’s how it works. And in order to ‘see’ things, you have to ask it a question about your environment and then stand still while it makes a ‘shutter’ sound, then starts thinking about that image.

Gemini, on the other hand, gets something closer to a low framerate video feed of what you’re seeing in both the real and virtual worlds; which means no awkward pauses to make sure you’re looking directly at the thing you asked about as a single picture is taken.

Gemini on Android XR also has a memory about it, which gives it a boost when it comes to contextual understanding. Google says it has a rolling 10-minute memory and retains “key details of past conversations,” which means you can refer not only to things you talked about recently, but also things you saw.

I was shown what is by now becoming a common AI demo: you’re in a room filled with stuff and you can ask questions about it. I tried to trip the system up with a few sly questions, and was impressed at its ability to avoid the diversions.

I used Gemini on Android XR to ask it to translate sign written in Spanish into English. It quickly gave me a quick translation. Then I asked it to translate another nearby sign into French—knowing full well that this sign was already in French. Gemini had no problem with this, and correctly noted, “this sign is already in French, it says [xyz],” and it even said the French words in a French accent.

I moved on to asking about some other objects in the room, and after it had been a few minutes since asking about the signs, I asked it “what did that sign say earlier?” It knew what I was talking about and read the French sign aloud. Then I said “what about the one before that?”….

A few years ago this question—”what about the one before that?”—would have been a wildly challenging question for any AI system (and it still is for many). Answering it correctly requires multiple levels of context from our conversation up to that point, and an understanding of how the thing I had just asked about relates to another thing we had talked about previously.

But it knew exactly what I meant, and quickly read the Spanish sign back to me. Impressive.

Gemini on Android XR can also do more than just answer general questions. It remains to be seen how deep this will be at launch, but Google showed me a few ways that Gemini can actually control the headset.

For one, asking it to “take me to the Eiffel tower,” pulls up an immersive Google Maps view so I can see it in 3D. And since it can see virtual content as well as real, I can continue having a fairly natural conversation, with questions like “how tall is it?” or “when was it built?”

Gemini can also fetch specific YouTube videos that it thinks are the right answer to your query. So saying something like “show a video of the view from the ground,” while looking at the virtual Eiffel tower, will pop up a YouTube video to show what you asked for.

Ostensibly Gemini on Android XR should also be able to do the usual assistant stuff that most phone AI can do (ie: send text messages, compose an email, set reminders), but it will be interesting to see how deep it will go with XR-specific capabilities.

Gemini on Android XR feels like the best version of an AI agent on a headset yet (including what Meta has right now on their Ray-Ban smartglasses) but Apple and Meta are undoubtedly working toward similar capabilities. How long Google can maintain the lead here remains to be seen.

Gemini on Project Moohan feels like a nice value-add when using the headset for spatial productivity purposes, but its true destiny probably lies on smaller, everyday wearable smartglasses, which I also got to try… but more on that in another article.

Hands-on: Shiftall MeganeX Superlight Packs a Wishlist of Ergonomics Into a Tiny Package

November 1, 2024 From roadtovr

Japan-based Shiftall is the latest company making an effort to deliver an ultra-compact VR headset for enthusiasts who are willing to spend big on maximizing their PC VR experience. Despite the tiny package, the MeganeX Superlight headset still manages to deliver the optical adjustments that should be standard for every headset. Though undoubtedly expensive, the headset overall is promising, provided the company can finalize a few tweaks before crossing the finish line.

Available for pre-order in Japan, United States, EU & UK, the $1,900 MeganeX Superlight from Shiftall is purportedly set to start shipping between February and March of next year. You can check out the full breakdown of specs here.

This is a tethered headset designed for the SteamVR ecosystem. Shiftall is selling the headset by itself, which means you’ll need to bring your own SteamVR Tracking beacons and controllers—or drop another $580 to buy them new.

This week I got to check out a prototype version of the MeganeX Superlight headset and found it to be a promising piece of hardware that’s certain to be held back by its steep price.

Shiftall CEO Takuma Iwasa told me the headset is primarily targeted toward hardcore VR users, especially those spending long stretches in VRChat. Considering his own claim of more than 3,000 hours in VRChat, it’s clear he has a real understanding of the needs of this kind of customer.

That’s what led the company to try building a compact PC VR headset: Iwasa wants to deliver something that’s lightweight and comfortable for long sessions.

A big part of a VR headset being comfortable is about being able to adjust it to fit each individual. Getting the headset’s lenses into the ideal position for your eyes is crucial to maximizing visual quality and comfort.

To that end, I was happy to see the MeganeX Superlight includes a list of optical adjustments that I’ve long wished was standard on every headset: IPD, eye-relief, diopter, a flip-up visor, and even a lens angle adjustment.

IPD (or interpupillary distance) is standard on most headsets, it’s the distance between the lenses. Matching the distance between the lenses to the distance between your eyes is important to making it easy for your eyes to fuse the stereoscopic image, and for getting your eyes into the ‘sweet spot’ of the lens (the optical center, where the lens has the greatest).

On the MeganeX Superlight, IPD is set by entering your IPD measurement into the software on your computer, causing the headset’s motorized lenses to move into the desired position.

Eye-relief is less common to find on VR headsets. This is the distance from the lens to your eye. Not only is this important for maximizing field-of-view, it’s also important for dialing in the ‘sweet spot’ of the lens. That’s because the sweet spot isn’t just a plane, it’s a volume (technically speaking, this is often called the ‘eye-box’).

On the MeganeX Superlight, the mount which connects the headset itself to the headstrap makes it easy to adjust eye-relief by pinching a pair of pads which allows you to freely slide the headset closer or farther away from your eyes.

Diopter is even rarer than eye-relief. This setting changes the focus of the lens to account for a person’s vision correction needs. Rather than wearing glasses, users can dial in their diopter to enjoy a sharp view.

On Shiftall’s headset, there’s a small dial near the side of each lens which is used to adjust the diopter for each eye. Although this is a manual process (ie: you can’t just enter a value and have the headset set it automatically), Shiftall tells me that part of the headset’s setup process will include a calibration screen to make this process easier.

While a growing number of headsets include decent passthrough views via external cameras, if the goal is to simply look outside of your headset, it’s hard to beat your very own eyes. To that end the MeganeX Superlight has a little plunger on the headstrap mount that makes it quick and easy to flip up the visor for a glimpse of the outside world, and to flip it back down when you’re done.

And last but not least—something I’ve seen on only one other company’s headsets—is an independent lens angle adjustment.

Many VR headsets have a pivot at the point where their headstrap connects to the headset, but the angle is entirely at the mercy of how the facepad rests on the user’s face.

On the other hand, because the MeganeX Superlight headset essentially hangs down from your forehead, a small dial on the side of the mount allows you to independently adjust the angle of the headset (and thus the lenses) regardless of how the headstrap is resting on your head.

Taken all together, these adjustments make it easier for a wider range of people to get the best and most comfortable visual experience from the headset.

And if you’re planning to pay nearly $2,000 for a headset that’s not only compact, but also includes a whopping 13.6MP (3,552 × 3,840) micro-OLED display per-eye, you’re definitely going to want it to have the adjustments necessary to give you the best visuals it can.

The MeganeX Superlight’s displays are incredibly crisp, to the point that there’s simply no visible pixels, sub-pixels, or even a hint of screen-door effect that I could see in my time with the headset. The virtual world not only looks completely sharp and solid thanks to all of those pixels, it also looks very vivid thanks to the rich colors and deep blacks shown by the 10-bit display.

While I need more time with the headset to be sure, my initial impression from memory was that the MeganeX Superlight felt like it had a slightly larger field-of-view, slightly larger sweet spot, and less glare compared to Bigscreen Beyond (its nearest competitor).

From a resolution standpoint, there’s so few examples of VR content that actually have the underlying graphical fidelity to show a meaningful difference—between Bigscreen Beyond’s impressive 6.5MP (2,560 × 2,560) per-eye resolution and the MeganeX Superlight’s even more impressive 13.6MP (3,552 × 3,840) per-eye resolution—that the improvement wasn’t obviously noticeable.

But it stands to reason that the MeganeX Superlight should be the superior headset in cases where high resolving power is most important, like in flight simulators where long sightlines to distant objects are common, and for virtual desktops where resolving fine text is crucial. I’m especially interested to try the MeganeX Superlight for the latter.

While greater resolving power is always a plus, there’s no question that if you want to run VR content anywhere near the headset’s native resolution, you’re going to need to pair it with top-tier PC.

At the headset’s native 13.6MP per-eye resolution and 90Hz refresh rate, your computer will need to pump out an absurd 2.5 gigapixels per second (assuming naive stereoscopic rendering). [Note: Shiftall says the MeganeX Superlight only works with modern NVIDIA GPUs. AMD is not supported at present.]

If you don’t already have (or aren’t planning to buy) an NVIDIA 3080, 4080, or better, it’s hard to make a case for paying $1,900 for the extra pixels on MeganeX Superlight over the $1,000 Bigscreen Beyond (assuming both headsets were otherwise equal).

While I was impressed with the array of optical adjustments, stunning resolution, and vibrant colors of the MeganeX Superlight, I have the same reservation about the headset that I did with Bigscreen Beyond: the lack of built-in audio is a big oversight. I understand that there’s some people out there who are happy to deal with putting on their own headphones or earbuds over top of their headset, but my gut is that most people prefer the convenience of not having to deal with yet another thing to put on.

Bigscreen Beyond has since rectified this issue with an optional headstrap with on-board audio. And making it optional is fine; the people who want it can get it, and those that want to use their own aren’t stuck with it.

Shiftall tells me it’s also planning to build an optional headstrap with on-board audio, but it won’t be available (or probably even announced) before the headset starts shipping early next year. I understand that making and launching hardware is extremely difficult, but it’s a real shame to not have an audio headstrap available at launch.

Another issue I saw during my time with the headset is some pupil-swim in the lenses. That means when your eyes move in smooth pursuit (as opposed to saccading) across the lens, the scene seems to warp in an uncomfortable way.

This is typically an issue with poor lens calibration, and it isn’t uncommon with prototype headsets which aren’t being made with final tooling or calibration processes.

While there’s no reason to think the company can’t dial in its lens calibration before launch, getting it right is very important. So it’s something I’ll definitely want to get another look at closer to the headset’s release.

Assuming Shiftall manages to improve the pupil-swim—as it says it expects to—the company is on track to deliver a pretty impressive headset. The only major issues are that of cost and the lack of on-board audio. Those two factors ensure that the MeganeX Superlight will remain a niche headset. But if the company can find a clutch of users that want what it’s offering, it will have further proven out the existence of a hardcore PC VR crowd that’s willing to spend big to maximize their VR experience.

Hands-on: Logitech’s MX Ink for Quest Could Legitimize VR Styluses as a Whole

June 18, 2024 From roadtovr

Over the last decade I’ve reported on and tested many different VR styluses, but none of them have actually caught on. But the new MX Ink stylus for Quest stands a real chance at legitimizing the VR stylus as a whole, thanks to its thoughtful design, strong lineup of launch apps, and tight integration with Quest’s software.

This week Logitech announced MX Ink, an officially endorsed ‘Made for Meta’ stylus supporting Quest 2 and Quest 3 (see the full announcement details here). It’s the first time Meta has allowed any other company to harness its tracking technology in a third-party product. That alone makes MX Ink unique, but there’s more that makes this the device that could legitimize VR styluses as a whole.

The first styluses are thought to have been invented five millennia ago. And there’s a reason they’ve stuck with humanity ever since: a stylus amplifies the precision with which we can point. While that seems rather simple, it makes information tasks like writing, drawing, calculating, and designing significantly more practical and useful than using our fingers alone.

So it’s not surprising that we’ve seen many attempts to bring a VR stylus to life.

Just to name a few: in 2017 an enterprising developer hacked together a chunky prototype using a Vive Tracker and a pressure-sensitive stylus tip; in 2018 a company called Massless designed its own prototype VR stylus that it hoped to bring to market; even Wacom has been toying with the idea. Hell, Logitech already made a VR stylus back in 2019… but at $750, it’s no wonder it never made it to general availability.

So what could be different about Logitech’s new MX Ink? Well for one, the price is significantly more palatable than what’s come before. The $130 price point is a pretty easy sell for professionals for whom the added precision of a stylus could actually improve their workflow.

Logitech is also smartly launching some ‘nice to have’ extras for those who are really serious about making the MX Ink part of their workflow.

There’s the Inkwell dock which, for only another $40, gives you an easy place to store and charge the stylus so it’s ready for your next use. And there’s the MX Mat, for $50, which Logitech pitches as the ideal surface to make it feel like you’re drawing on a paper-like material when using the stylus.

But more importantly than price or accessories is the first-party integration with Meta and the strong lineup of supported software out of the gate.

Logitech worked directly with Meta, not only to adopt Quest’s tracking technology, but also to build the stylus’ software experience right into Horizon OS. Pairing the MX Ink is just like pairing one of the headset’s own controllers, without any extra hardware or software needed. Even the stylus’ settings—which let you control things like hand selection, button bindings, and pressure curves—are baked right into the system’s own Settings menu.

It’s even got a proper ‘Meta’ button on the end (where the eraser would be), making it easy to pull up the headset’s menu.

And then there’s the strong lineup of software that will work right out of the gate. Logitech has locked in a solid swath of VR design apps for MX Ink support:

Adobe Substance Modeler
Gravity Sketch
PaintingVR
Arkio
Engage
OpenBrush
GestureVR
ShapesXR
Elucis by RealizeMedical

If Logitech plays its cards right, MX Ink could be the first VR stylus that really sticks the landing. So needless to say, I was intrigued to try it.

Hands-on With Logitech MX Ink for Quest

Last week I swung by Logitech’s San Jose, CA office to check out an early version of the stylus for myself. Compared to the company’s last VR stylus, the MX Ink is significantly more compact. Even so, I was impressed with the tracking.

Even with my hand covering a significant area of the stylus, there were seemingly enough hidden IR LEDs hiding under the stylus’ shell to provide continuous tracking no matter how I held or twisted the stylus. The company said it even put IR LEDs toward the tip of the MX Ink so it could be held like a wand or a pallet knife.

Logitech says the stylus is ‘as accurate as the Quest controllers’—but that doesn’t mean it can’t be more precise. Using a stylus as a pointing device means you can use your dexterous fingers to manipulate the input position in a very fine way; far more so than twisting your wrist alone (which is what primarily drives fine controller motion).

That was obvious while I was using the MX Ink to draw and sketch directly onto a real table in front of me. The pressure sensitive tip also made it feel natural to vary line width as needed.

I also tried using the MX Ink stylus against a whiteboard while using Quest 3’s mixed reality view. The tight latency and accuracy of the stylus really made it feel like I was leaving marks on the whiteboard. It was a whole layer of immersion that I wasn’t expecting to feel while trying the stylus.

This sense of actually leaving real marks on the whiteboard only made the next part even more mind-bending… I could lift the stylus from the surface while holding the button on the barrel and extend my drawing into the third dimension. Watching my strokes literally leap off the page like this was just plain fun.

While pressing the MX Ink against a real surface, the tip communicates the amount of pressure to the headset and thus changes the thickness of the line you draw. But when you’re using the stylus to draw in 3D, suddenly there’s no way for the system to know how much pressure you’re using, right? Actually, no; Logitech smartly made the button on the barrel of the stylus pressure sensitive itself, so you can squeeze softer or harder to define the width of brush strokes, even when you’re drawing in the air.

The MX Ink even includes a haptic engine for feedback. So even if you’re using it against a virtual surface, the stylus can let you know when you’re touching the canvas.

– – — – –

I’m impressed with the level of thoughtfulness in the design of MX Ink. It’s clear the company has carried over some important lessons learned from its previous experiments with VR styluses.

MX Ink has a reasonable price point, direct integration with the most popular headsets on the market, and a strong lineup of supporting apps. Logitech is giving the VR stylus—as a category—its best chance yet at really catching on.

The essential pieces are in place. The thing that will make or break this product is now likely down to how well integrated it is into the workflow of key applications. My understanding is that developers have a huge range of control over exactly how their applications will handle MX Ink. Half-hearted implementations could kill what otherwise looks like a strong product.

With MX Ink not due to launch until September, there’s time still for applications to tighten up their implementations, so we’ll have to wait to see how it all comes together.