15 ms·

Meta's Subpoena Dropped – Simula One vs. Quest Pro

98 points by sandebert 4y ago

allanrbo 4y ago
I've been a fan of SimulaVR for a while, but this sour attitude, trying to put Quest down by giving arguments for how superior SimulaVR is, is low.
- kanetw 4y ago
  A sour attitude definitely wasn't intended. Meta has some misleading marketing and we wanted to correct that. Apart from that we're just comparing our products, as the Quest Pro (unlike the Quest 2) does indeed intrude on our niche.
  - laweijfmvo 4y ago
    Wasn't the whole point of the initial subpoena complaint, "we're not a competitor to Meta?" and now that it's dropped, you're arguing why you're a competitor?
    - kanetw 4y ago
      The Quest Pro wasn't announced when they subpoenaed us.
      - gretch 4y ago
        Okay, so if you got re-subpoenaed for being a competitor tomorrow, will you comply with the subpoena given that your original argument is now invalid?
        altairprime 4y ago
        (On behalf of lawyers everywhere, I encourage OP not to reply to this question. I am not their lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
        gnarbarian 4y ago
        do you think this was a sneaky trap set up by meta?
        dylan604 4y ago
        whether it is or not doesn't make "don't respond to internet trolls", "don't make public comments about ongoing litigation", etc bad advice.
        gnarbarian 4y ago
        I never implied it was bad advice. I agree wholeheartedly. It seems like 4d chess to me. Trick Your adversary into a particular defense which you are prepared to demolish. I'd be impressed by it if a single meta lawyer's salary wasn't more then the entire simulaVR budget. as such it looks more like a giant evil corporation having it's way with a small defenseless individual just trying to manifest their own vision for VR.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        jamiek88 4y ago
        dang 4y ago
        Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33326851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33326851 also.
      - shafyy 4y ago
        Come on. It wasn't announced officially, but it was leaked all over the place and there were almost no surprises in the official announcment, including that they're going to focus more on work not only gaming. As others have said, I love what youre doing with Simula, and the subpoena was out of place from Meta, but you've got to work on your communication.
        xeromal 4y ago
        It seems strange to think they were compelled to compare themselves to a potential product in a court case.
      - onepointsixC 4y ago
        The Quest Pro wasn't a shocking development. Meta has been openly talking about their productivity VR/AR ambitions.
        georgewsinger 4y ago
        But we've also been openly declaring these claims to not have any teeth, for almost a year now: https://simulavr.com/blog/we-dont-want-the-metaverse/ https://simulavr.com/blog/we-dont-want-the-metaverse/ TLDR: That post is from 2021, and we basically said that Meta's product vision is to start with a social network/gaming platform first, and then backwards engineer productivity into it as a third use case; whereas we want to start with productive VR computing as our first and only focus, and engineer everything we do around that.
  - koolala 4y ago
    The Quest 3 will be really interesting. If they can really lower the price of the Pro to $300. I'm excited for the Deckard as well but doubt it will be near $400. My main concern with the future is Ergonomics. We are practically talking about a cybernetic-interface here. It isn't cheap or easy to solve. Above all else I feel like people really just hate having a thing strapped to their face.
  - fhd2 4y ago
    FWIW, "intrude on our niche" sounds pretty sour. It's not _all_ bad to have competition, especially someone with a bad rep like Meta/Facebook.
- georgewsinger 4y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Our intention is to offer constructive criticism of Meta's product vision, not a sour attitude. Meta is marketing the Quest Pro as a productivity device, but to us it doesn't seem to have much teeth: it can't replace someone's laptop, requires WiFi tethering to a host machine to be used as a VR Desktop machine, caps the # of screens it can emulate to 5, and has poor pixel density. Are these not fair things to point out?
  - koolala 4y ago
    They started out very restrictive on their vision and ecosystem - but nowadays isn't all that made up marketing? You can't install Linux on it sadly but like... can it run any Android app? Can it connect to a PC Linux software in any way a power user would want? Can it run any program that can practically be built for it? I feel like it can but I obviously want more and something better.
  - camdat 4y ago
    The Quest Pro will be (very soon) on shelves for customers to purchase. It's a product that exists with an app ecosystem and other users. As far as I can tell, SimulaVR won't have a product ready until at least Q4, and even then I'm sure volume will be low. Imo the most damning part of this article for SimulaVR is this annotation: >[6] There are lots of tradeoffs involved in battery life vs. headset weight that we still need to decide on. The Quest Pro has already made these trade-offs, and exists as a real device with specs that are available, while Simula is still trying to figure out the balance of your device? It's unfair to compare a released product to something that might be available to consumers sometime in the next year.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      > SimulaVR won't have a product ready until at least Q4 How much closer to Q4 do we have to be for it to qualify as "real soon" in your book? I'm asking as it is Oct 24 with Q4 starting Nov 1. Unless, I'm not business savvy and have my fiscal confused with physical again?
      - 4y ago
Kamran224 4y ago
Title feels like clickbait after seeing one paragraph about subpoena and then a whole article about a different topic. Now sure what specs have to do with subpoena
- georgewsinger 4y ago
  The title of our blog post ("Meta's Subpoena Dropped; Simula One vs. Quest Pro") is different than the HN title: I think HN might discourage dual titles? (We weren't the original submitter of this post to HN, so didn't choose the title). Also: originally our post was only going to be about the Quest Pro, but then we found out that Meta dropped their subpoena, and so we just ad hoc attached the news to the beginning of the post as an update to our preorderers.
1123581321 4y ago
I found the detailed comparisons interesting and also came away worried for Simula. The Quest Pro is available this week, has pancake lenses, better GPU, is a third to half the cost and has bet on Arm which is on its way to eat productivity PCs. Simula doesn’t even run Windows, which would be a nice consolation for being stuck on x86. Quest’s integrated business partnerships are rudimentary but are going to be adopted much faster than Simula users can figure out and share their custom workflows. Quest Pro 2 is probably going to come out before Simula finishes shipping its initial orders next year. We need a Simula to exist, but I don’t think they are going to be able to iterate nearly fast enough to provide to this market. I hope I’m wrong, because it’s a really cool project and completely above board in respect to future ad revenue and metaverse ambitions.
- RistrettoMike 4y ago
  I came away feeling similarly. Their dedication to developing a true VR computer and focusing on specs that really matter for that (PPD and raw processing grunt) are commendable, but seeing them champion the idea of strapping an X86 computer to your face in what is an increasingly arm-powered world is... concerning. "But it can run real Adobe Acrobat through WINE" is not something that gets me excited about a VR platform, but I'm likely not the target audience either. That being said, having tried out some remote-desktop apps on a Quest 2 earlier this year, the screens are absolutely not acceptable for that purpose in terms of viewable resolution -- so if the Quest Pro really is only slightly better in that regard, I think it'll soil the experience. If Simula can manage to tune their x86 specs to run well enough under power-limited circumstances, have at least comparable poor battery life to other VR headsets, develop a VR computing environment with usage paradigms that make sense, and do it in a headset that's somehow still comfortable to wear for extended sessions, then they may truly be ahead of the curve in a way that matters. That seems like a big ask for such a small company's first outing, but they also seem the most passionate about this category of use-case despite their scale. I wish them the best. VR computers like the one they're working on would be a lot cooler than Meta's vision for the category.
  - kanetw 4y ago
    I'm not fundamentally against ARM. But ARM in the VR world is Qualcomm, and they both didn't want to deal with us + their support for regular old Linux is (AFAIK) nonexistent. Apart from that, x86 is IMO just easier to adopt. I wouldn't buy an ARM laptop right now (except for possibly a Macbook). In a different tangent, I think the only way to get good ARM performance in a mobile format is to have custom-tailored silicon, like the Apple chips. Commercially available chips just don't compete with a i7-1265U or the Raptor Lake equiv.
jayd16 4y ago
A lot of these points under section 3 just seem plain false. You can certainly use the device in a stand alone way w/o wifi. You can also open individual apps as windows as well as whole monitors when using it as a PC headset. The section about what is adequate for long term use seems to be just an opinion. Have they even tried one yet?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- georgewsinger 4y ago
  We acknowledge you can use native Meta apps in a standalone way (we discuss this in section 5). The problem is that there aren't many native productivity apps running on Meta.
  - nicolashahn 4y ago
    Can you also acknowledge that 1 and 3 of section 3 are false? It absolutely does not need a PC/wifi to use. Source: I have one on my desk.
    - georgewsinger 4y ago
      3.1 and 3.3 are talking about the Quest Pro's VR Desktop capabilities. We just added extra clarification to make this clear. We don't dispute that the Quest Pro can run its own native VR apps without WiFi streaming.
  - headhasthoughts 4y ago
    "Literally every Android app that doesn't directly require GPS" is quite a few native productivity applications.
    - andybak 4y ago
      Except sideloaded apps are stuck in the "unknown sources" category which has no icons, no sorting, no search and is sorted in "last installed" order and nothing else. Or you can install an app launcher which is also stuck in "unknown sources". So you have to find your app launcher and launch that first - which rather cancels out any advantage an app launcher would bring. It's a huge disadvantage and and makes running sideloaded apps you use regularly a real pain.
sebringj 4y ago
I remember it was posted here prior... I wonder if this is THE best way to report wrongs from big tech and then shame them into retraction so the little guys don't get crushed.
aero-glide2 4y ago
I like your logo very much.
v0idzer0 4y ago
> The Simula One has compute specs that are legitimately comparable to a premium office laptop. For example, it supports an x86 architecture (i.e. just like a premium laptop), instead of an ARM based architecture like the Quest Pro (an architecture which runs on mobile phones and other portable devices). Pretty sure my ARM Macbook with 24GB RAM is a “premium laptop”
- georgewsinger 4y ago
  Yes, for sure; however, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 and 12GB of RAM on the Quest Pro isn't that. We're also fundamentally a Linux Desktop platform, which ARM is finnicky with. We wanted to give people an experience that was truly comparable to what they would expect out of a comparable premium (Linux) laptop.
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago
  > Pretty sure my ARM Macbook with 24GB RAM is a “premium laptop” Pretty sure the M1 isn't just a generic ARM processor but rather something Apple specifically designed for their use case. I challenge you to point to just one more vendor delivering a premium laptop experience based on ARM. Even better, please point to a chipset vendor that will license that technology to a third party to use as a platform for their hardware.
MikusR 4y ago
Meta realized that Simula is selling a 3d render instead of actual hardware.
- georgewsinger 4y ago
  https://simulavr.com/blog/first-glimpse-of-review-units/ https://simulavr.com/blog/first-glimpse-of-review-units/
  - IceWreck 4y ago
    I'll believe it when its sent to reputable third party reviewers.
    - jolmg 4y ago
      I honestly don't understand the hostility these guys get. Is there something you're specifically skeptical about? Is it their ability to make/obtain an appropriate compute pack? Their first review unit video shows one. It's physical size seems doable, though it's still being worked on. What's the problem? I mean, if it's simply skepticism, you can just wait to see what happens, but you comment like you're trying to call them out on something.
      - MikusR 4y ago
        Their comments here and elsewhere make them look like a tipical Kickstarter scam.
        jolmg 4y ago
        They seem quite transparent in their work via their blog. What do you think they could've done better? What screams that their blog posts are lies? I ask as someone who hasn't experienced a Kickstarter scam. To me, their comments are a mix of sales-talk to raise funds for the units and diplomatic play to get Meta to leave them alone.
_jab 4y ago
What a bizarre article. "We've successfully convinced Meta we are not their competitors and have been dropped from their antitrust lawsuit - oh by the way here are all the ways we're so much better than this company we're definitely not competitors with." Were Simula so desperate to shit on Meta that they needed to post this article the precise moment it ceased to be a legal risk to do so?
- tannhauser23 4y ago
  They were never a party to the lawsuit. Reading between the lines, they negotiated with Meta's lawyers and agreed to produce some documents/testimony in response to the subpoena.
  - georgewsinger 4y ago
    Just to clarify: we produced no documents or testimony to Meta at all. We basically negotiated on some very pedantic things (deadline extensions and so forth), and they ended up dropping the subpoena altogether. In Meta's defense, we found their legal team to be cordial and respectful.
jolmg 4y ago
This post says the Simula One has Wi-Fi 6. The store[1] and these older posts[2][3] say it has Wi-Fi 6E. The CPU also seems downgraded in this post from i7-1265U to i7-1165U. [1] https://shop.simulavr.com/ https://shop.simulavr.com/ [2] https://simulavr.com/blog/upgrading-to-alder-lake/ https://simulavr.com/blog/upgrading-to-alder-lake/ [3] https://simulavr.com/blog/32gb-ram-upgrade/ https://simulavr.com/blog/32gb-ram-upgrade/
- kanetw 4y ago
  Typo. We'll fix it i7-1265U and Wi-Fi 6E is correct.
- georgewsinger 4y ago
  Yes, thank you for catching. We just pushed the fix. The original table was copied over from an old post (when we were still using 11th Gen Intel), and I somehow missed updating it.
Melatonic 4y ago
I am surprised by the amount of support for Facebook here by a community that is normally pretty critical of Facebook That being said I think VR is amazing for games and similar environments but I find the idea of using VR goggles to view "screens" for work totally dumb. There is no way I am ever going to be doing that.
- jolmg 4y ago
  > I find the idea of using VR goggles to view "screens" for work totally dumb. There is no way I am ever going to be doing that. I think it's going to depend on the person, their work, and their alternative work environments. The main point of value may be to offer a way to better isolate yourself and your work from your physical environment.
charcircuit 4y ago
>The Quest Pro cannot replace your laptop or PC. In fact the Quest actually needs a laptop or PC to WiFi tether into (for VR Desktop), so that it can emulate and stream a (limited number) of host monitors in VR space. You can either run apps on the device itself or on another machine if you need more compute. The are plenty of web apps and sideloadable android apps that can already be used even on Quest 2. >The quest Pro isn't reliably portable. On top of this, if your WiFi connection is spotty or simply unavailable, you don't even get to use the device's VR Desktop When using apps on the device itself this isn't a concern. When good wifi isn't available Meta sells a wifi dongle you can plug into your laptop. >The Quest Pro offers no true window management. The Quest Pro is only able to emulate (a limited number of) monitors on a host machine. It has no awareness of the individual apps, and doesn't allow you to separate or combine them into your own unique views or workspaces. There is a window manager, but it isn't that flexible. In the future it could change though. Meta's headsets gain a lot of new functionality with the frequent updates they receive. All of the cons for the Quest Pro except for the PPD can be fixed in a future update down the line and are not hard limitations of the product.
lampshades 4y ago
This product looks very cool but I think I’d rather just have a screen or two and continue to alt tab through my applications. Is that an option?
- kanetw 4y ago
  Sure. You can either run a 2D WM inside Simula or use it with something like Virtual Desktop
vadym909 4y ago
I got an Oculus 2 for my kids. Although cool for 10 min, I can't see myself liking it- not now- nor ever. I know this is what every previous major tech was tagged as- but seriously- I just can't imagine how this is the way of the future. Maybe I'll read this comment 20 years later and wonder how I was so naïve.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

98 points by sandebert 4y ago

I've been a fan of SimulaVR for a while, but this sour attitude, trying to put Quest down by giving arguments for how superior SimulaVR is, is low.

kanetw 4y ago
A sour attitude definitely wasn't intended. Meta has some misleading marketing and we wanted to correct that. Apart from that we're just comparing our products, as the Quest Pro (unlike the Quest 2) does indeed intrude on our niche.
- laweijfmvo 4y ago
  Wasn't the whole point of the initial subpoena complaint, "we're not a competitor to Meta?" and now that it's dropped, you're arguing why you're a competitor?
  - kanetw 4y ago
    The Quest Pro wasn't announced when they subpoenaed us.
    - gretch 4y ago
      Okay, so if you got re-subpoenaed for being a competitor tomorrow, will you comply with the subpoena given that your original argument is now invalid?
      - altairprime 4y ago
        (On behalf of lawyers everywhere, I encourage OP not to reply to this question. I am not their lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
        gnarbarian 4y ago
        do you think this was a sneaky trap set up by meta?
        dylan604 4y ago
        whether it is or not doesn't make "don't respond to internet trolls", "don't make public comments about ongoing litigation", etc bad advice.
        gnarbarian 4y ago
        I never implied it was bad advice. I agree wholeheartedly. It seems like 4d chess to me. Trick Your adversary into a particular defense which you are prepared to demolish. I'd be impressed by it if a single meta lawyer's salary wasn't more then the entire simulaVR budget. as such it looks more like a giant evil corporation having it's way with a small defenseless individual just trying to manifest their own vision for VR.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - jamiek88 4y ago
        dang 4y ago
        Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33326851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33326851 also.
    - shafyy 4y ago
      Come on. It wasn't announced officially, but it was leaked all over the place and there were almost no surprises in the official announcment, including that they're going to focus more on work not only gaming. As others have said, I love what youre doing with Simula, and the subpoena was out of place from Meta, but you've got to work on your communication.
      - xeromal 4y ago
        It seems strange to think they were compelled to compare themselves to a potential product in a court case.
    - onepointsixC 4y ago
      The Quest Pro wasn't a shocking development. Meta has been openly talking about their productivity VR/AR ambitions.
      - georgewsinger 4y ago
        But we've also been openly declaring these claims to not have any teeth, for almost a year now: https://simulavr.com/blog/we-dont-want-the-metaverse/ https://simulavr.com/blog/we-dont-want-the-metaverse/ TLDR: That post is from 2021, and we basically said that Meta's product vision is to start with a social network/gaming platform first, and then backwards engineer productivity into it as a third use case; whereas we want to start with productive VR computing as our first and only focus, and engineer everything we do around that.
- koolala 4y ago
  The Quest 3 will be really interesting. If they can really lower the price of the Pro to $300. I'm excited for the Deckard as well but doubt it will be near $400. My main concern with the future is Ergonomics. We are practically talking about a cybernetic-interface here. It isn't cheap or easy to solve. Above all else I feel like people really just hate having a thing strapped to their face.
- fhd2 4y ago
  FWIW, "intrude on our niche" sounds pretty sour. It's not _all_ bad to have competition, especially someone with a bad rep like Meta/Facebook.
georgewsinger 4y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Our intention is to offer constructive criticism of Meta's product vision, not a sour attitude. Meta is marketing the Quest Pro as a productivity device, but to us it doesn't seem to have much teeth: it can't replace someone's laptop, requires WiFi tethering to a host machine to be used as a VR Desktop machine, caps the # of screens it can emulate to 5, and has poor pixel density. Are these not fair things to point out?
- koolala 4y ago
  They started out very restrictive on their vision and ecosystem - but nowadays isn't all that made up marketing? You can't install Linux on it sadly but like... can it run any Android app? Can it connect to a PC Linux software in any way a power user would want? Can it run any program that can practically be built for it? I feel like it can but I obviously want more and something better.
- camdat 4y ago
  The Quest Pro will be (very soon) on shelves for customers to purchase. It's a product that exists with an app ecosystem and other users. As far as I can tell, SimulaVR won't have a product ready until at least Q4, and even then I'm sure volume will be low. Imo the most damning part of this article for SimulaVR is this annotation: >[6] There are lots of tradeoffs involved in battery life vs. headset weight that we still need to decide on. The Quest Pro has already made these trade-offs, and exists as a real device with specs that are available, while Simula is still trying to figure out the balance of your device? It's unfair to compare a released product to something that might be available to consumers sometime in the next year.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    > SimulaVR won't have a product ready until at least Q4 How much closer to Q4 do we have to be for it to qualify as "real soon" in your book? I'm asking as it is Oct 24 with Q4 starting Nov 1. Unless, I'm not business savvy and have my fiscal confused with physical again?
    - 4y ago

Kamran224 4y ago

Title feels like clickbait after seeing one paragraph about subpoena and then a whole article about a different topic. Now sure what specs have to do with subpoena

georgewsinger 4y ago
The title of our blog post ("Meta's Subpoena Dropped; Simula One vs. Quest Pro") is different than the HN title: I think HN might discourage dual titles? (We weren't the original submitter of this post to HN, so didn't choose the title). Also: originally our post was only going to be about the Quest Pro, but then we found out that Meta dropped their subpoena, and so we just ad hoc attached the news to the beginning of the post as an update to our preorderers.

1123581321 4y ago

I found the detailed comparisons interesting and also came away worried for Simula. The Quest Pro is available this week, has pancake lenses, better GPU, is a third to half the cost and has bet on Arm which is on its way to eat productivity PCs. Simula doesn’t even run Windows, which would be a nice consolation for being stuck on x86. Quest’s integrated business partnerships are rudimentary but are going to be adopted much faster than Simula users can figure out and share their custom workflows. Quest Pro 2 is probably going to come out before Simula finishes shipping its initial orders next year. We need a Simula to exist, but I don’t think they are going to be able to iterate nearly fast enough to provide to this market. I hope I’m wrong, because it’s a really cool project and completely above board in respect to future ad revenue and metaverse ambitions.

RistrettoMike 4y ago
I came away feeling similarly. Their dedication to developing a true VR computer and focusing on specs that really matter for that (PPD and raw processing grunt) are commendable, but seeing them champion the idea of strapping an X86 computer to your face in what is an increasingly arm-powered world is... concerning. "But it can run real Adobe Acrobat through WINE" is not something that gets me excited about a VR platform, but I'm likely not the target audience either. That being said, having tried out some remote-desktop apps on a Quest 2 earlier this year, the screens are absolutely not acceptable for that purpose in terms of viewable resolution -- so if the Quest Pro really is only slightly better in that regard, I think it'll soil the experience. If Simula can manage to tune their x86 specs to run well enough under power-limited circumstances, have at least comparable poor battery life to other VR headsets, develop a VR computing environment with usage paradigms that make sense, and do it in a headset that's somehow still comfortable to wear for extended sessions, then they may truly be ahead of the curve in a way that matters. That seems like a big ask for such a small company's first outing, but they also seem the most passionate about this category of use-case despite their scale. I wish them the best. VR computers like the one they're working on would be a lot cooler than Meta's vision for the category.
- kanetw 4y ago
  I'm not fundamentally against ARM. But ARM in the VR world is Qualcomm, and they both didn't want to deal with us + their support for regular old Linux is (AFAIK) nonexistent. Apart from that, x86 is IMO just easier to adopt. I wouldn't buy an ARM laptop right now (except for possibly a Macbook). In a different tangent, I think the only way to get good ARM performance in a mobile format is to have custom-tailored silicon, like the Apple chips. Commercially available chips just don't compete with a i7-1265U or the Raptor Lake equiv.

jayd16 4y ago

A lot of these points under section 3 just seem plain false. You can certainly use the device in a stand alone way w/o wifi. You can also open individual apps as windows as well as whole monitors when using it as a PC headset. The section about what is adequate for long term use seems to be just an opinion. Have they even tried one yet?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
georgewsinger 4y ago
We acknowledge you can use native Meta apps in a standalone way (we discuss this in section 5). The problem is that there aren't many native productivity apps running on Meta.
- nicolashahn 4y ago
  Can you also acknowledge that 1 and 3 of section 3 are false? It absolutely does not need a PC/wifi to use. Source: I have one on my desk.
  - georgewsinger 4y ago
    3.1 and 3.3 are talking about the Quest Pro's VR Desktop capabilities. We just added extra clarification to make this clear. We don't dispute that the Quest Pro can run its own native VR apps without WiFi streaming.
- headhasthoughts 4y ago
  "Literally every Android app that doesn't directly require GPS" is quite a few native productivity applications.
  - andybak 4y ago
    Except sideloaded apps are stuck in the "unknown sources" category which has no icons, no sorting, no search and is sorted in "last installed" order and nothing else. Or you can install an app launcher which is also stuck in "unknown sources". So you have to find your app launcher and launch that first - which rather cancels out any advantage an app launcher would bring. It's a huge disadvantage and and makes running sideloaded apps you use regularly a real pain.

sebringj 4y ago

I remember it was posted here prior... I wonder if this is THE best way to report wrongs from big tech and then shame them into retraction so the little guys don't get crushed.

aero-glide2 4y ago

I like your logo very much.

v0idzer0 4y ago

> The Simula One has compute specs that are legitimately comparable to a premium office laptop. For example, it supports an x86 architecture (i.e. just like a premium laptop), instead of an ARM based architecture like the Quest Pro (an architecture which runs on mobile phones and other portable devices). Pretty sure my ARM Macbook with 24GB RAM is a “premium laptop”

georgewsinger 4y ago
Yes, for sure; however, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 and 12GB of RAM on the Quest Pro isn't that. We're also fundamentally a Linux Desktop platform, which ARM is finnicky with. We wanted to give people an experience that was truly comparable to what they would expect out of a comparable premium (Linux) laptop.
BaseballPhysics 4y ago
> Pretty sure my ARM Macbook with 24GB RAM is a “premium laptop” Pretty sure the M1 isn't just a generic ARM processor but rather something Apple specifically designed for their use case. I challenge you to point to just one more vendor delivering a premium laptop experience based on ARM. Even better, please point to a chipset vendor that will license that technology to a third party to use as a platform for their hardware.

MikusR 4y ago

Meta realized that Simula is selling a 3d render instead of actual hardware.

georgewsinger 4y ago
https://simulavr.com/blog/first-glimpse-of-review-units/ https://simulavr.com/blog/first-glimpse-of-review-units/
- IceWreck 4y ago
  I'll believe it when its sent to reputable third party reviewers.
  - jolmg 4y ago
    I honestly don't understand the hostility these guys get. Is there something you're specifically skeptical about? Is it their ability to make/obtain an appropriate compute pack? Their first review unit video shows one. It's physical size seems doable, though it's still being worked on. What's the problem? I mean, if it's simply skepticism, you can just wait to see what happens, but you comment like you're trying to call them out on something.
    - MikusR 4y ago
      Their comments here and elsewhere make them look like a tipical Kickstarter scam.
      - jolmg 4y ago
        They seem quite transparent in their work via their blog. What do you think they could've done better? What screams that their blog posts are lies? I ask as someone who hasn't experienced a Kickstarter scam. To me, their comments are a mix of sales-talk to raise funds for the units and diplomatic play to get Meta to leave them alone.

_jab 4y ago

What a bizarre article. "We've successfully convinced Meta we are not their competitors and have been dropped from their antitrust lawsuit - oh by the way here are all the ways we're so much better than this company we're definitely not competitors with." Were Simula so desperate to shit on Meta that they needed to post this article the precise moment it ceased to be a legal risk to do so?

tannhauser23 4y ago
They were never a party to the lawsuit. Reading between the lines, they negotiated with Meta's lawyers and agreed to produce some documents/testimony in response to the subpoena.
- georgewsinger 4y ago
  Just to clarify: we produced no documents or testimony to Meta at all. We basically negotiated on some very pedantic things (deadline extensions and so forth), and they ended up dropping the subpoena altogether. In Meta's defense, we found their legal team to be cordial and respectful.

jolmg 4y ago

This post says the Simula One has Wi-Fi 6. The store[1] and these older posts[2][3] say it has Wi-Fi 6E. The CPU also seems downgraded in this post from i7-1265U to i7-1165U. [1] https://shop.simulavr.com/ https://shop.simulavr.com/ [2] https://simulavr.com/blog/upgrading-to-alder-lake/ https://simulavr.com/blog/upgrading-to-alder-lake/ [3] https://simulavr.com/blog/32gb-ram-upgrade/ https://simulavr.com/blog/32gb-ram-upgrade/

kanetw 4y ago
Typo. We'll fix it i7-1265U and Wi-Fi 6E is correct.
georgewsinger 4y ago
Yes, thank you for catching. We just pushed the fix. The original table was copied over from an old post (when we were still using 11th Gen Intel), and I somehow missed updating it.

Melatonic 4y ago

I am surprised by the amount of support for Facebook here by a community that is normally pretty critical of Facebook That being said I think VR is amazing for games and similar environments but I find the idea of using VR goggles to view "screens" for work totally dumb. There is no way I am ever going to be doing that.

jolmg 4y ago
> I find the idea of using VR goggles to view "screens" for work totally dumb. There is no way I am ever going to be doing that. I think it's going to depend on the person, their work, and their alternative work environments. The main point of value may be to offer a way to better isolate yourself and your work from your physical environment.

charcircuit 4y ago

>The Quest Pro cannot replace your laptop or PC. In fact the Quest actually needs a laptop or PC to WiFi tether into (for VR Desktop), so that it can emulate and stream a (limited number) of host monitors in VR space. You can either run apps on the device itself or on another machine if you need more compute. The are plenty of web apps and sideloadable android apps that can already be used even on Quest 2. >The quest Pro isn't reliably portable. On top of this, if your WiFi connection is spotty or simply unavailable, you don't even get to use the device's VR Desktop When using apps on the device itself this isn't a concern. When good wifi isn't available Meta sells a wifi dongle you can plug into your laptop. >The Quest Pro offers no true window management. The Quest Pro is only able to emulate (a limited number of) monitors on a host machine. It has no awareness of the individual apps, and doesn't allow you to separate or combine them into your own unique views or workspaces. There is a window manager, but it isn't that flexible. In the future it could change though. Meta's headsets gain a lot of new functionality with the frequent updates they receive. All of the cons for the Quest Pro except for the PPD can be fixed in a future update down the line and are not hard limitations of the product.

lampshades 4y ago

This product looks very cool but I think I’d rather just have a screen or two and continue to alt tab through my applications. Is that an option?

kanetw 4y ago
Sure. You can either run a 2D WM inside Simula or use it with something like Virtual Desktop

vadym909 4y ago

I got an Oculus 2 for my kids. Although cool for 10 min, I can't see myself liking it- not now- nor ever. I know this is what every previous major tech was tagged as- but seriously- I just can't imagine how this is the way of the future. Maybe I'll read this comment 20 years later and wonder how I was so naïve.

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