VRgineers Archives

This year’s CES in Las Vegas has seen virtual reality (VR) hardware announcements from the likes of Shiftall (a Panasonic subsidiary) and Sony (officially naming PlayStation VR2). One headset that’s gone under the radar is the XTAL 3, the latest high-end incarnation from VRgineers. Aiming squarely at enterprise and military clients, the XTAL 3 comes in two editions starting from just under $9K USD.

VRgineers’ XTAL has always focused its efforts towards wide field of view (FoV) applications, flight simulators in particular. That’s why the company boasts clients including the U.S. Air Force, NASA and BAE Systems among others. Designed in cooperation with Air Force pilots, the XTAL 3 will come in VR and mixed reality (MR) configurations – similar to Varjo’s latest devices – with both offering two 4K resolution displays (3840×2160 per eye), a 75Hz refresh rate at 4K (120Hz at QHD), eye tracking, inside-out tracking, and an Auto IPD adjustment range of 60-76 mm.

After that, the specifications do start to differ due to the XTAL 3 MR’s capabilities. For example, the XTAL 3 VR offers a 180° horizontal and 90° vertical FoV, whilst the MR edition is slightly less at 170° horizontal. With a pair of 4K cameras, the XTAL 3 MR headset does weigh in at 700g, 100g heavier than its VR sibling.

“The central cover of the headset is removable and reconfigurable, making it possible to change the headset from purely virtual to mixed reality, or replace inside-out tracking with ULTRALEAP hand tracking,” says CEO and co-founder Marek Polcak in a statement. “We can assure all our clients that the XTAL 3 will be compatible with all existing and future technologies they might need while maintaining the highest levels of comfort and convenience.”

“Our new one-dot calibration removes the biggest obstacle to the wide adoption of foveated rendering technology. The major bottleneck has always been the time-consuming calibration process necessary before every use of the foveated rendering feature,” Polcak explains. “The XTAL 3 calibration process uses unique one-dot calibration that creates a virtual mathematical model of the user’s face allowing us to calculate precise calibration formulas for eye tracking.”

So how much does all this cost? Well, the XTAL 3 VR starts from $8,900 USD excluding taxes whilst the XTAL 3 MR comes in at a rather more substantial $11,500. Making it quite the purchase if you want the ultimate Microsoft Flight Simulator experience.

VRgineers hasn’t solely been working on the new XTAL 3 either. In December, social VR platform Somnium Space released new details regarding its own standalone headset that’s being built in collaboration with VRgineers. This consumer-grade headset is expected to arrive in Q4 2022.

The XTAL 3 VR and XTAL 3 MR headsets are expected to ship to pre-order customers this April. For further updates from the VRgineers team, keep reading VRFocus.

A couple of months back, Somnium Space, the social virtual reality (VR) metaverse built upon blockchain and cryptosystems made a huge raft of announcements which included the first mention of its own standalone VR headset. Today, as part of its first-ever Somnium Space Connect event, the company dropped further details including the specifications and what it’ll look like.

Being built in collaboration with VRgineers – the makers of the enterprise-grade XTAL headset – the device aims to corner a very specific section of the market, one where users aren’t held to a particular store or platform restrictions. A VR headset that’s open-source and modular, which can be programmed and tailored to your own particular needs if necessary.

“We have seen a trend where many companies, big companies, who were producing VR headsets started to close their ecosystems a kind of creating these silos of closed ecosystems, and we as the metaverse company, we cannot afford to risk that we will be dependant on some or other ecosystems,” Artur Sychov, CEO of Somnium Space explained during the event. “Some companies are doing a great job, some headsets are amazing, but we saw some signals from different various companies either towards blockchain or towards VR apps and other things that we didn’t like. It rang a huge alarm in my head.”

In development since the beginning of 2021, Sychov notes that the ‘Somnium VR Headset’ is still very much a work-in-progress yet the fundamentals do already seem in place. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor – which can be found in other standalone devices like the Meta Quest 2 – it’ll have two 3.2 inch LCD panels with a 2880 x 2880 resolution, 90Hz refresh rate (possibly up to 120Hz), 115-degree field of view, custom VRgineers lenses similar to XTAL and full inside out tracking.

You’ll be able to connect it to a PC for lossless VR gaming or stream content to the device thanks to in-built WiFi 6e. There’s also the welcome addition of a MicroSD card slot for expandable storage although there was no mention of any other storage. As mentioned, what might interest a lot of VR users is the modular structure of the headset. “We really believe in modularity,” says Sychov. “We want to have a headset which will last some time with you, which you can take and do things with, which truly can be your companion and your development partner or your gaming partner.”

For example, the front panel will be removable to swap out for other panels, the side and bottom have smaller panels that can be removed to add items to like 3D printed accessories – Somnium will release all the details required to print your own compatible parts. Making for a really customisable VR headset that could very well see some unusual creations from the community.

Somnium Space hasn’t said what price it’ll be aiming for but it won’t be running any super early pre-orders or funding campaigns. Currently, the goal is to release the first batch of headsets in Q4 2022 with more details to be released in the coming months. When that occurs VRFocus will keep you updated.

Pre-orders for the 180° FOV XTAL 3 go Live Starting From $9K

Standalone, Modular & Open Source Define Somnium Space’s First VR Headset