hardware preview

Hands-on: Quest 3 is an Impressive Leap That’s Still Held Back by Software Struggles

Connect 2023, Feature, hardware preview, meta quest 3 hands on, meta quest 3 preview, meta quest 3 review, News, quest 3 preview, quest 3 review, VR Headset / Ryan Harris / September 28, 2023

Quest 3 is an impressive leap in hardware, especially in the visual department, but it continues Meta’s tradition of building great hardware that feels held back by its software.

Update (September 27th, 2023): Fixed the link to the second page at the bottom of this page.

After months of teasing and leaks, Quest 3 is finally, officially, fully announced. Pre-orders start today at $500 and the headset ships on October 10th. While you can get the full specs and details right here, the overall summary is that the headset is an improvement over Quest 2 nearly across the board:

Better lenses
Better resolution
Better processor
Better audio
Better passthrough
Better controllers
Better form-factor

The improvements really add up. The biggest improvement is in the visuals, where Meta finally paired the impressive pancake optics from Quest Pro with a higher resolution display, resulting in a significantly sharper image than Quest 2 that has industry-leading clarity with regards to sweet spot, glare, and distortion.

Quest 3 has two LCD displays, giving it 4.6MP (2,064 × 2,208) resolution per-eye, compared to Quest 2 with 3.5MP (1,832 × 1,920) resolution per-eye. And even though that isn’t a massive leap in resolution, the upgraded lenses are so much sharper and it makes a huge difference compared to just the number of pixels.

Quest 3 also has an improved IPD (distance between your eyes) function and range. A dial on the headset gives it a continuous adjustment between 58–70mm. Given the eyebox of the optics, Meta officially says the headset is suitable for any IPD between 53–75mm. And because each eye has its own display, adjusting the IPD the the far edges doesn’t sacrifice any field-of-view.

Beyond the IPD upgrade, Quest 3 is the first Quest headset with an eye-relief adjustment, which allows you to move the lenses closer or further from your space. As a notched adjustment that can move between four different positions, it’s a little funky to adjust, but it’s a welcomed addition. Ostensibly this will make the headset more adjustable for glasses users, but as someone who tends to benefit from lower eye-relief, I hope that the nearest adjustment goes far enough.

Between the upgraded IPD adjustment and eye-relief, Quest 3 is the most adjustable Quest headset so far, which means more people can dial into the optimal optical position.

Quest 3 has a slightly modified rear strap, but it’s still a soft strap in the end. A deluxe strap and deluxe strap with battery will be available (Quest 2 deluxe straps are unfortunately not forward-compatible) | Image courtesy Meta

Holistically speaking, Quest 3 has the best display system of any headset on the market to date.

The only major things that haven’t improved over Quest 2 are the default headstrap, battery life, and weight, which are all about the same. The biggest benefit of the new optics is their performance, but their more compact form also means the weight of the headset sits a little closer to your face which makes it feel a little lighter and less bulky.

Powered Up

When Quest 3 is firing on all cylinders—including software that’s well-optimized for its performance envelope—you’ll wonder how you ever got by with the visuals afforded by Quest 2.

Take Red Matter 2, for instance, which was already one of the best-looking games on Quest 2. Developer Vertical Robot put together a demo app, which lets you instantly switch back and forth between the game’s Quest 2 visuals and newly enhanced Quest 3 visuals, and the difference is staggering. This video gives an idea but doesn’t quite show the full impact of the visual improvements that you feel in the headset itself:

Not only are textures significantly sharper, the extra processing power also allowed the developers to add high-resolution real-time shadows which make a big difference to how grounded the virtual world feels around you.

However, the exceptionally well-optimized Red Matter 2 is a rare exception compared most apps available on the platform. Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, for instance, looks better on Quest 3… but still pretty rough with blotchy textures and shimmering aliased shadows.

And this was an example that Meta specifically showed to highlight Quest 3’s improved processing power…. And yes, the Walking Dead example shows that the developers used some of the extra power to put more enemies on screen. But the question here is, ~~what good is a phone call if you are unable to speak~~ what good is better optical performance if the textures aren’t matching them in the first place?

So while Quest 3 offers the potential for significantly improved visuals, the reality is that many apps on the platform won’t benefit as much from it as they could, especially in the near-term as developers continue to prioritize optimizing their games for Quest 2 because it will have the larger customer base for quite some time. Optimization (or lack thereof) is a systemic issue that is more complicated to address than just ‘throw more processing power at it’.

Quest 3 is the first headset to debut with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip, which claims up to 2.5 times the graphical performance of XR 2 Gen 1, and up to 50% better efficiency between identical workloads | Photo by Road to VR

But as we all know, graphics aren’t everything. Some of the most fun games on the Quest platform aren’t the best looking out there.

But when I say that software is holding back the headset, more than half of that sentiment is driven not by the visuals of apps and games, but by the headset’s overall UI/UX.

This applies to all Quest headsets, of course, but the platform’s obtuse and often buggy interface hasn’t seen the same kind of consistent improvements that the hardware itself has seen from Quest 1 to Quest 3—which is a shame. The friction between a player’s idea of wanting to do something in the headset and how seamless (or not) it is to put on the headset and do that thing is deeply connected to how often and how long they’ll actually enjoy using the headset.

Meta has given no indication that it even acknowledges the deficiency of the Quest UI/UX. With the release of Quest 3, on the interface specifically, it doesn’t seem like it will make any meaningful changes on that front. In terms of UX at least, there’s two general improvements:

Passthrough

Quest 3’s passthrough view is a big leap over the low-res black-and-white passthrough of Quest 2. Now with full color and higher resolution, passthrough on Quest 3 feels more like something you can use all the time (granted, I haven’t had enough time with the headset to tell if the passthrough latency is low enough to prevent motion discomfort over long periods, which was a problem for me on Quest Pro).

And while it isn’t clear to me if the software will enable passthrough by default (as it should), being able to easily see a reasonably high quality view outside of the headset is a notable UX improvement.

Not only does it make users feel less disconnected from their environment when putting on the headset (until they’re actually ready to be immersed in the content of their choice), it also makes it easier to glance at the real world without removing the headset entirely. That’s useful for talking to someone else in the room or looking to make sure a pet (or child) hasn’t walked into your playspace.

I was surprised to see that with the newly added depth sensor there’s still warping around your hands, but overall the passthrough image is much sharper and has better dynamic range. Unlike Quest Pro, I was able to at least roughly read the time and some notifications on my phone—an important part of not feeling completely disconnected from the world outside the headset.

This also opens the door to improving the flow of putting on the headset in the first place; if passthrough is enabled by default, Meta should encourage users to put on the headset first, then find their controllers (instead of awkwardly trying to fit the headset with controllers already in their hands). And when the session is over, hopefully they turn on passthrough and instruct people to put down their controllers first, then remove the headset. These are the kinds of UX details the company tends to miss entirely… but we’ll see.

Room Scanning

The other real UX improvement coming with Quest 3 could be automatic room scanning, which automatically creates a playspace boundary for users instead of making them create their own. I say “could be” because I didn’t have enough time in my hands-on with this feature to tell how quickly and reliably it works. More testing to come.

Similar to implementations we’ve seen on other headsets, the room scanning feature encourages users to look around their space, giving the headset time to build a map of the geometry in the room. With enough of the space scanned, a playspace boundary will be created. The same system can also be used to establish the position of walls, floors, and other geometry that can be used in mixed reality applications.

Paid Parking

Also worth mentioning is the optional (and fairly expensive) official Quest 3 dock. Keeping the headset and controllers powered, updated, and ready to go is a big challenge when it comes to VR friction. Having a dedicated place to put your headset and controllers that also charges them is definitely a boon to the UX.

This feels like something that should really be part of the package, but you’ll have to pay an extra $130 for the privilege. Hopefully we’ll see more affordable Quest 3 docks from third-parties in the near future.

Continue on Page 2: Marketing Reality »

Hands-on: Quest 3 is an Impressive Leap That’s Still Held Back by Software Struggles Read More »

Hands-on: Virtuix Omni One Comes Full Circle with an All-in-one VR Treadmill System

Feature, hardware preview, Jan Goetgeluk, News, virtuix, virtuix omni one, VR Treadmill / Ryan Harris / July 24, 2023

As far as VR treadmills go, Virtuix is the OG. While the company had set out to make a consumer VR treadmill a decade ago, market realities pushed the company into the out-of-home VR attraction space. But after all these years the company remains dead-set on selling a VR treadmill to consumers, and this time around it’s taking an all-in-one approach with the new Virtuix Omni One. I visited the company’s Austin, Texas headquarters to try it for myself.

The Virtuix Omni Backstory

The original Virtuix Omni treadmill started life way back in 2013 as wooden prototype built by a small group led by CEO Jan Goetgeluk. Thus the core idea was conceived a full three years before the first wave of consumer VR headsets appeared on the market in 2016.

The idea itself is simple. What if you had a treadmill on which you could run in any direction? With such a treadmill and a VR headset on your head, you could move your body and feel like you were really moving through the virtual world.

The execution of this idea, however, has been anything but simple.

Treadmills tend to be large, heavy, and expensive devices. And the Virtuix Omni was no exception. Although the company set out initially to build a device for consumers, the reality of the cost and complexity of such a device made it a challenging sell beyond early adopters. The ahead-of-its-time treadmill also suffered another key issue for the consumer VR space; the ‘ring’ support’ design prevented players from having a full range of motion, which made the treadmill a non-starter for many consumer VR games that expected players to be able to crouch, reach down to the ground, or move their arms around at their waist (where many games commonly place holsters for key items).

These challenges forced the company to pivot toward the out-of-home VR attraction space. Thus, the Omni Arena—a huge VR attraction that includes a pod of four of the company’s VR treadmills for multiplayer gameplay with custom content—was born. The system would go on to be installed in 73 entertainment spaces across the US and has become Virtuix’s bread-and-butter business.

Virtuix realized early on that VR was, at this stage, a fairly clunky proposition. Only early enthusiasts and computer experts had the skills and patience to set up and troubleshoot even consumer VR systems, let alone one that cobbled together complex hardware like a headset and VR treadmill. Expecting arcade attendants to figure out how to keep a system of four Virtuix Omni treadmills, VR headsets, and an array of networked computers powering it all, just wasn’t realistically going to work at scale.

That led the company to build Omni Arena like a giant all-in-one VR arcade. The company has impressively customized literally every step of the customer’s journey through the experience. From the moment they step into the enclosure they’re guided by video screen prompts about what they’re going to experience, how to slip on their special shoes, and how to get into the Virtuix Omni treadmill once it’s their turn.

The same, if not more, care has been paid to the operator’s experience. Omni Arena has everything to be a self-sustaining VR attraction. It doesn’t just come with the four treadmills, but also four headsets, controllers (with charging pods), SteamVR tracking base stations, and all the hardware to run the networked VR experiences and the pod’s software itself which not only manages all of the connected devices, but even captures footage of players (both in and outside of the game) and emails it to them as a memento of their experience. It also makes routine troubleshooting steps like headsets, computers, or SteamVR into a simple touchscreen button press through a custom interface for the operator. Omni Arena is truly an all-in-one product.

Virtuix Arena’s custom software makes it easy to manage all the computers and hardware that power the experience. | Photo by Road to VR

For a small company, Virtuix’s ability to focus on the holistic experience of its product is both rare and impressive.

Coming Full Circle

With the many lessons learned about creating an all-in-one experience for the out-of-home VR attraction space, the company is turning its attention back to the consumer realm with a brand new product—Virtuix Omni One.

With Omni One, Virtuix isn’t selling a VR treadmill. It’s selling an all-in-one system that includes the newly designed VR treadmill, a VR headset, and access to a library of custom-made content. It’s an ambitious approach, but one that reflects Virtuix’s ability to identify and address key problems with the overall experience it wants to deliver to customers.

The original ring design of the Omni meant players couldn’t crouch or have full movement of their arms around their waist. | Photo by Road to VR

One of those key points the company identified was the way that the original Omni design made compatibility with modern VR content a challenge. The support ring around the player mean their movement was restricted, both in their ability to crouch, lean, and move their arms with complete freedom.

That ‘simple’ problem necessitated a complete redesign of the treadmill. The Omni One now uses an arm support design that always stays behind the user. This gives you the ability to have a full range of motion while also running in any direction. The arm doesn’t actively hold you upright, but it provides the force that prevents you from running straight off the edge of the treadmill.

Another problem the company identified in its goal of delivering a consumer VR treadmill is the complexity of existing PC VR systems and getting players into the right content.

Even if Omni One customer was already an expert in PC VR and willing to put up with technical annoyances, having a tether to the computer means worrying about the user wrapping themselves up in the cable (or asking them to rig up a ceiling mounted cable management system).

Though the Omni One can still technically be used with a PC VR setup, this challenge pushed Virtuix to pair its treadmill with a standalone VR headset out of the box (Pico Neo 3, specifically). But it’s not just a headset, but a headset equipped with a custom-made Omni storefront serving up content that’s specifically made or adapted for the VR treadmill. The company even built its own ‘first steps’ experience, a surprisingly well-made introduction that introduces users to the magic of VR and teaches them how to move and feel comfortable with their controllers and treadmill.

And although sticker-shock has always been a challenge for Virtuix, the Omni One is actually not an unreasonable price… if you think of it as what it truly is: a treadmill that will give you a workout.

Typical exercise treadmills range in price from $500 to $2,000 or more. Omni One will be price at $2,600, including the $700 Pico Neo 3 headset (which the company stresses can also be used as a standard Pico headset (including PC VR streaming). That leaves the treadmill itself at $1,900, the cost of a high-end treadmill. The company is also promising an option to finance the Omni One for $65 per month.

And for those that really believe in Virtuix and its vision, through the company’s crowd-investment campaign it is offering a 20% discount on Omni One (or more, depending upon the amount invested). The campaign has raised $4.4 million to date.

Continue on Page 2: Omni One Hands-on »

Hands-on: Virtuix Omni One Comes Full Circle with an All-in-one VR Treadmill System Read More »

Hands-on: Apple Vision Pro isn’t for Gaming, But it Does Everything Else Better

apple vision pro hands on, apple vision pro preview, apple vision pro review, Feature, hardware preview, News / Ryan Harris / June 7, 2023

While Apple’s new Vision Pro headset isn’t going to satisfy the existing base of consumer VR users, it’s mastering the rest of the basics better than anyone else.

Probably 90% of what consumers are using VR headsets for today is entertainment, and of that entertainment, most of it is gaming. And if you’re among those people using such headsets today, you’ll reasonably be disappointed that Apple Vision Pro lacks controllers and isn’t going to be playing top VR games anytime soon. But for everyone else, it’s a back-to-basics approach that’s laying a sturdy foundation to build upon in the future.

Today at Apple’s headquarters I got to check out Vision Pro for myself. Unfortunately the company didn’t permit any photos or footage during the demo, but the clips below are a fair representation of what I saw.

Apple Vision Pro (AVP, let’s call it) is doing what only Apple can: carving out a subset of what other devices do, and making sure that subset of things is done really well. And given the current state of UX on most other headsets, this is a reckoning that was a long time coming.

Look & Tap

It starts with the input. Apple is leaning heavily into using your eyes as a cursor, and a pinch gesture as a click. The headset has cameras on the bottom that face downward so that even subtle pinches from your hand in your lap are visible and detected. But you don’t see a floating cursor where your eyes are, nor do you see a laser pointer shooting out of your hand. You just look at the thing you want to press, then do a quick pinch.

On paper you might think this sounds shoddy. But remember, this is Apple. They’ve tested and refined this system six ways from Sunday, and it works so well that after a minute or two you hardly think about how you’re interacting with the headset, you just are.

The pinch input is responsive and reliable. It felt so natural that the two or three times the headset missed my pinch during a 30 minute demo it felt really weird because my brain was already convinced of its reliability.

This look-and-pinch system is so simple for the headset’s basic input that I won’t be surprised if we see other companies adopt it as soon as possible.

Reality First

So there’s the simple input and then there’s a passthrough-by-default view. This is an MR headset after all, meaning it can easily do augmented reality—where most of your view is of the real world, with some virtual content; or virtual reality—where all of your view is virtual content.

When you put AVP on your head, you instantly see the outside world first. In fact, the way that Apple defers to the passthrough view shows that they want to treat fully immersive experiences as the exception rather than the rule. Generally you won’t pop into a fully immersive scene unless you actively making the decision to do so.

The passthrough view is certainly best-in-class, but we’re still probably two generations away from it truly feeling like there’s nothing separating your eyes from the real world. Granted, I was able to read all the text on my phone with no issue, which has been the ‘bar’ for passthrough quality that I’ve been waiting to see exceeded.

Beautiful Virtual Displays

The imperfect passthrough resolution somewhat betrays the exceptional display resolution which exhibits not even a hint of screen-door effect. It may not be ‘retina resolution’ (generally agreed to be around 60 pixels per-degree), but it’s good enough that I won’t know how far off it is from retina resolution until I sit down with an objective test target to find out.

That’s a long way of saying that the headset’s display has excellent resolution with great clarity across the lens. Top of the class.

This clarity is helped by the fact that Apple has done its Apple-y thing and ensured that panels, text, and images consistently render with superb quality. The entire interface feels iOS-polished with animations and easy to use buttons and controls. The interface was so simple to use that the demo chaperones had a hard time keeping me on task as I wanted to flick through menus and move floating apps around the room.

But here’s the thing, probably 75% of what Apple showed me was essentially just floating screens. Whether it was videos or a floating iMessage app or the web browser, it’s clear that Apple wants Vision Pro to be first and foremost be great at displaying flat content to the user.

The other 25% of what I saw, while very impressive all around, felt like just the start of a journey for Apple to build out a broader library immersive experiences.

Record & Rewatch Memories

AVP might not be a VR gaming headset, but it does at least one thing that no other headset does: capture volumetric memories using its on-board cameras. Using the button on the top of the headset you can capture volumetric photos and videos with just a press.

Apple showed me a demo of a volumetric video capture of a group of kids blowing out candles on a birthday cake. It was like they were right in front of me. I’d never even seen these kids before but I could immediately feel their giddy emotions as they giggled and bounced around… as if I was sitting right there while it was happening. Not to mention that the quality was good enough, at least in this best-case-scenario demo capture, that my first thought had nothing to do with the famerate or quality or dynamic range, but purely of the emotion of the people in front of me.

That instant connection—to people I don’t even know—was a clear indicator that there’s something special to this. I can already imagine watching a volumetric video of a cherished memory, or of a loved one that has passed, and I know it would be a powerful experience.

Doing it Right

And here’s the thing; I’ve seen plenty of volumetric video demos before. This isn’t a new idea, not even close. The thing that’s novel here is that everyday users could potentially shoot these videos on their own, and readily watch, share, and store them for later. On other headsets you’d need a special camera for capturing, special software for editing, a player app, and a sharing app to make the same thing happen.

This is the ‘ecosystem’ part of XR that’s missing from most other headsets. It’s not about what’s possible—it’s about what’s easy. And Apple is focused on making using this headset easy.

Continue on Page 2: Immersion Isn’t Off the Table »

Hands-on: Apple Vision Pro isn’t for Gaming, But it Does Everything Else Better Read More »

Hands-on: CREAL’s Light-field Display Brings a New Layer of Immersion to AR

AR display, awe 2023, creal, creal light-field, Feature, hardware preview, light field ar, light field display, News, VR displays / Ryan Harris / June 4, 2023

More than four years after I first caught wind of their tech, CREAL’s light-field display continues to be one of the most interesting and promising solutions for bringing light-fields to immersive headsets. At AWE 2023 I got to check out the company’s latest tech and saw first hand what light-fields mean for immersion in AR headsets.

More Than One Way to Focus

So first, a quick recap. A light-field is a fundamentally different way of showing light to your eyes compared to the typical displays used in most headsets today. The key difference is about how your eyes can focus on the virtual scene.

Your eyes have two focus methods. The one most people are familiar with is vergence (also called stereoscopy), where both eyes point at the same object to bring overlapping views of that object into focus. This is also what makes things look ‘3D’ to us.

But each individual eye is also capable of focusing in a different way by bending the lens of the eye to focus on objects at different distances—the same way that a camera with only one lens focuses. This is called accomodation.

Vergence-Accommodation Conflict

Most XR headsets today support vergenge (stereoscopic focus), but not accomodation (single-eye focus). You may have heard this called Vergence-Accomodation Conflict; also known to the industry as ‘VAC’ because it’s a pervasive challenge for immersive displays.

The reason for the ‘conflict’ is that normally the vergence and accommodation of your eyes work in tandem to achieve optimal focus on the thing you want to look at. But in a headset that supports vergence, but not accomodation, your eyes need to break these typically synchronous functions into independent functions.

It might not be something you ‘feel’ but it’s the reason why in a headset it’s hard to focus on things very near to you—especially objects in your hands that you want to inspect up close.

The conflict between vergence and accommodation can be not just uncomfortable for your eyes, but in a surprising way also rob the scene of immersion.

Creal’s Solution

And this is where we get back to Creal, a company that wants to solve the Vergence-Accommodation Conflict with a light-field display. Light-field displays structure light in the same way that we see it in the real world, allowing both of the focus functions of the eyes—vergence and accommodation—to work in tandem as they normally do.

At AWE 2023 this week, I got to check out the company’s latest light-field display tech, and came away with an added sense of immersion that I haven’t felt in any other AR headset to date.

I’ve seen Creal’s static bench-top demos before, which show static floating imagery through the lens to a single eye, demonstrating that you can indeed focus (accommodate) at different depths. But you won’t really see the magic until you see a light-field with both eyes and head-tracking. Which is exactly what I got to do this week at AWE.

On an admittedly bulky proof-of-concept AR headset, I got to see the company’s light-field display in its natural habitat—floating immersively in front of me. What really impressed me was when I held my hand out and a little virtual turtle came floating over to the palm of my hand. Even though it was semi-transparent, and not exceptionally high resolution or accurately colored, it felt… weirdly real.

I’ve seen all kinds of immersive XR experiences over the years, and holding something in your hand sounds like a banal demo at this point. But there was just something about the way this little turtle looked—thanks to the fact that my eyes could focus on it in the same way they would in the real world—that made it feel more real than I’ve ever really felt in other headsets. Like it was really there in my hand.

The trick is that, thanks to the light-field, when I focused my eyes on the turtle in my hand, both the turtle (virtual) and my hand (real) were each in proper focus—something that isn’t possible with conventional displays—making both my hand and the turtle feel more like they were inhabiting the same space right in front of me.

It’s frustratingly impossible to explain exactly how it appeared via text alone; this video from Creal shot through-the-lens gives some idea of what I saw, but can’t quite show how it adds immersion over other AR headsets:

It’s a subtle thing, and such added immersion probably only meaningful impacts objects within arms reach or closer—but then again, that distance is where things have the potential to feel most real to use because they’re in our carefully watched personal space.

Digital Prescriptions

Beyond just adding a new layer of visual immersion, light-field displays stand to solve another key problem, which is vision correction. Most XR headsets today do not support any kind of prescription vision correction, which for maybe even more than half of the population means they either need to wear their correctives while using these devices, buy some kind of clip-on lens, or just suffer through a blurry image.

But the nature of light-fields means you can apply a ‘digital prescription’ to the virtual content that exactly matches the user’s corrective prescription. And because it’s digital, this can be done on-the-fly, meaning the same headset could have its digital corrective vision setting change from one user to the next. Doing so means the focus of virtual image can match the real world image for those with and without glasses.

Continue on Page 2: A More Acceptable Form-factor »

Hands-on: CREAL’s Light-field Display Brings a New Layer of Immersion to AR Read More »

Hands-on: Bigscreen Beyond – A Little Headset That Could be a Big Deal

bigscreen, bigscreen beyond, bigscreen beyond preview, bigscreen beyond review, darshan shankar, Feature, hardware preview, News, VR Headset / Ryan Harris / March 29, 2023

It’s exceedingly rare to see a VR software startup transition to making hardware, let alone decent hardware. But that’s exactly what Bigscreen—creators of the long-running social VR theater app of the same name—has done with its upcoming Beyond headset.

Bigscreen has clearly targeted PC VR enthusiasts who are willing to pay for the best hardware they can get their hands on. And with major players like Meta and HTC focusing heavily on standalone headsets, Bigscreen Beyond could prove to be the best option they’ll find any time soon.

The company has set out to make a headset that’s not just better than what’s out there, but one that’s much smaller too. And while it remains to be seen if the headset will hit all the right notes, my initial hands-on shows plainly the company knows what it’s doing when it comes to building a VR headset.

Bigscreen Beyond Specs
Resolution	2,560 × 2,560 (6.5MP) per-eye microOLED (2x, RGB stripe)
Pixels Per-degree (claimed)	28
Refresh Rate	75Hz, 90Hz
Lenses	Tri-element pancake
Field-of-view (claimed)	93°H × 90°V
Optical Adjustments	IPD (fixed, customized per customer) eye-relief (fixed, customized per facepad)
IPD Adjustment Range	58–72mm (fixed, single IPD value per device)
Connectors	DisplayPort 1.4, USB 3.0 (2x)
Accessory Ports	USB-C (1x)
Cable Length	5m
Tracking	SteamVR Tracking 1.0 or 2.0 (external beacons)
On-board Cameras	None
Input	SteamVR Tracking controllers
On-board Audio	None
Optional Audio	Audio Strap accessory, USB-C audio output
Microphone	Yes (2x)
Pass-through view	No
Weight	170–185g
MSRP	$1,000
MSRP (with tracking & controllers)	$1,580

Custom-made

Bigscreen is building something unique, quite literally—every Beyond headset comes with a custom-made facepad. And this isn’t a ‘choose one of three options’ situation, Bigscreen has a sleek app that walks buyers through the process of capturing a 3D scan of their face so the company can create a completely unique facepad that conforms to each specific customer.

And it really makes a difference. The first thing that Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar showed me during a demo of the Beyond headset was the difference between my personal facepad (which the company created for me prior to our meetup) and someone else’s facepad. The difference was instantly obvious; where mine fit against my face practically like two connected puzzle-pieces, the other facepad awkwardly disagreed with my face in various places. While I’ve recognized for a long time that different facial topology from person-to-person is a real consideration for VR headsets, this made me appreciate even more how significant the differences can be.

The facepad may look rough, but it’s actually made of a soft rubber material | Photo by Road to VR

Shankar says the custom-fit facepad is an essential part of making such a small headset. It ensures not only that the headset is as comfortable as it can be, but also the user’s eyes are exactly where they’re supposed to be with regard to the lenses. For a headset like Beyond, which uses high magnification pancake optics with a small sweet spot, this is especially important. And, as Shankar convincingly demonstrated by shining a flashlight all around the headset while I was wearing it, the custom-fit facepad means absolutely no external light can be seen from inside.

And the custom facepad isn’t the only way each headset is dialed in for each specific customer; instead of wasting weight and space with the mechanics for an IPD adjustment, the headset ships with one of 15 fixed IPD distances, ranging from 58–72mm. The company selects the IPD based on the same face scan that allows them to make the custom facepad. And given the size of the Beyond headset, there’s no way that glasses will fit inside; luckily the company will also sell magnetically attached prescription inserts for those who need them, up to −10 diopter.

Diving In

With my custom facepad easily snapped onto the headset with magnets, it was time to dive into VR.

The baseline version of the $1,000 Bigscreen Beyond headset has a simple soft strap, which I threw over the back of my head and tightened to taste. I felt I had to wear the strap very high on the back of my head for a good hold; Shankar says an optional top-strap will be available, which ought to allow me to wear the rear strap in a lower position.

As I put on the headset I found myself sitting in a dark Bigscreen theater environment, and the very first thing I noticed was the stellar darks and rich colors that are thanks to the headset’s OLED displays. The second thing I noticed was there was no sound! That’s because the baseline version of the headset doesn’t have on-board audio, so I still had to put on a pair of headphones after the headset was donned.

While the baseline headset lacks on-board audio, Bigscreen is offering a $100 ‘Audio Strap‘, which is a rigid headstrap with built-in speakers. As someone who really values rigid straps and on-board audio, I’m glad to see this as an option—for me it would be the obvious choice. Unfortunately the company wasn’t ready to demo the Audio Strap.

Shankar toured me around a handful of VR environments that showed off the headset’s 2,560 × 2,560 (6.5MP) per-eye displays, which offered a level of clarity similar to that of Varjo’s $2,000 Aero headset, but with a smaller notably field-of-view (Bigscreen claims 90°H × 93°V).

On many current-gen headsets like Quest 2 you can’t quite see the individual lines of the screen-door effect, but it’s still clear that it’s there in aggregate. While the Beyond headset isn’t ‘retina resolution’ there’s essentially no evidence of any screen-door effect. Everything looks really sharp. This was best demonstrated when I ran around in Half-Life: Alyx and the game felt like it had instantly upgraded graphics compared to a headset like Valve’s Index.

There is, however, some persistence blurring and glare. Shankar openly demonstrated how the brightness of the display directly relates to the level of persistence. While there’s some noticeable persistence at the default brightness, when overdriving the display’s brightness the persistence becomes entirely unbearable. The reverse is true; turning the brightness down below the default cuts the persistence down noticeably. While it would be nice if the default brightness had less persistence, at least users will be able to trade brightness for lower persistence based on their specific preference.

Continue on Page 2: Dialing In

Hands-on: Bigscreen Beyond – A Little Headset That Could be a Big Deal Read More »

Hands-on: HTC’s New Standalone Vive Tracker Effortlessly Brings More of Your Body Into VR

GDC 2023, hardware preview, HTC, htc standalone tracker, htc tracker, htc vive tracker, htc vive tracker inside out, News, Preview, VR Tracking / Ryan Harris / March 26, 2023

With three versions of SteamVR trackers under its belt, HTC has been a leading enabler of full-body tracking in VR. Now the company’s latest tracker could make it even easier to bring your body into VR.

HTC’s new standalone Vive tracker (still unnamed) has a straightforward goal: work like the company’s existing trackers, but easier and on more platforms.

The ‘easier’ part comes thanks to inside-out tracking—using on-board cameras to allow the device to track its own position, rather than external beacons like those used by the company’s prior trackers.

To that end, things seem really promising so far. I got to demo the new Vive tracker at GDC 2023 this week and was impressed with how well everything went.

With two of the new Vive trackers strapped to my feet, I donned a Vive XR Elite headset and jumped into a soccer game. When I looked down at my feet, I saw a pair of virtual soccer shoes. And when I moved my feet in real-life, the soccer shoes moved at the same time. It took less than two seconds for my mind to say ‘hey those are my feet!’, and that’s a testament to both the accuracy and latency being very solid with the new tracker.

That’s not a big deal for older trackers that use SteamVR Tracking, which has long been considered the gold standard for VR tracking. But to replicate a similar level of performance in a completely self-contained device that’s small and robust enough to be worn on your feet… that’s a big deal for those who crave the added immersion that comes with bringing more of your body into VR.

Throughout the course of my demo, my feet were always where I expected to see them. I saw no strange spasms or freezing in place, no desync of coordinate planes between the tracker and the headset, and no drifting of the angle of my feet. That allowed me to easily forget that I was wearing anything special on my feet and simply focus on tracking to kick soccer balls into a goal.

While the tracker worked well throughout, the demo had an odd caveat—I had feet but no legs! That makes it kind of weird to try to juggle a soccer ball when you expect to be able to use your shin as a backboard but watch as the ball rolls right over your virtual foot.

Ostensibly this is the very thing that trackers like this should be able to fix; by attaching two more trackers to my knees, I should be able to have a nearly complete representation of my leg movements in VR, making experiences like ‘soccer in VR’ possible when they simply wouldn’t work otherwise.

I’m not sure if the demo app simply wasn’t designed to handle additional tracking points on the knees, or if the trackers are currently limited to just two, but HTC has confirmed the final inside-out Vive tracker will support up to five trackers in addition to the tracked headset and controllers.

Trackers can, of course, be used to track more than just your body, though apps that support these kinds of tracked accessories are rare | Photo by Road to VR

So the inside-out factor is the ‘easier’ part, but what about the other goal of the tracker—to be available on more platforms than just SteamVR Tracking?

Well, the demo I was playing was actually running purely on the standalone Vive XR Elite. To connect the trackers, a small USB-C dongle needs to be connected to the headset to facilitate the proprietary wireless connection between the dongle and the trackers. HTC says the same dongle can plug into a PC and the trackers will work just fine through SteamVR.

The company also says it’s committed to making the trackers OpenXR compatible, which means (in theory) any headset could support them if they wanted.

– – — – –

I only got to use it in one configuration (on my feet) and in one environment (a large office space). So there’s still the question of how robust they will be. For now though, I’m suitably impressed.

If these trackers really work as well as they seem from their first impression, it could open the door to a new wave of people experiencing the added immersion of full-body tracking in VR… but there’s still the lingering question of price, which historically never seems to be quite right consumer VR market when it comes to HTC. Until then, our fingers shall remain crossed.

Hands-on: HTC’s New Standalone Vive Tracker Effortlessly Brings More of Your Body Into VR Read More »

PSVR 2 Unboxing – Close-up with the Final Version of Sony’s New VR Headset

Feature, hardware preview, News, PlayStation VR 2, playstation vr 2 unboxing, psvr 2, psvr 2 review, psvr 2 road to vr, psvr 2 unboxing, VR Headset / Ryan Harris / February 11, 2023

Ahead of the launch of PSVR 2, we’ve got a close-up look at the finished version of the headset and what you can expect to find when you crack open the box.

It’s just two weeks until Sony’s newest VR headset hits the streets, and while we’re not yet allowed to go into detail, today we’ve got a close-up look at the production hardware and Sony’s official controller dock. Stay tuned for our full PSVR 2 review.

The very first thing to notice about PSVR 2 compared to the original is the simplicity of setup… this is everything you’ll see in the box.

Compare that to the original PSVR which had a breakout box requiring extra cables and its own power adapter—not to mention the PS Eye camera that was required for the headset (and the photo below doesn’t even include the Move controllers).

Compared to the original, PSVR 2’s single-cable operation and inside-out tracking makes it so much easier to use.

Getting closer to the headset itself, we get a good look at its range of adjustments. On the top there’s an IPD dial for dialing in the distance between the lenses. Also on top is a button to adjust eye-relief (the range of which is pretty impressive). And on the back is the crank to tighten the headstrap, with the center of the crank acting as a button which releases the springy tension.

As we learned in our early preview of PSVR 2, the headset has an assisted calibration step which helps the user hone in their individual headset orientation and IPD settings, thanks to the in-built eye-tracking.

On the bottom of the headset is the power button and a button to activate PSVR 2’s passthrough view. Alongside those is the built-in microphone.

While PSVR 2 doesn’t have directly integrated audio, it comes with a pair of custom earbuds which attached to the underside of the rear headstrap and stow in little holes at the sides of the headset. You can use your own 3.5mm headphones instead if you’d like to.

And then there’s the PSVR 2 ‘Sense’ controllers, which have a particularly interesting shape to them. Inside the circular strut is hidden infrared LEDs which can be seen by the headset to track the controllers.

Compared to something like Quest 2, the unique shape and placement of the ring does a good job of reducing the likelihood that you’ll bump the controllers into each other during hand-to-hand interactions. However, the design has a somewhat off-kilter balance to it.

The wrist-straps are mounted on the inside of the tracking ring and can be removed if desired.

The PSVR 2 controllers are rechargeable via USB-C, but Sony is also selling a purpose-built PSVR 2 controller charging dock to make it easy to charge your controllers without fiddling with cables. While its existence is appreciated, and it generally gets the job done, it’s a bit funky to sit the controllers in just the right spot to initiate the charge. Still, I’d rather this than plugging in two cables every time I’m done playing.

We’re looking forward to sharing our full PSVR 2 review in the near future—if you’ve got questions for us, drop them in the comments below!

PSVR 2 Unboxing – Close-up with the Final Version of Sony’s New VR Headset Read More »

PSVR 2 vs. PSVR – How Far Has PlayStation VR Come Since 2016?

Feature, hardware preview, News, PlayStation VR 2, playstation vr 2 resolution, psvr 1 vs psvr 2, psvr 1 vs psvr 2 specs, psvr 2, psvr 2 field of view, psvr 2 fov, psvr 2 resolution, psvr 2 specs, psvr vs psvr 2 / Blake Jones / February 9, 2023

PlayStation VR 2 is just around the corner, and by this point Sony detailed all of the headsets core specs and features. Comparing PSVR vs. PSVR 2 specs side-by-side shows us how much has changed since Sony’s first consumer headset released in 2016.

Update (February 6th, 2023): With PSVR 2 launch day just around the corner, we’ve updated this spec sheet and commentary with the latest info, now including PSVR 2’s weight and cable length.

Among the major players in the VR space, Sony has bided its time on a follow-up to the original headset. By the time PSVR 2 releases on February 22nd, 2023, it will have been six years and four months since the original PSVR released back in 2016.

The original PSVR was released about six months after the first major consumer VR headsets—HTC Vive and Oculus Rift—hit the market back in 2016. However HTC, Oculus, and others have released many new headsets in the interim. To its credit, PSVR managed to feel competitive for many years after its release, but eventually began to feel dated as the rest of the pack charged ahead into VR’s ‘gen-2’ epoch.

Now here we are in 2023 with PSVR 2 on PS5 set to bring new life to Sony’s VR ambitions. Let’s take a look at how PSVR and PSVR 2 specs compare:

PSVR vs. PSVR 2 Specs
	PSVR 2	PSVR
Resolution	2,000 x 2,040 (4.1MP) per-eye, OLED, HDR	960 x 1,080 (1.0MP) per-eye, RGB OLED
Refresh Rate	90Hz, 120Hz	90Hz, 120Hz
Lenses	Fresnel	Single element non-Fresnel
Field-of-view (claimed)	110° (diagonal presumed)	100° (diagonal presumed)
Optical Adjustments	IPD, eye-relief	Eye-relief
Connectors	USB-C (no breakout box)	USB, HDMI (breakout box)
Cable Length	4.5m	4.4m
Tracking	Inside-out (no external beacons)	Outside-in (external camera)
On-board cameras	4x IR (external), 2x IR (internal)	None
Pass-through View	Yes	No
Input	PSVR 2 Sense controllers (rechargable), DualShock 5 (rechargable) eye-tracking	DualShock 4 (rechargeable), PS Move (rechargeable), PS Aim (rechargeable), voice
Audio	3.5mm aux output	3.5mm aux output
Microphone	Yes	Yes
Haptics	Controllers, headset	Controllers
Weight	560g	600g
Release Date	February 22nd, 2023	October 13th, 2016
Console Compatibility	PS5	PS4, PS4 Pro, PS5 (with adapter, only PS4 compatible VR games)

PSVR 2 Specs & Features – Beyond the Numbers

It’s easy to get lost in the numbers so let’s really break down the major changes between the headsets.

Resolution, Field-of-view, & HDR

For one, PSVR 2 has about four times the pixel count of PSVR. All things being equal, that means images inside the headset would look about four times sharper, which is a substantial improvement.

However, we know that all things won’t be equal. Sony quotes the field-of-view of PSVR 2 at 110° compared to 100° for PSVR 1. That means that while PSVR 2 has many more pixels, they’ll be stretched over a slightly wider area. Overall the sharpness of the headset should still be substantially better, but not quite as much as the sheer increase in pixels would suggest.

As for the field-of-view itself, 100° to 110° isn’t a huge leap, but you’d surely notice it if you compared the headsets side-by-side.

Unless a surprise headset beats it to the punch, PSVR 2 will be the first commercially available VR headset to launch with an HDR (high-dynamic range) display. That means it’s capable of a much wider range of brightness than a typical headset. Functionally this means the headset will be able to produce scenes with more life-like brightness which in theory could improve immersion considerably.

Granted, in our PSVR 2 preview we didn’t clearly notice the headset’s HDR capabilities, though it isn’t clear if the games on display had been optimized for the feature yet. Another possibility is that the HDR mode simply may have the kind of peak brightness you’d see from an HDR TV. So at this point it’s unclear if HDR will be a ‘nice to have’ feature, or something that defines the headset compared to its contemporaries.

Lenses & IPD

PSVR 1 lens | Photo courtesy iFixit (BY-NC-SA)

The original PSVR was for a long time the only major headset on the market that didn’t use Fresnel lenses, which are known to cause glare (in exchange for other benefits). PSVR 2, on the other hand, will be following the rest of the industry which has long moved to Fresnel lenses as the industry standard.

The lenses in the original PSVR had a large enough eye-box that Sony didn’t feel the need to include an IPD adjustment (which adjusts the lenses to match the distance between your eyes). However, PSVR 2 does have an IPD adjustment which is a good idea for many reasons, so we’re glad to see this addition. Meanwhile, PSVR 2 retains the eye-relief feature found on the original PSVR, which is useful for dialing in the most comfortable view and to make room for those with glasses.

Ease-of-use & Tracking

Even though this reads minimally on a spec sheet, this is a huge deal for PSVR 2—no more breakout box and no more external camera.

PSVR 1 setup diagram | image courtesy Sony

PSVR 1 ships with a large breakout box that accepts two plugs from the headset that run along a thick cable. The breakout box has to be connected to the host console by a USB cable and an HDMI cable (and also has to be plugged into the TV). And don’t forget that it needs its own power supply. That’s six… yes, six, individual plugs running into and out of the box.

Needless to say, the breakout box was a bit of a pain. Not only did it complicate the user’s A/V set up, in some cases it even created resolution and HDR issues for certain TVs; this was partly fixed with a later revision to the PSVR hardware, but even so the breakout box was a hindrance to the overall experience.

Oh and don’t forget about the camera. PSVR 1 required the PS4 camera for tracking, which meant having another peripheral plugged into your console. Not only that, but the camera was never made for VR in the first place and it suffered from poor tracking accuracy and limited coverage.

Sony has identified and eliminated these issues for PSVR 2. The breakout box is completely gone; the headset will plug into the PS5 with a single USB-C cable through the USB-C port conveniently placed right on the front of the PS5. That’s great news but we surely hope that little connector can hold the cable in tightly enough to not get yanked out if the cord gets tugged during intense VR sessions!

And the PS4 camera is gone too. Instead of using ‘outside-in’ tracking with a camera that sits on your TV, PSVR 2 has on-board cameras for ‘inside-out’ tracking. That means the cameras on the headset itself are used to track the player’s head movements. This eliminates another extra peripheral compared to PSVR 1.

But there’s a risk in Sony’s move to inside-out tracking. The quality of inside-out tracking varies greatly between headset makers. While the inside-out tracking on Quest 2, for instance, is very good, the inside-out tracking on Windows VR headsets leaves much to be desired. Only a handful of companies in the world have shown that they can deliver top-tier inside-out tracking for VR.

Granted, the bar is pretty low in this case. Tracking on PSVR 1 was arguably the worst among major headsets on the market, but it still sold very well regardless. Even if PSVR 2 has just ‘ok’ inside-out tracking, it could still be an improvement over the poor tracking of the original.

All that said, Sony tends to be pretty serious about VR, and I expect they’ll have a decent solution for inside-out tracking, if not a very good one.

Continue on Page 2: Eye-tracking, Controllers, Audio, & Headset Haptics »

PSVR 2 vs. PSVR – How Far Has PlayStation VR Come Since 2016? Read More »

Hands-on: Pimax Crystal Touts Impressive Clarity, But Suffers From a (potentially fixable) Flaw

Feature, hardware preview, News, Pimax, pimax ces 2023, pimax crystal, pimax crystal hands on, pimax crystal release date, pimax hands on review, VR Headset / Blake Jones / January 20, 2023

At CES 2023 Pimax was showing off its latest high-resolution headset, the Pimax Crystal, which uses new lenses and new displays for what the company says is its clearest looking image yet. And while it’s definitely an improvement in many areas over the company’s headsets, there’s a key flaw that I hope the Pimax will be able to address.

Pimax Crystal employs new lenses and promises to be rid of glare and god rays that were apparent in prior Pimax headsets (and many others) which used Fresnel lenses. That, along with high-resolution displays, purported HDR capability, swappable lenses (to trade field-of-view for pixel density), and up to a 160Hz refresh rate. For a full breakdown of the headset’s spec, see our announcement article.

At CES 2023 I got to see the headset myself for the first time. Although the headset is technically capable of running in standalone mode, I saw it running as a PC VR headset with SteamVR Tracking.

Pimax Crystal (pictured without the SteamVR Tracking faceplate) | Photo by Road to VR

Naturally, the demo I was shown was running Half-Life: Alyx—arguably VR’s best looking game—to show off the detail the headset can reproduce with its 2,880 × 2,880 (8.3MP) per-eye displays. From the quick hands-on I got with Pimax Crystal, I could see this was a big step up in clarity over the company’s prior headsets, especially with regards to edge-to-edge clarity. The visual basics were solid too in terms of pupil swim, geometric distortion, and chromatic aberration. There was a little mura visible on this headset but nothing egregious as far as I could tell.

But there was one thing that immediately stood out to my eyes which otherwise foils a good looking image: blur during head movement. While the static image seen through the headset looks quite sharp, as soon as you start moving your head to look around the world you’ll see a lot of blur—that’s a problem for VR considering that your head is very frequently in motion.

My best guess is this is being caused by persistence blur; a display artifact that’s mostly solved on other headsets and is thus rarely seen anymore. Persistence blurring is is caused by the display staying lit for too long, such that as you turn your head the pixels remain lit even while their position becomes inaccurate (because they are ‘frozen’ in place each frame, until the next frame comes along and updates the position to account for your head movement). Most headsets employ a form of ‘low-persistence’ which counteracts this issue by illuminating the display for only a fraction of the time between frames, such that as you move your head the pixels aren’t ‘frozen’ in place, but are actually unlit, leaving your brain to fill in the gaps without seeing the pixels blur between frames.

The amount of blur I saw through Pimax Crystal I would say notably compromises what is otherwise an impressively clean image, though there’s a chance that Pimax could fix this issue, depending upon exactly what’s causing it.

For one, it’s possible that the headsets being shown at CES 2023 were still not fully tuned and that low-persistence hasn’t been properly tuned (or maybe isn’t even enabled yet). In that case it might be a matter of final tweaks before they get the correct display behavior which could reduce persistence blur.

Another factor could be the headset’s ‘HDR’ capability. While I don’t believe Pimax has shared any information on peak brightness, it’s possible that the display can’t do both low-persistence and HDR brightness at the same time (indeed this is a challenge because HDR needs high brightness while low-persistence needs pixels to be illuminated only for a minimal amount of time).

Curiously, I also noticed what appeared to be persistence blurring on pre-release versions of PSVR 2… which also purports to have an HDR display. For both PSVR 2 and Pimax Crystal, I’m hoping we’ll see improvements by the time the finished headsets are headed to customers.

And still there’s other possibilities—this might not be persistence blur at all, but simply slow pixel switching time causing some form of ghosting, which could be an inherent limitation of the display or maybe something that could be tweaked.

– – — – –

Ultimately I’m pretty impressed with the clarity and wide field-of-view of the Pimax Crystal, but the blur I’ve seen during head movement compromises the image in my book. My gut says this is probably a persistence blurring issue, though it could be something else. We’ll have to wait to see what Pimax says about this and if they’re able to make improvements by the time Crystal ships.

Speaking about Crystal shipping; the headset was originally planned for release in Q3 of 2022, but that date has slipped. Although the company hosted a ‘Pimax Crystal Launch Event‘ back in November, at CES 2023 Pimax said the first headsets will start being delivered at the end of this month, though the company also indicates that it won’t reach full production capacity until the middle of the year. Even when the first units do start shipping, key accessories and features, like the headset’s standalone mode—which makes up about half of its value proposition—aren’t expected to be available until unspecified points in the future.

Hands-on: Pimax Crystal Touts Impressive Clarity, But Suffers From a (potentially fixable) Flaw Read More »

Hands-on: Vive XR Elite is Lightweight & Compact, But Shares Quest Pro’s Woes

ces 2023, hardware preview, htc vive xr elite, htc vive xr elite hands-on, MR headset, News, Standalone VR Headset, Vive XR Elite, vive xr elite review / Ryan Harris / January 9, 2023

At CES 2023 HTC revealed its new Vive XR Elite headset which is positioned as a Quest Pro competitor. In terms of features and hardware, the headset is largely a refinement of formfactor over anything else; and while it’s undoubtedly compact and lightweight, it may be hampered by an unclear value proposition and some ergonomic details that went overlooked.

For a detailed look at Vive XR Elite’s specs and features, check out our announcement article

Everyone’s head shape, nose size, and eye positions are different. That said, the first time I put on Vive XR Elite it was clear to me that there wasn’t nearly enough room for my nose… something that I have no issue with on almost every other major headset on the market (even HTC’s other VR headsets).

It’s not that it’s impossible to get the pressure off your nose—the optional top-strap (which HTC smartly included) makes this easy enough—but the problem is that if I raise the headset up to get weight off of my nose, my eyes are no longer in the sweet spot of the lens, making the view through the headset sub-par. More padding around the nose would have a similar issue of moving the lenses out of the sweet spot.

While I didn’t get to use the headset for an extended period of time, I have a strong suspicion that the nose thing is going to be a literal and figurative pain point on this headset. And as someone who doesn’t have a particularly large nose, I can’t imagine I’m going to be the only person with this issue.

The nose thing isn’t the only ergonomic oversight that was immediately apparent. There’s also the fact that the rear pad, which is designed to cup the back of your head, doesn’t cushion your head enough to prevent contact between your skull and the battery on the back. That means that as you tighten the headset you can feel a big, flat, plastic surface pushing against your head. That’s compared to something like the Quest 2 Elite Strap (which the rear of Vive XR Elite appears to emulate), where I can only feel the pads hugging the back of my head, but never the battery behind them.

Beyond these worrying ergonomic subtleties, the headset’s fundamentals feel solid across the board, making the Vive XR Elite the company’s most refined standalone to date. But from a feature and performance standpoint, the headset feels more like Quest 2 than Quest Pro, which puts it in an awkward place with its $1,100 pricetag.

Visually, Vive XR Elite’s pancake lenses are pretty good on the clarity front, with good edge-to-edge clarity, though falling short of the excellent lenses on Quest Pro. The use of non-Fresnel lenses means a reduction in glare and god rays compared to Quest 2, though the resolution and visibility of the screen door is about the same between the two headsets (1,920 × 1,920 vs. 1,920 × 1,832). And while the peripheral field of view feels a little tight, the added dioptre control (for changing the focus of each lens) will be welcomed by those with glasses, and even those without will be served well by the continuous IPD adjustment (which includes an on-screen measurement readout and calibration pop-up).

Inside-out head-tracking feels pretty good and is surely ‘good enough’, though the instantaneous rotational latency doesn’t feel as tight as Meta’s bar-setting inside-out solution. Importantly, the tracking feels better than Vive Flow, which in my experience has too much latency for long-term comfort. Controller-tracking on Vive XR Elite also feels solid, and with cameras on each side pointed almost entirely to your left and right, coverage ought to be good (potentially surpassing Vive Focus 3).

As the name implies, the HTC is pushing the XR Elite as a headset that does passthrough AR in addition to VR. The headset’s color pass-through view isn’t stellar. Similar to Meta’s headsets, the XR Elite attempts to rebuild the depth of the real world virtually to provide geometric correction and depth cues, but even with a depth-sensor on-board (which Quest Pro lacks), my experience with the headset’s passthrough AR showed a lot of warping due to incorrect depth-mapping.

Without being able to do a direct side-by-side comparison, my impression was that XR Elite wasn’t quite as sharp as Quest Pro when it comes to passthrough AR. Granted, the passthrough AR on both headsets headsets is definitely in the same approximate ‘class’ (not sharp enough to read text from your smartphone and quite poor dynamic range at that).

Just like with Quest Pro, the quality and application of passthrough AR feels entirely undercooked, with the handful of AR apps I tried on the headset not sufficiently answering the question ‘why AR?’. But now that another headset on the market is embracing and enhancing this capability, perhaps the answers to that question will come a bit sooner.

– – — – –

Considering its performance and features, Vive XR Elite seems to share the same core problem as Quest Pro—and that’s the value proposition. Even if we ignore any potential ergonomic mishaps… at best Vive XR Elite is akin to a somewhat more compact version of Quest 2. And even if we ignore that Quest 2 has a much more extensive content library… it’s difficult to see how, for most people, Vive XR Elite can justify an $1,100 price tag compared to Quest 2 at $400.

Hands-on: Vive XR Elite is Lightweight & Compact, But Shares Quest Pro’s Woes Read More »

hardware preview

Powered Up

Passthrough

Room Scanning

Paid Parking

The Virtuix Omni Backstory

Coming Full Circle

Look & Tap

Reality First

Beautiful Virtual Displays

Record & Rewatch Memories

Doing it Right

More Than One Way to Focus

Vergence-Accommodation Conflict

Creal’s Solution

Digital Prescriptions

Custom-made

Diving In

PSVR vs. PSVR 2 Specs

PSVR 2 Specs & Features – Beyond the Numbers

Resolution, Field-of-view, & HDR

Lenses & IPD

Ease-of-use & Tracking