Virtual Reality Devices: Pimax, Looxid, and Varjo

Virtual reality devices are still in their infancy. But, if you are hoping to get a feel of what current virtual reality devices have to offer, you can try Pimax, Looxid or Varjo. Take a peek to see what these virtual reality devices have to offer.
VR devices: Pimax 8K
Pimax is a Chinese startup that appeared on Kickstarter in 2017 and surprised many by claiming that the company had plans to launch the world’s first 8K headphone. While the claim of “8K” is somewhat of a marketing ploy (in that two 3840-x-2160-pixel screens don’t actually make the headset 8K), many have been impressed with the visuals that the two 4K screens offer. The Kickstarter show was a massive success, eliminating the original $200,000 target with pledges exceeding $4.2 million.
The normal field of view of the human eye is about 200 degrees. Pimax’s claim to a 200-degree field of view has yet to be verified, but by all accounts, the speaker’s field of view is well above the field of view of nearly every other generation and even most next generation of HMDs. Early reviews suggest that the unique lenses and insanely high-resolution screens give the sense of the world wrapping around you as you would in real life.
Aside from the field of view, Pimax also offers a number of other unique units that the group hopes to bring to its headset, such as eye tracking (the headset’s ability to monitor and adjust your eye movement based on where you look), inside-out tracking , hand tracking, and even scent-enabled (yes, just as it sounds). It also offers a number of things you’d expect in the current generation of headphones – positional tracking via base stations, motion controllers, etc. Pimax is OpenVR compatible as well, which means it can be used by other elements that follow the OpenVR specification (such as Vive consoles).
OpenVR is a software development kit (SDK) and application programming interface (API) created by Valve to support SteamVR (running HTC Vive) and other VR headsets.
Early reviews praised the Pimax’s increased field of view, but were also careful to point out some of the existing Pimax problems. The positional tracking of both the headphones themselves in space and the tracking of the controllers are cited as some of the kinks that may need to be ironed out in order for the Pimax to reach its full potential.
Because of its incredibly high resolution, Pimax will also require a computer and a very high-end graphics card to properly run the experience. The Pimax also currently requires it to be linked to this computer, which avoids the wireless trend that many next-generation headphones seem to target.
Hopefully a final price and release date will be available soon, although Pimax hopes to ship to Kickstarter backers in 2018 and has indicated that the price range will be roughly $400 to $600.
Mass-consumer-wide technology releases have become a numbers game to find the price point consumers will pay. This price point often determines which features and specifications you include in the headphones. Although it might be possible to fabricate a true 8K headset with a full 200-degree FOV and full inside-out tracking (and in fact, such a headset might already exist in the enterprise world), a consumer-wide version of such an expensive headset would Right now, the market to buy it likely won’t even exist.
It remains to be seen if Pimax will be able to resolve the issues that currently exist with the headset while keeping what makes the headset unique. But companies like Pimax seeking to push the envelope are a good thing for the industry as a whole. Regardless of whether the Pimax 8K turns out to be a success, it signals the next step forward for VR in trying to remove another barrier between medium and full immersion.
There are any number of VR headsets out (or even already released) that can be compared to the headsets on this list. For example, StarVR is a headset with similar specifications to the Pimax 8K in terms of field of view and refresh rate. StarVR is currently an enterprise-class device while Pimax looks to target the mass consumer market. If you are developing VR applications, particularly those geared towards enterprise-level customers, be sure to research all the potential options available.
Virtual Reality Devices: LooxidVR
Looxid Labs is the startup company responsible for the LooxidVR system, a phone-based virtual reality headset created to capture insights into human perception within virtual reality. The LooxidVR headset includes EEG sensors to measure brain waves and eye tracking sensors to determine what the user is looking at. Incorporating this data can enable a better understanding of users’ emotional reactions to different stimuli and can lead to more comprehensive experiences.
Individual VR consumers are not Looxid’s current target. You likely won’t find yourself buying a single-consumption LooxidVR anytime soon. However, by selling its system to researchers and companies, Looxid could begin to make a profound impact on the virtual reality industry as a whole. The Looxid system could find a great deal of use in the healthcare industry, particularly in the treatment and measurement of users’ responses to mental trauma.
It can also be used in games, where games modify how they play based on your biometric response. Is there a particular area of ​​the game causing you stress as measured by Looxid? The game may adjust itself to facilitate this area. Do you play a horror game and one section of the game elicits elevated reactions? The game could tweak itself to include more of what seems to elicit this response from you, making it more intense.
By integrating both eye tracking and brain monitoring, the Looxid system can also find uses as a powerful advertising and user analytics tool. Advertising is an area that VR hasn’t broken down yet, but many are trying to do so, because the payoff can be huge. Google has started experimenting with what an ad could look like in virtual reality. Unity has begun experimenting with VR ads as well, rolling out the idea of ​​”virtual rooms,” which will provide separate brand experiences built into users’ main apps.
With the Looxid system, it will be possible to capture more analytical data from these ads than any current VR offering, including how well these ads are in their target markets.
Unity’s “virtual room” advertising technology is Unity’s answer to how ads appear in virtual reality. Virtual Room is a native virtual reality advertising format that Unity creates in conjunction with the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Virtual Room will be a fully customizable applet that appears inside the main VR app. The user can choose to interact with or ignore the virtual room.
Virtual Reality Devices: Varjo
Varjo stands out in its claim that the current headset can provide an effective resolution of 70 megapixels (the resolution of the human eye) in VR, while most current headsets are around 1 or 2 megapixels.
Fargo aims to achieve this by using eye tracking to keep track of where a user is looking and only deliver the highest resolution for that space, while displaying items in the user’s peripheral vision at a lower resolution.
The Varjo headset is still in prototype mode, but the company hopes to roll out a beta version of its headphones for the professional market in late 2018 and follow up with a release in the consumer market. Things like production scale and final design haven’t been decided yet, but initial messages from the company list the Pro headset as “under $10,000.” That price doesn’t inspire confidence yet, but it would be wise to monitor the technology and see if other manufacturers take note and start incorporating innovative display technologies into their own headphones.