New Work-Focused VR Headset From Silicon Valley Startup Immersed

Visor VR: The Future

A company called Immersed has just opened fully refundable preorders for a sleek-looking work-focused headset it calls Visor. The lightweight device has some impressive specs, including 4K Micro OLED displays per eye, a 100-degree field of view, the ability to spawn up to five virtual monitors and six degrees of freedom built-in tracking.

Design

Visor is a sleek, lightweight headset worn for long periods. Its padded crown is designed to distribute weight evenly over your head, and the lightweight frames are made from polycarbonate and nylon. The Visor also features nose inserts and light blockers that are custom-fitted to each user.

It’s slated to support full 6DoF (six degrees of freedom, including eye and hand tracking) and uses a single, unified lens that functions as both the display and optic combiner. This reduces the overall system complexity and cost while maintaining high image quality. It also supports a new audio standard called spatial audio, which allows you to hear sounds in three dimensions.

While the Visor headset looks like AR glasses, it’s a tethered VR headset that works with a PC. It’s designed for productivity and features dual 4K Micro OLED displays per eye with a 100-degree field of view. Its 706 ppi pixel density is significantly higher than the Rift and Vive.

The Visor is also 25% lighter than a smartphone and fits in the palm of your hand, making it more comfortable to wear for long periods. It also has a set of gyroscopic sensors, an accelerometer, and a magnetometer that help track your position in space.

While the Visor is a SteamVR headset, it’s been built specifically with Immersed’s productivity software. Its tailored hardware-software approach means you can start work within a virtual environment in “seconds” of your PC booting, an important differentiator from other headsets. It’s slated to launch in 2024, and the company is accepting preorders now with a fully refundable deposit.

Tracking

The Visor uses two cameras to track the position of a person’s eyes. This information determines the user’s appearance, which is then displayed in a virtual space. The company claims that this will increase productivity and make collaboration easier. It also says that the headset can eliminate distractions and help people focus on tasks. It’s also 25% lighter than a typical smartphone and can fit in the palm of your hand.

It’s important to note that the company focuses on business users who will spend many hours working in VR, not gamers or consumers. It is not a competitor for Meta or the Vive and does not have a dedicated app store or OS. Instead, the company plans to earn revenue from ongoing software subscriptions.

Unlike the other VR headsets on the market, the Visor doesn’t seal to your head. Instead, it sits before your eyes and a light blocker seals around the edges. It has a 120-degree field of view and offers a high-resolution colour passthrough. The resolution is comparable to a desktop monitor’s, and the blacks are solid, not translucent.

Aside from tracking the position of the eyes, the Visor can track head movement and hand gestures. This enables the user to manipulate and interact with objects in the virtual world. It can also measure a person’s interpupillary distance (IPD), a critical comfort and visual quality factor.

IPD measurement could have a significant impact on the future of VR. Previous work has found associations between the kind of motion tracking in VR and creativity, learning, and other behavioural outcomes. In the future, IPD data could automatically adjust the headset for optimal performance and comfort.

Resolution

Unlike many VR headsets that require a laptop to function, Visor uses its onboard processing power. This allows it to spawn extra virtual displays from your computer and to support collaborative sessions, like coworking in virtual cafes. The device can also run native apps, including a web browser and an immersive home theatre experience. Additionally, the device can sideload OpenXR Android applications for diverse use cases.

Visor is 25% lighter than a smartphone and fits in the palm of your hand. Its two 4K micro-OLED displays offer enough resolution to make you forget about your real-life monitor. The headset also features a 100-degree field of view and an extended battery life of 2 hours.

Immersed has opened “fully refundable” preorders for two distinct versions of the Visor, a 2.5K per eye model and a 4K per eye version that will sell for $500 and $750, respectively. The company has also announced a Founder’s Edition Visor that will ship six months ahead of the standard product.

Battery life

After Apple unveiled its work-focused VR headset in June, the company faced criticism for its bulky design and tethered external battery pack. However, a startup called Immersed thinks it has the solution for its new Visor headset. The latest PC headset is built for “all-day” comfort and aims to be lighter than a typical smartphone. It also features full 6DoF, meaning you can tilt your head in the virtual world and move your hands as if they were before you. It uses software similar to the one on general-use headsets like the Bigscreen Beyond.

The headset is compatible with PCs running Windows 10 and Intel’s eighth-generation Core i-series CPUs, which should meet the minimum system requirements for Windows Mixed Reality. It supports wired and wireless connections, so you can choose which works best for you. The headset can be worn with your laptop’s display or a dedicated monitor.

It has a pair of 4K OLED microdisplays, inside-out tracking, HD colour passthrough, and hand and eye tracking. The headset is designed for use with productivity apps, such as Google Docs and Slack, rather than social or gaming applications. And it isn’t a portable device like the Gear VR, so you won’t be able to wear it in the car or on a flight.

The Visor headset is slated to ship in 2024. The startup isn’t yet offering preorders but has opened a waitlist. Those who sign up will be invited to participate in an upcoming demo at the company’s offices in Austin, Texas. Immersed says it will also offer a virtual Sky Lounge where users can connect with others and discuss the headset. Those who order a Founder’s Edition will get 12 months of free access to the company’s productivity app.

Comfort

The discomfort can add up for those who spend a lot of time in VR. Popular headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive use elastic straps that pull on your face, mess up your hair, and make it challenging to take a break without deleting the headset. Dell (yes, the PC company from the 1990s) has a solution with its new PICO 4 headset, which it says is “one of the most comfortable virtual reality headsets you’ll ever wear.” The visor-like goggles are compact and flip upwards to let you take your eyes out of the virtual world without taking off the headset.

The headset also has a fixed IPD of 50 mm, which reduces eye strain by ensuring that your eyes align correctly with the optics. This design is essential for preventing motion sickness, which can be a problem with other VR headsets that don’t have a fixed IPD or allow you to adjust the distance between your eyes.

Other comfort features include a padded crown that distributes the headset’s weight across your skull and a dial on the back that adjusts the fit. The Visor also has a removable cushion that snaps on and off easily, which makes it easy to share the headset with friends and family.

The visor VR is designed to be used with Immersed’s XR productivity app, allowing you to set up multiple monitors for your laptop in VR. The company is also working on a standalone headset version that will let you stream movies and TV shows, sideload OpenXR apps, and more. The headset is compatible with Windows PCs running either a 32- or 64-bit version of the operating system, and the hand controllers are compatible with both versions.