VRSUN

Hot Virtual Reality News

HOTTEST VR NEWS OF THE DAY

XR Industry News

Varjo XR-4 Will Get a SteamVR Tracking Variant and Sell Direct to Prosumers

From roadtovr

Varjo just announced its latest headset, the XR-4, and while the company is primarily continuing to target high-end enterprise use-cases, this is the first headset in their ‘XR’ series that they will sell directly to consumers and without a hefty annual fee that was once required to use the headset.

Released back in 2021, Varjo Aero is the company’s first and only prosumer-positioned headset. Though high-end, it has also been a lesser-speced headset than the company’s flagship devices.

The new Varjo XR-4 is the latest headset from the company that has focused on creating the highest-fidelity tethered headset on the market. While the headset’s $4,000 price tag is surely targeting high-end enterprise use-cases, for the handful of prosumers out there who have cash to burn, XR-4 is actually the cheapest of the company’s enterprise-positioned headsets yet. It’s also the first of Varjo’s XR-series headsets that the company will sell directly to consumers and without a required annual fee.

For now the company is soliciting invitations to join the consumer waitlist for the XR-4, saying those on the list will be alerted when the headset is available in their given country.

Varjo XR-4 with SteamVR Tracking

Image courtesy Varjo

While XR-4 has its own inside-out tracking system, the company is also making a variant of the headset which ties it into the SteamVR Tracking ecosystem (as its prior headsets once relied upon).

Unfortunately it’ll bring the price of the base variant of the headset up by another $1,000. Varjo has confirmed that this variant of XR-4 can switch back and forth between SteamVR Tracking and the headset’s own inside-out tracking.

It’s potentially also possible to eschew the $1,000 addition and instead add SteamVR Tracking to the base variant of XR-4 by attaching something like the Tundra Tracker and configuring it to represent the position of the headset. Though this will take a few extra steps compared to having SteamVR Tracking built right in.

Vrgineers Secures $6M to Accelerate Wide-FOV VR for Enterprise

From roadtovr

Vrgineers, the US-Czech company known for its wide-FOV PC VR headsets for enterprise, announced it’s secured a $6 million Series A investment.

The funding round was led by Taiwania Capital, a venture capital firm based in Taipei, Taiwan. Returning investors include Czechia-based Nation 1, which has increased its share by $500,000 since the previous investment round.

Founded in 2017 and based in Delaware, United States and Prague, Czechia, Vrgineers is slated to use the funds to accelerate growth in addition to releasing a new version of its XTAL headset later this year.

Priced in the thousands of dollars, the XTAL platform is designed to appeal to enterprise, with the team putting a large emphasis on flight simulation. It offers both a ‘pure’ VR XTAL headset as well as mixed reality XTAL headsets for applications where users need to read real-world instrumentation.

“This investment is not just about the necessary funds to boost our activities and products, but it also brings a great deal of overlap,” Vrgineers CEO Marek Polcak said. “This strategic investment has connected us with the leaders in the electronics development and manufacturing industry. With this connection, we can now improve our technology to the highest level possible.”

The firm also offers a number of pilot training platforms in addition to its suite of wide-FOV XR headsets, ranging from portable, suitcase-style rigs up to custom-made trainers featuring integrated motion platforms.

HTC Launches Inside-out ‘Vive Ultimate Tracker’ for $200

From roadtovr

First revealed at GDC 2023 earlier this year, HTC has now launched its long-awaited inside-out tracking accessory, which is now dubbed the Vive Ultimate Tracker.

Unlike previous Vive Trackers, Vive Ultimate Tracker makes use of inside-out optical tracking instead of SteamVR base stations, making it useful for users of HTC standalones Vive XR Elite and Vive Focus 3. The company says support is also eventually coming to OpenXR/SteamVR based PC VR setups in the near future.

Vive Ultimate Tracker does this by imbedding two wide-FOV cameras to track its own location in 3D space. It also allows users to link up to five trackers per headset for multi-point full-body tracking by attaching two trackers to the elbows, two to the feet, and one to the user’s hips.

Image courtesy HTC

Vive Ultimate Tracker also uses a standard 1/4″-20 UNC mount and has a pogo pin interface, allowing it to attach to a variety of objects, the company says, adding that it’s also slated to release developer documentation and the 3D CAD file publicly so that people can design their own bespoke mounts.

Post-launch, HTC says Vive Ultimate Tracker will work entirely independently with SteamVR, without any headset present, so it can be used to track the movement of people or objects, making it useful for industrial things like equipment and prop-tracking. That’s slated to arrive as a beta in the coming weeks.

HTC’s latest standalone, Vive XR Elite, will also see the launch of a native VRChat app in December which supports Vive Ultimate Tracker.

Priced at $200, users looking for basic full-body tracking don’t need to spend the full $1,000 though for five trackers however, as HTC is also pitching a three-tracker bundle for $600, which includes the required Vive Wireless Dongle ($39 MSRP). With that setup, you’d attach a tracker to each foot (with supplied straps) and one to your hips.

HTC is offering a few bundles as special deals from now until December 31st. Owners of Vive XR Elite who purchase the $600 Ultimate Tracker 3+1 Kit + TrackStraps Special can get a $100 discount after registering a valid Vive XR Elite serial number, bringing the price to $500. This also includes a Dance Dash download key.

HTC is also bundling Vive XR Elite and Vive Ultimate Tracker for $1,500, which includes VIVE XR Elite headset ($1,000 MSRP), 3 Vive Ultimate Trackers, 1 Wireless Dongle, a Dance Dash download key, and TrackStraps. You can find the deals over at vive.com.

Check out the specs below:

  • In-box items – VIVE Ultimate Tracker, 1/4″-20 UNC screw-in mount (use is optional), 120 cm USB-C to USB-C cable, Documentation (user guide QR code / safety guide / warranty card)
  • Tracking – 6DoF inside-out tracking – Wide-FOV tracking cameras x 2
  • Dimensions – 77 x 58.6 x 27.3 mm
  • Weight – 94 g
  • Battery life – Up to 7 hours
  • Charging time – 2.2 hours on average with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, 3.2 hours on average with 5V/1A power supply
  • Charging mechanism – USB Type-C, Pogo pins
  • Inputs – Pogo pins x 6, USB Type-C port
  • Connectivity – Proprietary 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz Wi-Fi
  • Compatible devices – Requires VIVE Wireless Dongle to connect to: VIVE XR Elite, VIVE Focus 3 (LBE). Support for other standalone and PC VR headsets is planned

Varjo Reveals XR-4 Headset, Claiming Mixed Realty Visuals “indistinguishable from natural sight”

From roadtovr

Varjo has announced its latest high-end enterprise headset, the XR-4. The company is going all out on the headset’s mixed reality capabilities, saying that the view of the outside world as seen through the headset is “indistinguishable” from how the world appears with your own eyes.

That’s a seriously lofty claim, but Varjo hasn’t made a habit of hyperbole. We’ll wait until we can actually look through the headset ourselves, but clearly the company is confident in what it’s built.

But not every XR-4 headset will have what the company says is a passthrough view with a whopping 51 pixels per-degree resolution. Only the more expensive variant—the ‘Focal Edition’, priced at $10,000—will reach that peak visual quality thanks to an eye-tracked auto-focus system which adjusts the cameras to keep the world in sharp focus wherever you’re looking around the scene.

A look at the mixed reality view through Varjo XR-4 (captured through the headset’s cameras, but not lenses)

The considerably less expensive XR-4 standard edition, priced at $4,000 nixes the auto-focus system and delivers only 33 pixels per-degree (though this is still very high resolution passthrough compared to the majority of headsets you can buy today).

Achieving such a high resolution mixed reality view has required that the headset also includes some pixel-packed displays. With XR-4 the company is also moving fully to inside-out tracking as the default, along with built-in audio, and the company’s own controllers.

Let’s look at the spec breakdown here:

Varjo XR-4 Specs, Price, Editions, and Release Date

XR-4 Focal Edition
Visuals
Display 2x mini-LED (200 nits with local dimming),
96% DCI-P3 colors
Resolution 3,840×3,744 (14.4MP)
Pixels Per-degree (claimed) 51
Refresh Rate 90Hz
Optics Full-dome aspheric
Field-of-view (claimed) 120° × 105°
Pass-through view Yes (51 PPD)
Optical Adjustments IPD (automatic)
IPD Adjustment Range 56–72mm
Input & Output
Connectors 1x DisplayPort,
1x USB-C
Input XR-4 controllers
Audio In-headstrap speakers,
3.5mm aux port
Microphone Dual-microphone
Weight 665g (headset) + 356g (headstrap)
Sensing
Headset-tracking Inside-out (no external beacons),
SteamVR Tracking (external beacons) [optional]
Controller-tracking Headset-tracked (headset line-of-sight needed)
Eye-tracking Yes (200Hz)
Expression-tracking No
On-board cameras 6x tracking,
2x RGB (20MP) eye-tracked auto-focus
Depth-sensor LiDAR (300 Kpix)
Price
MSRP $10,000

This is the XR-4 ‘Focal Edition’ which includes eye-tracked auto-focus passthrough cameras to achieve the claimed 51 PPD passthrough resolution. The ‘standard edition’ XR has nearly identical specs, except without the auto-focus camera, the company says the headset’s passthrough resolution drops to 33 PPD.

As for pricing, while the Focal Edition is seriously pricey, the standard edition is actually cheaper than its predecessor; the XR-3 was priced at $5,500 for the headset alone, plus a required $1,500 annual support charge. XR-4 standard edition meanwhile is priced at $4,000 and does not require an annual support charge.

Varjo is also making two ‘Secure Edition’ variants of the XR-4 (which mirror the specs of the Focal Edition and standard edition, but these are TAA compliant and can be ordered without any wireless radios (this is for particularly niche applications where data security is critical, for instance in military applications). These are priced even higher, at $8,000 and $14,000 respectively.

The headset-tracked controllers are made in partnership with Razer, which has previously dabbled with various VR accessories.

Varjo says the XR-4 will begin shipping by the end of 2023.

Varjo Teaser Strongly Suggests New XR-4 Headset Reveal

From roadtovr

High-end enterprise headset maker Varjo is teasing an online “special event” where it says viewers will “discover the future of VR/XR.” The tease heavily points in the direction of the company’s next headset, likely the XR-4.

Varjo has been steadily making its high-end enterprise focused XR headsets better and cheaper over the course of years. The company’s key differentiator has been its ‘bionic display’ system which adds an extra display to each lens which offers retina resolution quality in a small area at the center of the headset’s view.

Photo by Road to VR

The company has also focused heavily on making high-quality passthrough and interesting features to take advantage of it. It’s latest flagship headset, the XR-3, was announced back in late 2020.

Today the company announced a forthcoming “special event” with some photography that heavily implies we’ll see the announcement of a new XR-4 headset.

Image courtesy Varjo

The online-only event will take place on November 27th at 10AM PT (your timezone here).

While it looks like we can probably expect to hear about the Varjo XR-4, it’s unclear if the company will have any updates on its high-end consumer headset, Varjo Aero, which got a big price cut recently. While we don’t know exactly what the company’s plans are for the future of the Aero, Varjo told us last year its plan was to make it a whole series of headsets, not just a one-off device.

Valve is “still working on VR and still pushing forward on it”

From roadtovr

Valve unveiled its Steam Deck OLED late last week, offering up a hardware refresh for the first time since the company launched the handheld gaming device last year. While the company has been full steam ahead on handhelds and developing Steam OS, Valve says it’s “still pushing forward” on VR.

Valve ostensibly has a standalone VR headset in the works, and although there wasn’t any big announcement (or acknowledgement) of what the company has in store just yet. Talking to Norman Chan of Tested though, it was revealed the company is still working on VR.

In an interview, Valve designer Lawrence Yang spoke about the overlap between Steam Deck’s design relative to its VR efforts:

“There’s a lot of things [informing hardware decisions]. Working with an APU, working with miniaturization of computers. We don’t have anything to announce today in terms of a VR other than we are still working on VR, and we’re still pushing forward on it. Just like Steam Deck is learning a bunch of stuff from controllers and VR, future products will continue to learn from everything we’ve done with Steam Deck.”

Following up, Valve hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said this:

“Obviously there’s a lot of overlap, from technology pieces that we can use; wireless streaming is very applicable to VR. That benefitted Steam Deck as well in improving the wireless experience. But also from just establishing relationships with part suppliers, hardware partners, and that kind of stuff. The SteamVR team and the Steam Deck team work together. There’s a lot of inoculation of ideas, parts and technologies.”

At Steam Deck’s initial launch in February 2022, Valve chief Gabe Newell told Edge Magazine that Steam Deck represented a “steppingstone” to portable VR for the company thanks to its battery-capable, high-performance horsepower.

More recently, the company released its long-awaited SteamVR 2.0 which drastically upgraded the platform’s VR interface. Whether this is in preparation for an upcoming VR standalone headset remains to be seen; it’s certainly a knock-on effect of improvements made specifically for Steam Deck’s UI.

You can check out the full breakdown of Steam Deck OLED in the Tested video below:

HTC is Sending a VR Headset to the ISS to Support Astronaut Mental Health

From roadtovr

Virtual reality is already being used on the ground to help prepare astronauts for the rigors of space, although now HTC says it’s sending its standalone VR headset Vive Focus 3 to the International Space Station (ISS) to help support the mental health of astronauts during their mission.

To help alleviate stress, and maybe even combat homesickness, a specially-fitted Vive Focus 3 will make its way to the ISS starting on November 7th as a part of a resupply mission.

The company says in a blogpost that it will be used by Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Commander of Expedition 70 on the ISS, who will run a mental health initiative created by XRHealth and Nord-Space Aps.

Like all modern VR headsets, Vive Focus 3’s room-positioning system wasn’t built with the microgravity of space in mind, however the company settled on a solution that’s sometimes used in the world of location-based entertainment, such as roller coasters and flight simulators.

Image courtesy HTC

Using a controller as an anchor point allows the headset to orient itself spatially, giving Mogensen a fixed reference point as ‘the ground’, presumably leaving the other controller to operate the headset’s user interface.

The initiative’s main goal is one of VR-based therapy, which is designed to give astronauts a break from the isolating environment and allow them to be transported to another place via immersive 360-degree videos.

It’s set to include videos such as a sunset atop a picturesque hill, a mountain path in Europe, swimming with dolphins, a tour of the western coast of Denmark, and a nature hike through the wetlands.

“Astronauts are essentially isolated during their missions for months and years at a time and are confined to small spaces with limited contact with friends and family,” says Per Lundahl Thomsen, Chief Technology Officer at Nord-Space Aps. “Creating a virtual platform that addresses their mental health needs while in isolation is imperative for them to maintain a healthy lifestyle when they return. We partnered with companies that provide the most advanced technologies that could be adapted for space to provide the most beneficial experience for our astronauts.”

While 360 videos are generally less immersive than dedicated virtual reality simulations—even 3D 360 videos lack support for 6DOF spatial movement—it’s certainly sounds like a well-calculated stab at putting the minimum viable solution in the hands of astronauts to see just how much VR can help alleviate the daily stressors of working and living aboard the ISS.

Magic Leap Shakes up Leadership with New CEO

From roadtovr

Magic Leap, maker of one of the best AR headsets on the market, is making a major change to its leadership with a new CEO that will face the challenge of carving out territory for its transparent AR technology against a growing wave of passthrough AR headsets.

After a meteoric rise and then near catastrophic collapse under its original founder Rony Abovitz, Magic Leap brought on Peggy Johnson to stabilize the company, manage its pivot to enterprise, and launch the Magic Leap 2. Three years later, Johnson is out and a new CEO is taking over.

Magic Leap has announced that Ross Rosenberg will take up the position, an experienced tech executive who has worked in senior roles at a number of large-scale enterprise technology companies.

From the announcement, and its description of Rosenberg’s prior work, it seems clear that Magic Leap is hoping the new CEO will be able to guide it toward increased (or perhaps, initial) profitability.

But Rosenberg’s tenure will inevitably be about more than just streamlining operations and finding the right product-market fit; he’ll also need to both grow and defend the company’s turf as newer headsets focus on passthrough AR capabilities—the likes of Quest 3 and Vision Pro.

While neither headset is directly competing against Magic Leap’s enterprise-focused transparent AR headset, Rosenberg will surely be looking a few years down the road at which point passthrough AR headsets could begin to approach the size and real-life visual quality that is currently Magic Leap’s advantage.

The company hasn’t yet hinted at an upcoming Magic Leap 3 headset, though with the current Magic Leap 2 only being out for a little over a year at this point, that could well still be brewing.

At least from the outside, it looks like the company had an amicable split with the former CEO, Peggy Johnson, though it isn’t clear which side compelled the change.

“Having accomplished so much of what I set out to do at Magic Leap, I felt the time had come to transition leadership to a new CEO who can guide the company through its next period of growth,” Johnson said in the announcement. “I’m incredibly proud of the leadership team we’ve built at Magic Leap and want to sincerely thank all of the employees for their work in helping to successfully reorient the company to the enterprise market.”

Pico Shutdown Rumors are False, Says Parent Company ByteDance

From roadtovr

A recent rumor, which alleged that TikTok parent company ByteDance is slated to spin down its XR hardware subsidiary Pico Interactive, is false, the company says.

China-based publication EqualOcean reported late last week that ByteDance is set to “gradually abandon the PICO business.”

The report alleged the person in charge of Pico recently went to Singapore to report to ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming, maintaining Pico’s performance in the past few years has “not met expectations, and there is no hope for the future.”

Pico 4 | Image courtesy Pico

ByteDance has since disavowed the report, telling China’s Financial Associated Press (Chinese) the news was “untrue,” and that “PICO is operating normally and the company will invest in XR business in the long term.”

Founded in 2015 and later acquired by ByteDance in 2021, Pico Interactive has created a number of standalone VR headsets over the years. Its most recent of which, Pico 4, was released in 2022 as an apparent competitor to Meta’s Quest 2.

While priced competitively and available for purchase in most of Europe and a number of countries in Asia, the €429 (~$450) Pico 4 still hasn’t made its long-awaited debut in the United States where it would more directly compete with Quest 2 or Meta’s latest, Quest 3. Meanwhile, Pico has made a concerted effort in those regions to bring a majority of Quest’s top apps to Pico 4.

Back in February, Pico began a round of layoffs that at the time were reported to be in the hundreds. Responding to that report, the company maintained it would only be a “small number of colleagues.”

Thanks to Cix Liv for pointing us to the news.