4 ms·

The pricing is absolutely nuts. If it was $1,000 or so, maybe I'd be open to trying it, But at nearly 3K there's no way I'm risking that much money. If your c

The pricing is absolutely nuts. If it was $1,000 or so, maybe I'd be open to trying it, But at nearly 3K there's no way I'm risking that much money. If your company goes bankrupt tomorrow, and the headset bricks itself, I'd have no recourse. At the same time, I hope you're able to raise funding or something and get the cost down to $1,000. I would absolutely love to have an open source VR headset.

georgewsinger 5y ago
I understand your concerns about pricing. We made a post earlier this year discussing why our expenses are so high.[1] TLDR: Low economies of scale and high launch costs. With that said, our pricing and specs are still competitive with ultra-premium VR headsets and premium office laptops (which we have essentially combined into one unit). We also have a pricing option to reserve a headset with a partial deposit: pay $1,499 now, and then $1,499 right before we ship (Q4 '22/Q1 '23 target). This allows you to reserve a headset now at a lower price, see more proof throughout the year that we are performing our manufacturing duties diligently (via weekly updates), and then only paying the remainder of the balance ($1,499 + taxes/shipping) once we have the headset fully ready to ship to you. We also just made a discount code for this thread: "DISCOUNT_HN" (limited to 10 for now) which adds an extra $100 off. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29923197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29923197
- 999900000999 5y ago
  >(Q4 '22/Q1 '23 target) We'll talk when it actually ships. You do understand 3k is a ton of money right ? The other issue is even if I did pre order , the second you miss a release date I'd file a charge back. Get too many charge backs and payment processors will stop accepting orders for you. To be honest it would make more sense to develop an ultra cheap option, anything 1k or less, and you'll find people ready to take a risk. You might still get in trouble if you miss your ship date though. You can buy an HTC Vive for 800$, and a PI4 for 60$. Where is the other 2k in markup coming from ?
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    This would be my concern too. The special sauce is in the integration of camera, headset and custom distro (much like remarkable is great because of the polish/software, not the hardware), but it's hard to see how this works, or if the Simula is practical, until you get it and try. Is the experience seamless, does the display ever lag or cause nausea (I've had this before in VR envs) - does it get better/worse with long-term usage. Can you see via the cameras clearly enough that you never need take the headset off, even in the given "café" scenario? Is the headset comfortable enough for long-term use as a monitor replacement - does it get hot or sweaty? As such, I'll wait for the reviews..
    - georgewsinger 5y ago
      Appreciate the feedback, and totally understand why you would want to see reviews before making any deposits. We are targeting to have review units in a few months, which hopefully will provide some useful commentary on these issues from people besides us. For now: RE cameras: we're pushing for high-resolution RGB cameras (a lot of existing headsets have pretty low quality/low fidelity cameras). If you aren't able to go for longish periods without taking the headset off (when needing to see your surroundings at least), then we are definitely doing something wrong. For latency considerations, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30445428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30445428 RE headset ergonomics & sweatiness: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442745 Over the coming days/weeks, we're pushing out blog updates which discuss the technical details of these issues (leading up to review units). If you're interested, you can sign up at newsletter.simulavr.com.
  - sbarre 5y ago
    > You can buy an HTC Vive for 800$, and a PI4 for 60$. Why would anyone use Dropbox?? You can just use SFTP, CVS and a 5$ VPS... [0] Seriously though, let's treat your comment as non-trolling: The HTC Vive - a 6-year-old device - does not have anything close to the per-eye resolution needed to do any kind of desktop computing, AND it uses outside-in tracking, meaning you need external lighthouses so it's not really portable. You would have been better off saying "You can buy an Oculus Quest 2 for $629" instead. The PI4 does not provide the computing power to drive a VR display like that. That's kind of it right there. Bad example again. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
ahelwer 5y ago
> If your company goes bankrupt tomorrow, and the headset bricks itself, I'd have no recourse. Everything (including the hardware design) is open source, so yeah you absolutely would have recourse. > I would absolutely love to have an open source VR headset. And this is what it takes to get that.

georgewsinger 5y ago

I understand your concerns about pricing. We made a post earlier this year discussing why our expenses are so high.[1] TLDR: Low economies of scale and high launch costs. With that said, our pricing and specs are still competitive with ultra-premium VR headsets and premium office laptops (which we have essentially combined into one unit). We also have a pricing option to reserve a headset with a partial deposit: pay $1,499 now, and then $1,499 right before we ship (Q4 '22/Q1 '23 target). This allows you to reserve a headset now at a lower price, see more proof throughout the year that we are performing our manufacturing duties diligently (via weekly updates), and then only paying the remainder of the balance ($1,499 + taxes/shipping) once we have the headset fully ready to ship to you. We also just made a discount code for this thread: "DISCOUNT_HN" (limited to 10 for now) which adds an extra $100 off. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29923197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29923197

999900000999 5y ago
>(Q4 '22/Q1 '23 target) We'll talk when it actually ships. You do understand 3k is a ton of money right ? The other issue is even if I did pre order , the second you miss a release date I'd file a charge back. Get too many charge backs and payment processors will stop accepting orders for you. To be honest it would make more sense to develop an ultra cheap option, anything 1k or less, and you'll find people ready to take a risk. You might still get in trouble if you miss your ship date though. You can buy an HTC Vive for 800$, and a PI4 for 60$. Where is the other 2k in markup coming from ?
- Chris2048 5y ago
  This would be my concern too. The special sauce is in the integration of camera, headset and custom distro (much like remarkable is great because of the polish/software, not the hardware), but it's hard to see how this works, or if the Simula is practical, until you get it and try. Is the experience seamless, does the display ever lag or cause nausea (I've had this before in VR envs) - does it get better/worse with long-term usage. Can you see via the cameras clearly enough that you never need take the headset off, even in the given "café" scenario? Is the headset comfortable enough for long-term use as a monitor replacement - does it get hot or sweaty? As such, I'll wait for the reviews..
  - georgewsinger 5y ago
    Appreciate the feedback, and totally understand why you would want to see reviews before making any deposits. We are targeting to have review units in a few months, which hopefully will provide some useful commentary on these issues from people besides us. For now: RE cameras: we're pushing for high-resolution RGB cameras (a lot of existing headsets have pretty low quality/low fidelity cameras). If you aren't able to go for longish periods without taking the headset off (when needing to see your surroundings at least), then we are definitely doing something wrong. For latency considerations, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30445428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30445428 RE headset ergonomics & sweatiness: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442745 Over the coming days/weeks, we're pushing out blog updates which discuss the technical details of these issues (leading up to review units). If you're interested, you can sign up at newsletter.simulavr.com.
- sbarre 5y ago
  > You can buy an HTC Vive for 800$, and a PI4 for 60$. Why would anyone use Dropbox?? You can just use SFTP, CVS and a 5$ VPS... [0] Seriously though, let's treat your comment as non-trolling: The HTC Vive - a 6-year-old device - does not have anything close to the per-eye resolution needed to do any kind of desktop computing, AND it uses outside-in tracking, meaning you need external lighthouses so it's not really portable. You would have been better off saying "You can buy an Oculus Quest 2 for $629" instead. The PI4 does not provide the computing power to drive a VR display like that. That's kind of it right there. Bad example again. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

ahelwer 5y ago

> If your company goes bankrupt tomorrow, and the headset bricks itself, I'd have no recourse. Everything (including the hardware design) is open source, so yeah you absolutely would have recourse. > I would absolutely love to have an open source VR headset. And this is what it takes to get that.