Is VR dead?

[RCHeliguy]

Depends on which headset you end up with.

I wear contacts, but I've heard that the prescription inserts on some headsets are excellent.

Some can adjust IPD, blue blockers for comfort, and can be made ultra thin.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Thanks for the explanation!

what is the best solution or VR googles if we need prescription glasses?

You only need them for near sightness.
I need reading glasses, but in VR focal distance is far enough to get away without any.

 

[drvrn]

You only need them for near sightness.
I need reading glasses, but in VR focal distance is far enough to get away without any.

yes I have near sightedness (myopia) but getting older I am starting to need reading glasses....

 

[RCHeliguy]

yes I have near sightedness (myopia) but getting older I am starting to need reading glasses....

Same here. You just adjust for your near sightedness and it works.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Starting to get more Crystal information.

Weight 1.162 kg
( and that's without lighthouse attachment that has an additional battery )

Battery lasts about 2-2.5 hours even when tethered and the battery needs to be removed and put in a charging station.
EDIT: I'm being told that VooDooDE VR had the wrong cable for his headset and that keeping the main battery charged may not be an issue with the production headsets
EDIT EDIT: It appears new testing shows 4.5 hours is more typical.

Both Horizontal and Vertical FOV are less than the Valve Index with the wider FOV lenses.

Localized LED dimming doesn't work well.

Headphones are just "OK" not as good as those on the Valve Index.
Microphones still doesn't sound as good as Valve Index.

Questions:
Why is the headset so freaking large with that FOV ?
Why is the headset so damn heavy ?
Why does the headset burn through a battery when it is tethered and fed by two USB ports? ( May not be the case once production headsets are released )
Why in the hell would a person want to deal with charging TWO batteries to run a headset with lighthouse tracking?

My take is that the Crystal has gone from a No to a Hell No!

What the hell were they thinking releasing a product like this?

I don't care what the image looks like at this point.

In it's present form the Crystal seems much more like a proof of concept just to test if the technology works, to be followed by engineering a more compact, lighter final product with better power efficiency. They seem to have skipped designing a finished product once they got the concept working.

 

[dwightyone]

Looked a few pages back and didn't see anything about it unless I'm blind as a bat and missed it.

VIVE XR Elite - Base Station-Free PC VR in a Standalone Headset | VIVE United Kingdom

Get 4 VR accessories included with your purchase. Enjoy optimal comfort and freedom with the headset that packs immersive experiences in a glasses-like design.

www.vive.com

At first glance it's now on my christmas list... no more wearing big oversized bulbs on my head but at that price, mm, may have to wait for a price drop first. Haven't checked out any reviews of it yet though...

 

[RCHeliguy]

Looked a few pages back and didn't see anything about it unless I'm blind as a bat and missed it.

The form factor looks great. The resolution at 1920*1920 pixels per eye maybe a bit less than many of us are looking for right now.

The Bigscreen Beyond will be smaller and lighter with 2560 x 2560 per eye, but is currently slated for a Q3 release date and it's slightly lower price point is still about $1,000.

I'm very happy that smaller form factor headsets are coming and I hope that is where future development goes.

 

[BrunoBæ]

My take is that the Crystal has gone from a No to a Hell No!
What the hell were they thinking releasing a product like this?

Fully agree with that.
But contrary of you - who explain this as some kind of forerunner project ending up in a final project much better and different - then I explain it as just a stupid company with no control or vision of where they are targeting.

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: Im not sure anymore that I will be following the Crystal journey

 

[BrunoBæ]

Could you elaborate on the problem of using prescription glasses (or inserts) in VR?
I am considering getting into VR.

Take this as my quite unqualified understanding but as I understand it then any extra lenses inserts (like prescription tingies) will need you to make some higher distance between eyes and VR screens.
And this will (as I understand it) lower the FOV.
OK?

 

[RCHeliguy]

Fully agree with that.
But contrary of you - who explain this as some kind of forerunner project ending up in a final project much better and different - then I explain it as just a stupid company with no control or vision of where they are targeting.

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: Im not sure anymore that I will be following the Crystal journey

I fully agree with you. They consider this mess a completed product. I personally think it SHOULD have been a proof of concept at this stage. Hell they didn't have it all working at CES and they still don't have it all working now. Once they hit that milestone of actually getting it to work properly, then they SHOULD have worked on optimizing the design rather than throwing it into the wild.

But the writing was on the wall from the celebrated launch of their launch video. This was going to be a rush job of a product. The fact they needed another 30M to help with the launch just shows how underfunded they are. Underfunded companies in this market FAIL.

Meta can sneeze a billion dollars. Meta has a large established marketplace with 20M headsets.

Valve already has a huge established marketplace, and has shown the ability to produce a polished product. They could make a success in the stand alone market.

Apple hasn't even released anything yet, but they have a large marketplace and a rabbid base because they tend to create very high quality polished products. They could even become a success in the stand alone market.

Pimax cannot compete with those established marketplaces or with the polished products Meta or Valve can put out, especially with a bulky, heavy monstrosity of a product.

If Pimax were smart, they would have catered to their base and then grown from there. Building on their strengths is how a smart company would do this. Instead they have spread their development efforts too thin and created a jack of all trades, master of none product that doesn't really bring anything of value to the market.

Let's say they actually start shipping these in numbers over the next few months. Meta will release the Quest 3 that will be so much better as a stand alone and cheap enough that someone who cares about that functionality might own two headsets. Then Valve will release it's next headset that will be much lighter, smaller and likely have more FOV and also be less expensive.

At that point the Crystal will be completely irrelevant and outclassed on both fronts and priced so that a person could buy two more specialized products for less money..

That is making the assumption that Valve doesn't create a modular headset that can actually accomplish what the Crystal is attempting, but actually gets it right.

So can Pimax make enough money off the Crystal in 6-9 months before it is completely irrelevant?

That's of course when they'll try to release the 12K which will actually have bragging rights, AND if they make it an enthusiast headset and scrape all the poo off of it and actually finish designing it maybe they can save themselves.

The point is that they need to graduate to producing a polished product to survive.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

It will be better and cheaper than Varjo, plus with inside out tracking with optional external for whoever need it.
No need in constant bashing just to justify your current choice.
Just yesterday Index was the best thing all around trouncing everything including Varjo and look where we are.

 

[RCHeliguy]

It will be better and cheaper than Varjo, plus with inside out tracking with optional external for whoever need it.
No need in constant bashing just to justify your current choice.
Just yesterday Index was the best thing all around trouncing everything including Varjo and look where we are.

The Varjo is absolutely not the greatest thing since sliced bread and I've openly said it is just a stop gap to hold me until what I really want arrives.

I still think the Index is a great all around headset and the Aero is deficient in a number of key ways compared to the Index even though I'm not using my Index anymore. I just got impatient waiting for the Index replacement. So my opinions on the Index haven't changed. I just broke down and bought the Aero because I got tired of waiting.

I like the direction of the BigScreen Beyond and other headsets that have chosen something to be very good at ( small and light weight )

There is a lot of interesting tech being developed right now.

While I've never been a big Pimax supporter, I did respect that they had a niche for wide FOV and in that way, they made the VR scene a better place. I would like them to be a strong company and build better headsets that do something very well.

I did edit my comments above about the power consumption. There appears to be a lot of back and forth going on about this subject and comments that VooDooDE VR didn't have the latest cable. So that report may be out of line.
Edit: While 4.5 hours is better than 2.5 hours, that still screams bad engineering.

 

[Ruttman98]

VR newbie here--which cable would Quest 2 users recommend? OEM Meta is pricey but there are newer options which are lighter and cheaper.

 

[Rebel_488]

VR newbie here--which cable would Quest 2 users recommend? OEM Meta is pricey but there are newer options which are lighter and cheaper.

I owned a quest 2 briefly and I bought the official one. Back then everyone said the ankler one was grand. I’ll let someone more up to date come along and tell you which one is the best value, here’s some reading up on a few alternatives for now.

https://www.androidcentral.com/best-link-cable-alternative-oculus-quest-2

 

[Mauser118]

VR newbie here--which cable would Quest 2 users recommend? OEM Meta is pricey but there are newer options which are lighter and cheaper.

I have a quest 2 (use it mostly for non tethered pcvr as blade and sorcery is great) I used to get annoyed that the battery still drained quite quickly with the link cable, so I invested in a kujet link cable. It's as good as my meta cable but you can also use a usb-c wall wart to keep the headset charged. Means long endurance type sessions are possible without needing to worry about charge dropping.

 

[BrunoBæ]

While I've never been a big Pimax supporter, I did respect that they had a niche for wide FOV and in that way, they made the VR scene a better place. I would like them to be a strong company and build better headsets that do something very well.

Fully agree.
It should not be rocket science to realise that their main (or only) strong point is the FOV.
But its rather obvious that for the Pimax devs and marketing it IS rocket science to realise.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Fully agree.
It should not be rocket science to realise that their main (or only) strong point is the FOV.
But its rather obvious that for the Pimax devs and marketing it IS rocket science to realise.

To be fair we don't know how business was going for them. The big question is what prompted them to take this gamble. It's possible they thought their wide FOV market was too small and that they were starving in that space.
They may have thought this was the only way for them to grow market share and stay viable.

 

[Ruttman98]

I have a quest 2 (use it mostly for non tethered pcvr as blade and sorcery is great) I used to get annoyed that the battery still drained quite quickly with the link cable, so I invested in a kujet link cable. It's as good as my meta cable but you can also use a usb-c wall wart to keep the headset charged. Means long endurance type sessions are possible without needing to worry about charge dropping.

Thank you for your replies.

I hit upon the idea of buying a Quest 2 link cable because my stepson has a barely used headset but never got the cable because of its hefty cost AND I have a big store credit at Micro Center. Rather than battle the crowds across town at MC, I ordered the 16-ft Kuject cable for on sale now for $25 (regularly $35) which arrives tomorrow from Amazon.* My son can put it though its paces for nearly 30 days, before which it can be returned If it drops repeatedly connections or exhibits other issues.

*Oddly, the 20-ft version is also $35 at its regular price and could have been here today. My VR curiousity is not that urgent and I don't plan to use on anything other than sims, so I opted not to pay more just to coil up the extra 4-ft.

If another cable is required, I am leaning towards the Anker cable (which Meta actually recommends as the article Rebel_488 shared) or the genuine Oculus link cable.

 

[BrunoBæ]

To be fair we don't know how business was going for them. The big question is what prompted them to take this gamble. It's possible they thought their wide FOV market was too small and that they were starving in that space.

Yeah you are right we dont know.
But personally Im quite sure that if they just kept their wide FOV and then included an OLED screen and did handle the distortion - then they had a winner.

 

[Metla]

I'm getting errors with openxr/composite? I will reinstall it all again and try.

Did you get it sorted?