Headsets Delayed into 2024

https://simulavr.com/blog/headsets-delayed/

by chungus • 3 years ago

165 93 3 years ago

karmakaze• 3 years ago

I haven't been following SimulaVR and do see the appeal of an all-in-one platform. The costs of quality and performance do add up and I can't justify to myself investing in it. I would much prefer to separate the HMD like something closer to the Bigscreen Beyond form-factor and a CPU/battery that's independently upgradeable and not supported by my neck.

kanetw6• 3 years ago

Yeah, understandable. For us it's a deliberate design decision to minimize the amount of moving parts (=hassle, things to get tangled in, etc.)

drcode5• 3 years ago

I bought in on the presale, and have been very happy with how you guys have been approaching this project. It's obviously an uphill battle to release this device, but I love the ambition and lack of compromise you guys have in creating a new form factor.

I think you are likely too early to market, making it a hard sell for a mass market in the short term. If you can survive long enough I think you can do well, however.

dcow2• 3 years ago

On a positive note, given a16z's feedback, I'm sure they can find another firm/partner that would be willing to back them at this stage. They are definitely in a hard position, though. Reading this I doubt I'd put money in as a consumer until they have the capital to execute. Sounds like they really need 3-5MM to hit their objectives even though they only say 1.2MM.

I've also seen a16z invest in far less (pitch decks and hand-wave demos). So my read on the feedback is they've made too much progress on one front (enough to show a16z that they're not a compelling seed investment) but not enough progress on the other front (enough to warrant a PMF A round). Doesn't seem like the most fun spot to be in, and I know how hard this part of the stretch is. Good luck!

kanetw6• 3 years ago

We've tightened up the numbers a bit, but it's pretty close to a honest amount. 4m would put us well into profitable S1 production + enough runway to develop the next iteration territory.

I've also seen a16z invest in far less (pitch decks and hand-wave demos). So my read on the feedback is they've made too much progress on one front (enough to show a16z that they're not a compelling seed investment) but not enough progress on the other front (enough to warrant a PMF A round). Doesn't seem like a fun spot to be in.

That's how I feel as well, given feedback from other VCs we've applied at. Amplify told us roughly "too big for a seed, too small for a series A" after five meetings or so.

dcow2• 3 years ago

Bummer I missed the SAFE round. I would consider chipping in as an investor even though I wouldn't feel comfortable purchasing a preorder as a consumer. Wonder if you can structure your next round to include spots for people that missed the train...

michaelbuckbee• 3 years ago

I don't know if this is strictly a "rule" but from the places I've worked, it's been the case that given the capital/batch/order constraints of hardware, it's very difficult to make break even on less than 10,000 units.

kanetw6• 3 years ago

With our current design, we break even at about exactly 1k units.

criddell3• 3 years ago

While we expect consumers to be really excited about a VR takeoff in 2024

My guess is that there will indeed be a lot of excitement in 2024 (at least in Apple land) and then it's going to drop off again in 2025. That's not necessarily a terrible thing though.

Meta has sold something like 25 million headsets. The market is already bigger than many people realize and maybe it's big enough. It doesn't need to 10x and if it did, there's more than a small chance that kind of growth would end up being bad thing. Maybe a16z not biting means enshittification has been delayed.

georgewsinger4• 3 years ago

Agreed that VR gaming is bigger than most people realize, but VR for productivity (to replace PCs & laptops) is still an untapped market. VR pixel density is now within one doubling of "human eye resolution", so it seems like now's the time for VR to be useful for this use case.

Apple's headset is really cool, but is being built over iOS for 2D apps, so isn't realistically going to replace someone's laptop as their primary computing device.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36326677

criddell3• 3 years ago

It’s not for me, but I’m still rooting for you. It feels like something that should exist.

ajdude2• 3 years ago

Like I mentioned in a related thread [1], I really want to see simulavr succeed. They started working on this stuff before anyone else did but one of my worries is that Apple and other big names are going to come in and establish the VR Computing market before the Simula one is launched.

[1] SimulaVR: Headsets Delayed (simulavr.com) 8 points by Philpax 1 day ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37559316

georgewsinger4• 3 years ago

Appreciate your support. From our perspective, the Apple headset is more an "iPad replacement" than a "laptop replacement".[1]

The Vision Pro is based on their iOS (iPad/iPhone) ecosystem for their 2D apps, so you won't be able to use powerhouse office apps. It seems instead more geared towards the passive consumption of information, entertainment, and casual gaming, whereas we're trying to build something that can realistically replace a (Linux) laptop.

I'm not sure what Apple is thinking strategically, but they're structurally incentivized to cannibalize their iPad sales over their macbook sales (since their iPads are their weakest product in their lineup in terms of sales).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36326677

papa_bear• 3 years ago

For me personally, it’s appealing that it just provides a mirror to my existing MacBook. It gives me more flexibility on when to use glasses vs laptop screen, like if I need to take notes in a meeting/lecture hall.

CharlesW2• 3 years ago

The Vision Pro is based on their iOS (iPad/iPhone) ecosystem for their 2D apps, so you won't be able to use powerhouse office apps.

Creators can use the Vision Pro as their Mac's display, and/or run Office directly on Vision Pro.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-vision-pro-can-be-used-...

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/5/23749947/apple-vision-pro-...

parl_match• 3 years ago

It seems instead more geared towards the passive consumption of information, entertainment, and casual gaming, whereas we're trying to build something that can realistically replace a (Linux) laptop.

FWIW, it appears that Apple themselves don't see it as that. They are focusing on consumption for the initial release, but there are clear plans to bring "full" macos apps to Vision Pro.

They haven't released everything, but what you need to know is in the category they're placing AVP: computer. They refer to it as a computer, repeatedly. Not a mobile device. And, all of their computers run Xcode. I would be very surprised if we don't hear more about that by next year.

npunt• 3 years ago

Disagree, I think this is not a good read on Apple strategy and you may be heeding the wrong lessons in computing history.

1. The passive vs active framing applies primarily to non-Pro iPads. I don't think it can be reasonably argued the $3k Vision Pro is attempting to cannibalize low end iPads. iPad Pros are very different beasts that are designed for a particular type of creative output, and are very capable general purpose computing devices now.

2. There's no particular incentive to cannibalize iPad over Mac, its hard to fathom what dimension that makes sense on. They're happy to cannibalize any product, but their main MO is 'look what cool shit we can do with the latest tech' and Vision Pro is today's version of that. Apple is demonstrably way more interested in building out iOS/iPadOS and we've seen that over the past 10 years, to the point Mac users had to basically revolt to get attention.

3. Of course Vision Pro is based on iPad ecosystem, as its a far more modern set of conventions better suited to mixed modal input than Mac. That isn't a reflection of VP's purpose, but of engineering and design realities - it's far easier to grow iPad/iOS into a top tier spatial computing OS and ecosystem.

While MacOS is wonderful, it's really a product of a particular conception of computing, and shoehorning a 40 year old desktop OS paradigm into entirely new input modalities and ergonomic contexts makes little sense. The puck isn't going anywhere new, the desktop OS modality is baked. Apps will need to adapt to the wondrous new capabilities and constraints of the platform.

Looking at your presentation [1] it's clear the ergonomics are going to be a sticking point, which is a combined hardware & app ecosystem problem: the novelty of windows everywhere bumps up against the human factors / ergonomic fatigue constraints of moving one's head around around more than a few degrees (and whatever you do, don't optimize for looking up!), and app windows with tiny UI elements are going to be similarly fatiguing and unable to adapt to the promise and limitations in accuracy of gaze tracking.

There's a reason WinCE's desktop OS paradigms failed in PDAs whereas iOS succeeded - you need to reinvent the experience when you move modalities. I would argue the exact same thing will happen in AR/VR: sticking with a desktop OS paradigm is a losing proposition.

Just my 2c. Personally I really want to see a variety of offerings and possibilities in the market but I also want them to be based on sound reasoning and approach, which I go into a bit in this essay on category-defining products [2].

[1] https://simulavr.com/blog/seeking-investment/

[2] https://nickpunt.com/blog/category-defining-products/

jlaporte• 3 years ago

MS Office has been available for iOS for just over a decade (June 2013).[1] So it will be on Vision Pro at launch.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office#Mobile_versio...

ramblerman• 3 years ago

Wow, I wish you all the best with this product, but your view of what apple intends with the vision pro is either intentionally naive or wishful thinking.

I see the vision pro 3-5 years from now being part of anyone's workflow that currently uses 3+ screens. And I don't see how this kickstarter competes. So just arguing "yeah but apple din't think of ..." is not encouraging.

coderintherye• 3 years ago

before anyone else did

Not disputing your claim per se, but Google had a project called Daydream back at least as early as 2017 (though seems earlier) and rolled that into Area 120 projects. They canned it at some point in 2021 I believe.

Whereas SimulaVR seems to have started working on this in 2018 per their YC app (but perhaps earlier?) https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula/wiki/YCW19-Application

ajdude2• 3 years ago

I own a daydream, you use it by putting your phone in the visor and using the phone as the headset. It was fun until they started dropping support for everything, and it started to happen much earlier than 2021z

SimulaVR is creating a full computer built into a VR headset for production work.

verdverm4• 3 years ago

speak of the devil, https://www.visor.com/ opened up pre-orders today, deliveries tbd 2024

Very close to the Vision Pro for 1/5 the price, acts more like a peripheral and works on the 3 major operating systems. It's (supposedly) also going to be side-loadable and maybe even more hackable, OpenXR compatible

It's by the folks who make the https://immersed.com/ app

MRTV interview from earlier today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ic_uqEGI18

grogenaut5• 3 years ago

I tried immersed... the latency is a killer (in the bad way)... the bandwidth is a killer... the compute required to re-encode the video is a killer... I gave up. It was easier to flat pack a monitor or now get a 4k 17" monitor...

I'm back to super pessimistic on this tech... I too want simula to ship but I keep also maxing out my laptop on ram and compute and cooling and battery...

I'm rooting for them but I can't help in a financially signifigant method

wkat42422• 3 years ago

Nice, I wonder if this is like bird bath optics like the Xreals or VR-style with camera passthrough? I don't think they specify. I hadn't heard of it yet.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

Hey, nicely designed. A bit of a retro look but not tacky. I like the niche market you are aiming for (Linux hacker) and the work look impressive. I sound like an investor evaluating but I have no scratch to give. Just here to give encouragement and will root for your success

p1esk4• 3 years ago

The specs seem meh, at a price comparable to the Apple headset. I'm sorry to be blunt but how could it possibly be successful?

ekianjo• 3 years ago

If you are not the size of Apple you dont need to have massive market success to be successful

11235813214• 3 years ago

It's going to be more of a general computer than Apple's. There is a market for that, like how System76 and Framework sell laptops even though Macbooks exist and are arguably nicer for the money.

p1esk4• 3 years ago

The market for the entire VR industry is not that great to begin with. Apple might change this eventually or it might not. I just don't see how a small player today could hope to succeed where all existing big players struggle and even Apple might fail.

Also, I'm guessing it's much easier to put together a laptop from off-the-shelf components than to create a VR headset.

grogenaut5• 3 years ago

I don't want apple's nerfed consume based user experience with limited integrations in a desktop replacement headset. They'll deigns it releasable.only ship what actually works perfectly in the first revision. Like they did with the watch and the iphone. Yet android and linux exist so for some reason people want to have a slightly clunky future well before apple deigns it releasable.

mr_machine• 3 years ago

There are refuseniks like me who will never buy into Apple's (or Meta's or Microsoft's) ecosystems for reasons of privacy and control. I'm F/OSS only. In some areas, that leads me to do without. Having options like SimulaVR is very exciting even if the value proposition is arguably less strong.

Whether their potential customer base is large enough for success is a question I have, too.

My fear is that they'll want to make the system as like commercial offerings as possible, which will actually make it less appealing for nerds like me.

pornel• 3 years ago

Native applications for Apple's Vision OS are as limited as iPad apps. I can't imagine being productive on an iPad-like OS. Everything there feels like working in one-finger gloves.

Zetaphor2• 3 years ago

As someone involved in both the crypto and the VR space, why were the first testers crypto people rather than VR people?

It would have been a much easier pitch to those of us who already understand the caveats of this technology at present state, and we're already believers in the idea. Many VR people are using their current generation HMD's for productivity already despite the downsides.

It seems like it would have been a more obvious route to the type of people who are most likely to be your early adopters, and additionally avoids associating your operation with crypto which still carries a stigma.

I have a lot of respect for Vitalik, but I'd much rather hear the opinion of someone like Thrillseeker for a device like this.

wslh2• 3 years ago

As someone involved in both the crypto and the VR space, why were the first testers crypto people rather than VR people?

Because the Metaverse mantra is more linked to crypto than the VR space.

lolinder• 3 years ago

Simula wants nothing to do with the metaverse, so I'm not sure what you're getting at:

https://simulavr.com/blog/we-dont-want-the-metaverse/

georgewsinger4• 3 years ago

Vitalik and Thor were both early preorderers of our headset (we had no connection to them prior). And we didn't have any explicit crypto angle here, but just reached out to them as vetted early enthusiasts, asking if they wanted to help test the headset as users. In a way, there's something pure about getting feedback from people who are interested in the product primarily as users (as opposed to them already being in the industry).

But we actually do have a discussion ongoing with ThrillSeeker about a headset test/video, and we hope it gets made :]

treprinum• 3 years ago

2448x2448 per eye display resolution is unfortunately not sufficient for a real desktop work. I doubt Apple's 3k will be sufficient either. Linux seems cool though and it's essentially a NUC wrapped around one's head.

1MachineElf• 3 years ago

I may be sufficient. SimulaVR has put in work early on to improve the experience. One example is font smoothing you can see in their demos.

regularfry• 3 years ago

It is, though. I do real desktop work on a pair of XReal Airs and they're 1920x1080x2.

Besides which, being able to pan your vision around virtual monitors will make the resolution go a lot further.

wkat42422• 3 years ago

That's because the FoV of the Xreals is much lower so the PPD is higher. For the simula that won't work.

BHSPitMonkey• 3 years ago

You would be surprised. VR/AR can present 2D surfaces that appear to have a much higher resolution than what the LCD should be able to do natively. Because you (ideally) have two eyes (cameras/view frustums) and they're always moving slightly, the virtual canvas is sampling the source texture's pixels slightly different per eye and per frame (e.g. at 90Hz or higher). Between the images your eyes see and the high-frequency changes always happening, your brain pieces together all of the detail.

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

too late

rebeccaskinner• 3 years ago

I remember running across simulavr a couple of years ago, and after Apple's announcement I went to check out what they are up to. I hope they get the funding they're looking for, because this is a product I'd love to see exist in the market.

elif• 3 years ago

I learned my lesson about gofundmysalary years ago but still would consider giving this company an order if they gave even the slightest impression that they were doing the kind of radiation testing that the lawyers are surely forcing the big players to undertake.

Four figure drop for an open source darling project? Maybe.. but it is too big of an ask for me to strap a bunch of dev boards and desktop components to my cranium.

Zetobal2• 3 years ago

The only thing I read out of this is that they have no idea for the interface side of things. The dismissal of critique by "we will fix it later, it's easy" never bodes well especially in regards to ui/ux and Linux.

kanetw6• 3 years ago

No, we fully agree it's a hard problem. Which is why we wrote functional software first, and then went into hardware when the existing hardware couldn't support our use cases.

There's problems with the software that need to be solved before we ship, but it's not with the UI side of things. That's not to say that the UI is perfect (it really isn't), but it's functional and more importantly: can be changed at any time, unlike hardware.

Zetobal2• 3 years ago

If you have hardware and shitty software the only thing that will happen is that your users will be disappointed. You can't change the first reviews or hand-ons "any time". It's a one-shot.

janosdebugs3• 3 years ago

I'm not sure I'm reading these numbers correctly, but is the project selling the units basically at material costs and taking a huge hit on everything else? What am I missing?

georgewsinger4• 3 years ago

Nope, you've got it right. We're selling at a loss up until roughly the ~1,000th unit shipped.

More specifically: if we ship 125 units, we lose roughly ~$5K per headset. If we ship 250 units, we lose roughly ~$2K per headset. If we ship 1,250 units, we're operating at a slight profit with a couple of years of runway. If we ship 10,000 units, our margins approach 45% (at least on our pure hardware offering; we'd like to layer in some software offerings as well).

Unfortunately, the most costly part of the project is the very beginning. But we think these sales targets are doable if we're able to get our operation off the ground (with customers able to see shipped units being used to replace laptops in the wild).

janosdebugs3• 3 years ago

Forgive my bluntness, I know next to nothing about manufacturing: are you able to scale up to 10k units at linear cost?

flarg• 3 years ago

Hardware is either niche and unachievable or commodity and widely available. Maybe you could consider pivoting to software for widely available non mainstream headsets until you make enough to fund the dedicated hardware.

Headsets Delayed into 2024

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