5 ms·

Those prices are insane. No way. My Oculus Quest 2 is performing brilliantly for the $300 I paid. In fact had I paid $2000 for the OC2 I would’ve been well sati

Those prices are insane. No way. My Oculus Quest 2 is performing brilliantly for the $300 I paid. In fact had I paid $2000 for the OC2 I would’ve been well satisfied. FB/Meta have put billions into software development and are likely selling the Quest units at a loss to grab marketshare before Apple introduces its take on XR. If Simula want to compete with the FOSS angle they need to get costs down, especially considering that few have expendable income because of Covid and many have been burned by fantastical kickstarters that never deliver, and this is a highly technical project we have no idea if the authors have the experience or qualifications to pull it off.

kanetw 5y ago
I understand your hesitation, but our specs are pretty top end. The headset itself will be comparable to a Varjo Aero in picture quality and there's a relatively beefy integrated, detachable x86 compute pack. And high-quality AR mode that's usually reserved for Varjo's >>5k units. Will we reach Varjo's level of polish? No way. But I'm confident we can get 80% of the way there at least.
- threshold 5y ago
  That i7 compute pack should be the first thing you cut to make an affordable product. If the headset is 2-5k in the current market I think you’ll be very lucky to sell 100, but would love to be proven wrong. Get the costs down, get more funding, sell the units at a loss to build a dev community. I think you guys are making a mistake I once made, focusing on the hardware design for what is actually a software product. You’re building an Android phone, without Android.
  - kanetw 5y ago
    We have a software product--we had it for ages. The hardware doesn't exist for it. That's why we're doing this. We're not doing this lightly. Hardware design is expensive, and risky, and low margin. But we want a cultural victory, not necessarily a financial one. If that means doing it ourselves, then so we will.
    - ghotli 5y ago
      There's negativity in this thread but not any from my perspective. Thanks for stepping up and getting gear like this over the line :)
    - threshold 5y ago
      Not a thought through attitude. If it sounds like I’m on your case here it’s because I am. You aren’t even giving this product a chance at success. Expendable income for most is $400/mo. Your headset won’t sell in volume over that, especially with the current competition. But I’ll pick one off ebay when you’re done with the cultural victory?
      - kanetw 5y ago
        Here's the thing. Let's say you want to work in VR: Case 1, you do it like Immersed. Virtual monitors that you can position in space. Great, but that's all you can do. I don't believe this will be a way to drive mass adoption of VR computing. Case 2, you build a window manager. Each window can be positioned individually and you can give specific windows custom handling, or even integrate 3D scenes. Problem is, now you're limited to Linux. Linux headset support is very limited. People don't have Linux installed, even. How do you solve this? You build a Linux compatible headset. You minimize the friction. You allow people to put on the headset and get to work. Nobody cares that their Android phone is Linux based, after all. That being said, right now this absolutely is an enthusiast, early adopter product. We'd like to get the costs down, but going into a costs battle when you're doing a new product type is insanity.
      - ghotli 5y ago
        I'll be that guy. I thought, you must be new around here and sure enough I'm right. Respectful discourse is important and we strive for something better than the tone you're carrying here. I say "we" only because I like this little respectful discourse corner of the internet and because the site guidelines are fairly clear on the subject. It's the culmination of hard work, cool, and I too hope it finds a lower price point and ends up succeeding. Fwiw I guess this xkcd applies to both of us :) https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
  - kevrodz610 5y ago
    If I'm going to even attempt to do any dev work on this device, they should not cut the i7 imo
    - threshold 5y ago
      The headset must (requirement) be stand alone. You can’t have an 8 hour runtime on a stand alone headset with an i7. They have to go ARM I just finished a 6 hour session on the OC2 with the elite strap w/extended battery
      - kanetw 5y ago
        No currently available headset has a 8 hour runtime. Our target is 3 hours.
      - kevrodz610 5y ago
        I don't work for 8 or even 6 hours continuously without breaks. For me 4 hours would be ideal. I guess 6 would remove any "range anxiety"
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      It depends on how you work. I have a pretty good company laptop, but it's pretty much just a front-end for an SSH client, a web browser, and a local Windows VM. All my actual work happens on remote machines.
  - goblin89 5y ago
    Let’s not balk at prices when a newcomer stands up to Big Social. Their true customers are the advertisers, and no honest business can compete with ad-driven “free” products on price. I imagine Facebook already sells Quest at a loss, and making its future equivalent free will surely be a logical move for them to capture eyeballs—but that does not mean competitors must be free, otherwise would imply no competitor ever, apart from those backed by nation-states or shady business models. For the record, I’m sure I’m far from the only one who 1) never had a VR headset yet, 2) would not buy a Facebook product, and 3) could buy one for US$2k+ for experiments if that means no lock-in. It’s the price of a decent laptop. Weren’t the original Oculus prices in that ballpark, before FB came in with its billions?
- ghotli 5y ago
  I don't particularly disagree with the price point argument but since you're here... "high-quality AR mode" -- do you have public SDK documentation for this and does it have a mixed passthru VR / AR mode like the Quest 2? The quest actually is a bit underpowered for doing this properly imo so I can see a higher price point potentially being necessary to pack it with the right hardware. Not that I'll ever build it but somewhere along the line some cordless headset is going to have great passthru and the ability to replace the windows in my house with the beach or a beautiful mountain vista. Also just an observation -- x86 on your face makes me think it probably gets quite hot :)
  - kanetw 5y ago
    No documentation yet, but I can give you an overview. We have two wide-angle RGB cameras mechanically locked to the users' PD. The cameras itself are around 2k x 2k at 90 fps. For the standalone mode, the data is pushed over a PCIe gen 3x4 link so we can hit <12ms latency. Tethered is a bit more tricky as we can't count on the bandwidth being available, but we'll either compress it or do a reduced resolution. The actual sensor is still TBD. I'd like to do this properly with a global shutter sensor (IMX547), but they're a bit too expensive. If we don't have the margin for it, something like a IMX715 is the fallback. The compute pack will be on the back of your head, so a bit easier to cool and not as severely annoying. Also helps balance the headset.
    - ghotli 5y ago
      Nice, thanks for the detail and I look forward to the SDK docs. Back of the head makes sense for that kind of compute pack
- rubicon33 5y ago
  How about comfort? I’ve tried working in the Quest 2 using immersive and while I loved it, it just wasn’t the kind of thing I would do for hours on end. Are you guys confident that your headset will be more comfortable than the Q2? If so, how much more?
  - kanetw 5y ago
    Comfort is subjective, but here's things that all contribute to it: * Main heat generation is on the back of the head and pointed away from you * If it's still required, active airflow for the user in the front of the headset * Weight will be balanced * IPD is auto-adjusted, so there's no chance of having the wrong setting and hurting your eyes. * Better optical quality leads to less eye strain * Adjustable padding That being said, I'm not a Quest 2 user. I don't know what things it does wrong, so it's possible I missed a feature that we have and didn't list.
    - rubicon33 5y ago
      Nice those things sound good. Main issue I have with quest 2 is the weight on cheeks / forehead and, yes I have configured the elite strap correctly.
    - threshold 5y ago
      What do you mean you’re not a quest user? You didn’t buy your main competition’s product?
      - kevrodz610 5y ago
        I would think PCVR+workstation would be their main competitor or even Hololens. Microsoft has built a more compelling software suite for productivity thats not also locked into a single platform like Oculus.
  - mncharity 5y ago
    > comfort [...] hours on end Reclining can be a nice way to take a break from weight and pressure on head and face. Which can require modding a headset, to pad a back-of-head knob, etc. And hmd thermals aren't optimized for reclined. But here, perhaps this compute unit might be made detachable?
- ilaksh 5y ago
  Has there been any work in the distro related to 3d UI stuff? Maybe a 3d representation of the file system, for example. Anything related to facilitating shared virtual spaces? For the future, have you looked into micro LED displays with waveguide optics? It seems like the thing that is going to allow for glasses-style VR/AR. To me it's a no-brainer to tether that type of display to a phone. Could just use a long cable going to a pocket or hang the phone around the neck etc.
  - kanetw 5y ago
    Not yet. It's planned to significantly improve the software, but we only have so much bandwidth right now. uOLEDs with waveguides (for AR) or pancake lenses (for VR) are... really complicated. Both systems currently do not offer the visual quality that a traditional refractive system can offer due to low light transmission, ghost images, and so on. The pixel size on a high-res uOLED is so small that getting the same PPD requires pancake optics to fit in the headset form factor. Otherwise your spot size (i.e. the minimum resolution of the optics) is too large and you lose the benefit of a high-res display. Also, bandwidth is a big concern. Our double 2448x2448@90Hz displays require DSC to run even with a DisplayPort 4-lane HBR3 link. I don't think phones can drive that.
    - ilaksh 5y ago
      Seems like foveated rendering and eye tracking can reduce bandwidth requirements. Not saying its not super hard.
- drdaeman 5y ago
  Hey, just an idea - most folks looking at your product probably have some VR experience. Maybe you can provide a comparison with various contemporary headsets, showing why/how yours is better, esp. for working and not just gaming or watching vids? Like, I'm certain I cannot work in my Index, not for any prolonged time. It's awesome for games, but not for any text-heavy stuff. I've tried a few times, my take is that problem is the resolution is not good enough => I would need giant fonts => turning my head a lot => extra neck strain (as if headset, even with a counterweight not bad enough in this regard) => fatigue and headaches. If I could see a honest (simulated) rendering of what I'd see in an Index vs what I'd see in Simula One, that would be amazing.
  - kanetw 5y ago
    Good idea. We have a listing in one of our blog posts, but I'll see if I can do a simulation. I think the best bet actually would be for me to just take a camera and do a through-the-lenses shot through both. Our current optical train needs a second iteration for the mold, but once it meets our specs we'll do a blog post about it.
- gautamb0 5y ago
  Very impressive product- I certainly applaud your efforts and agree that the price is competitive for what it is. You can even use ultra wide monitors at similar resolutions as a comparison point. (Though of course they end up way ahead in terms of ppd)
tashoecraft 5y ago
These prices are very competitive. You’re comparing two very different product with different capabilities. It’s like saying a flip phone and a new smartphone are the same because they both can make calls.
- threshold 5y ago
  That analogy is grossly misleading. The OC2 is state of the art and has competitive hardware specs, and is subsidized.
  - tashoecraft 5y ago
    It’s state of the art for budget hardware.
cracrecry 5y ago
As you said, you can not compete against Facebook by price. They don't have billions and will NEVER be able to compete on that field. They need to sustain themselves and do that with something that facebook could not copy. While OQ is way cheaper, it also forces you into using facebook accounts and you pay with your personal or even worse, with your company information, that is way more valuable than the cost of the simula. A surveillance device with two cameras and microphone and eye tracking of your workers is something unacceptable for lots of companies. The price is OK if they manage to offer something that improves productivity and make companies money. Juts a month of paying an engineer is way more than this price.
- kanetw 5y ago
  I think that's an important point as well that we haven't communicated yet. Our software won't phone home. The cameras will have a kill switch. If we include a microphone, so will the mic.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  I don't care if it makes companies money or otherwise benefits them. I want this to be accessible to ALL hackers, on a personal basis, whether they are backed by a corporation or not. And for that to happen, the cost must go down. Just like the PinePhone is IMO the first practically obtainable phone designed to be hacked, we need something like this for VR. Otherwise we'll just end up with a bunch of Librems that only rich US engineers can enjoy.
  - vimacs2 5y ago
    Not the same thing at all. Smartphones have reached the point where further improvements are largely superficial for years now. Pinephone's price point is only possible because of over a decade of the proliferation of cheap smartphone components. Consumer VR headsets are nowhere close to that point. The Quest 2 is right at the edge of usably clear text for work - with a price point that is only possible through the backing of a giant corporation desperately gambling their future on their whole metaverse shtick. Trying to do better means requiring optics and display technology that is going to drive that price point up, especially for a hackable headset that is automatically going to rule out monetisation through user data. tldr: nobody should care about providing cheap hardware to entitled "hackers" at their own loss. Hardware doesn't grow on trees.

kanetw 5y ago

I understand your hesitation, but our specs are pretty top end. The headset itself will be comparable to a Varjo Aero in picture quality and there's a relatively beefy integrated, detachable x86 compute pack. And high-quality AR mode that's usually reserved for Varjo's >>5k units. Will we reach Varjo's level of polish? No way. But I'm confident we can get 80% of the way there at least.

threshold 5y ago
That i7 compute pack should be the first thing you cut to make an affordable product. If the headset is 2-5k in the current market I think you’ll be very lucky to sell 100, but would love to be proven wrong. Get the costs down, get more funding, sell the units at a loss to build a dev community. I think you guys are making a mistake I once made, focusing on the hardware design for what is actually a software product. You’re building an Android phone, without Android.
- kanetw 5y ago
  We have a software product--we had it for ages. The hardware doesn't exist for it. That's why we're doing this. We're not doing this lightly. Hardware design is expensive, and risky, and low margin. But we want a cultural victory, not necessarily a financial one. If that means doing it ourselves, then so we will.
  - ghotli 5y ago
    There's negativity in this thread but not any from my perspective. Thanks for stepping up and getting gear like this over the line :)
  - threshold 5y ago
    Not a thought through attitude. If it sounds like I’m on your case here it’s because I am. You aren’t even giving this product a chance at success. Expendable income for most is $400/mo. Your headset won’t sell in volume over that, especially with the current competition. But I’ll pick one off ebay when you’re done with the cultural victory?
    - kanetw 5y ago
      Here's the thing. Let's say you want to work in VR: Case 1, you do it like Immersed. Virtual monitors that you can position in space. Great, but that's all you can do. I don't believe this will be a way to drive mass adoption of VR computing. Case 2, you build a window manager. Each window can be positioned individually and you can give specific windows custom handling, or even integrate 3D scenes. Problem is, now you're limited to Linux. Linux headset support is very limited. People don't have Linux installed, even. How do you solve this? You build a Linux compatible headset. You minimize the friction. You allow people to put on the headset and get to work. Nobody cares that their Android phone is Linux based, after all. That being said, right now this absolutely is an enthusiast, early adopter product. We'd like to get the costs down, but going into a costs battle when you're doing a new product type is insanity.
    - ghotli 5y ago
      I'll be that guy. I thought, you must be new around here and sure enough I'm right. Respectful discourse is important and we strive for something better than the tone you're carrying here. I say "we" only because I like this little respectful discourse corner of the internet and because the site guidelines are fairly clear on the subject. It's the culmination of hard work, cool, and I too hope it finds a lower price point and ends up succeeding. Fwiw I guess this xkcd applies to both of us :) https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
- kevrodz610 5y ago
  If I'm going to even attempt to do any dev work on this device, they should not cut the i7 imo
  - threshold 5y ago
    The headset must (requirement) be stand alone. You can’t have an 8 hour runtime on a stand alone headset with an i7. They have to go ARM I just finished a 6 hour session on the OC2 with the elite strap w/extended battery
    - kanetw 5y ago
      No currently available headset has a 8 hour runtime. Our target is 3 hours.
    - kevrodz610 5y ago
      I don't work for 8 or even 6 hours continuously without breaks. For me 4 hours would be ideal. I guess 6 would remove any "range anxiety"
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    It depends on how you work. I have a pretty good company laptop, but it's pretty much just a front-end for an SSH client, a web browser, and a local Windows VM. All my actual work happens on remote machines.
- goblin89 5y ago
  Let’s not balk at prices when a newcomer stands up to Big Social. Their true customers are the advertisers, and no honest business can compete with ad-driven “free” products on price. I imagine Facebook already sells Quest at a loss, and making its future equivalent free will surely be a logical move for them to capture eyeballs—but that does not mean competitors must be free, otherwise would imply no competitor ever, apart from those backed by nation-states or shady business models. For the record, I’m sure I’m far from the only one who 1) never had a VR headset yet, 2) would not buy a Facebook product, and 3) could buy one for US$2k+ for experiments if that means no lock-in. It’s the price of a decent laptop. Weren’t the original Oculus prices in that ballpark, before FB came in with its billions?
ghotli 5y ago
I don't particularly disagree with the price point argument but since you're here... "high-quality AR mode" -- do you have public SDK documentation for this and does it have a mixed passthru VR / AR mode like the Quest 2? The quest actually is a bit underpowered for doing this properly imo so I can see a higher price point potentially being necessary to pack it with the right hardware. Not that I'll ever build it but somewhere along the line some cordless headset is going to have great passthru and the ability to replace the windows in my house with the beach or a beautiful mountain vista. Also just an observation -- x86 on your face makes me think it probably gets quite hot :)
- kanetw 5y ago
  No documentation yet, but I can give you an overview. We have two wide-angle RGB cameras mechanically locked to the users' PD. The cameras itself are around 2k x 2k at 90 fps. For the standalone mode, the data is pushed over a PCIe gen 3x4 link so we can hit <12ms latency. Tethered is a bit more tricky as we can't count on the bandwidth being available, but we'll either compress it or do a reduced resolution. The actual sensor is still TBD. I'd like to do this properly with a global shutter sensor (IMX547), but they're a bit too expensive. If we don't have the margin for it, something like a IMX715 is the fallback. The compute pack will be on the back of your head, so a bit easier to cool and not as severely annoying. Also helps balance the headset.
  - ghotli 5y ago
    Nice, thanks for the detail and I look forward to the SDK docs. Back of the head makes sense for that kind of compute pack
rubicon33 5y ago
How about comfort? I’ve tried working in the Quest 2 using immersive and while I loved it, it just wasn’t the kind of thing I would do for hours on end. Are you guys confident that your headset will be more comfortable than the Q2? If so, how much more?
- kanetw 5y ago
  Comfort is subjective, but here's things that all contribute to it: * Main heat generation is on the back of the head and pointed away from you * If it's still required, active airflow for the user in the front of the headset * Weight will be balanced * IPD is auto-adjusted, so there's no chance of having the wrong setting and hurting your eyes. * Better optical quality leads to less eye strain * Adjustable padding That being said, I'm not a Quest 2 user. I don't know what things it does wrong, so it's possible I missed a feature that we have and didn't list.
  - rubicon33 5y ago
    Nice those things sound good. Main issue I have with quest 2 is the weight on cheeks / forehead and, yes I have configured the elite strap correctly.
  - threshold 5y ago
    What do you mean you’re not a quest user? You didn’t buy your main competition’s product?
    - kevrodz610 5y ago
      I would think PCVR+workstation would be their main competitor or even Hololens. Microsoft has built a more compelling software suite for productivity thats not also locked into a single platform like Oculus.
- mncharity 5y ago
  > comfort [...] hours on end Reclining can be a nice way to take a break from weight and pressure on head and face. Which can require modding a headset, to pad a back-of-head knob, etc. And hmd thermals aren't optimized for reclined. But here, perhaps this compute unit might be made detachable?
ilaksh 5y ago
Has there been any work in the distro related to 3d UI stuff? Maybe a 3d representation of the file system, for example. Anything related to facilitating shared virtual spaces? For the future, have you looked into micro LED displays with waveguide optics? It seems like the thing that is going to allow for glasses-style VR/AR. To me it's a no-brainer to tether that type of display to a phone. Could just use a long cable going to a pocket or hang the phone around the neck etc.
- kanetw 5y ago
  Not yet. It's planned to significantly improve the software, but we only have so much bandwidth right now. uOLEDs with waveguides (for AR) or pancake lenses (for VR) are... really complicated. Both systems currently do not offer the visual quality that a traditional refractive system can offer due to low light transmission, ghost images, and so on. The pixel size on a high-res uOLED is so small that getting the same PPD requires pancake optics to fit in the headset form factor. Otherwise your spot size (i.e. the minimum resolution of the optics) is too large and you lose the benefit of a high-res display. Also, bandwidth is a big concern. Our double 2448x2448@90Hz displays require DSC to run even with a DisplayPort 4-lane HBR3 link. I don't think phones can drive that.
  - ilaksh 5y ago
    Seems like foveated rendering and eye tracking can reduce bandwidth requirements. Not saying its not super hard.
drdaeman 5y ago
Hey, just an idea - most folks looking at your product probably have some VR experience. Maybe you can provide a comparison with various contemporary headsets, showing why/how yours is better, esp. for working and not just gaming or watching vids? Like, I'm certain I cannot work in my Index, not for any prolonged time. It's awesome for games, but not for any text-heavy stuff. I've tried a few times, my take is that problem is the resolution is not good enough => I would need giant fonts => turning my head a lot => extra neck strain (as if headset, even with a counterweight not bad enough in this regard) => fatigue and headaches. If I could see a honest (simulated) rendering of what I'd see in an Index vs what I'd see in Simula One, that would be amazing.
- kanetw 5y ago
  Good idea. We have a listing in one of our blog posts, but I'll see if I can do a simulation. I think the best bet actually would be for me to just take a camera and do a through-the-lenses shot through both. Our current optical train needs a second iteration for the mold, but once it meets our specs we'll do a blog post about it.
gautamb0 5y ago
Very impressive product- I certainly applaud your efforts and agree that the price is competitive for what it is. You can even use ultra wide monitors at similar resolutions as a comparison point. (Though of course they end up way ahead in terms of ppd)

tashoecraft 5y ago

These prices are very competitive. You’re comparing two very different product with different capabilities. It’s like saying a flip phone and a new smartphone are the same because they both can make calls.

threshold 5y ago
That analogy is grossly misleading. The OC2 is state of the art and has competitive hardware specs, and is subsidized.
- tashoecraft 5y ago
  It’s state of the art for budget hardware.

cracrecry 5y ago

As you said, you can not compete against Facebook by price. They don't have billions and will NEVER be able to compete on that field. They need to sustain themselves and do that with something that facebook could not copy. While OQ is way cheaper, it also forces you into using facebook accounts and you pay with your personal or even worse, with your company information, that is way more valuable than the cost of the simula. A surveillance device with two cameras and microphone and eye tracking of your workers is something unacceptable for lots of companies. The price is OK if they manage to offer something that improves productivity and make companies money. Juts a month of paying an engineer is way more than this price.

kanetw 5y ago
I think that's an important point as well that we haven't communicated yet. Our software won't phone home. The cameras will have a kill switch. If we include a microphone, so will the mic.
selfhoster11 5y ago
I don't care if it makes companies money or otherwise benefits them. I want this to be accessible to ALL hackers, on a personal basis, whether they are backed by a corporation or not. And for that to happen, the cost must go down. Just like the PinePhone is IMO the first practically obtainable phone designed to be hacked, we need something like this for VR. Otherwise we'll just end up with a bunch of Librems that only rich US engineers can enjoy.
- vimacs2 5y ago
  Not the same thing at all. Smartphones have reached the point where further improvements are largely superficial for years now. Pinephone's price point is only possible because of over a decade of the proliferation of cheap smartphone components. Consumer VR headsets are nowhere close to that point. The Quest 2 is right at the edge of usably clear text for work - with a price point that is only possible through the backing of a giant corporation desperately gambling their future on their whole metaverse shtick. Trying to do better means requiring optics and display technology that is going to drive that price point up, especially for a hackable headset that is automatically going to rule out monetisation through user data. tldr: nobody should care about providing cheap hardware to entitled "hackers" at their own loss. Hardware doesn't grow on trees.