An Austin-based startup finest identified for its VR and combined actuality workspace software program for different corporations’ headsets now has {hardware} of its personal. The Immersed Visor seems to sit down someplace between a Imaginative and prescient Professional Lite and Xreal Plus: a light-weight head-worn gadget that creates a high-resolution spatial computing setting on a budget (nicely, comparatively talking).
Teased to loss of life for months, Immersed founder Renji Bijoy lastly unveiled the Visor at an Austin occasion on Thursday. The gadget, a bit greater than glasses however a lot lower than a full headset, provides every eye the equal of a 4K OLED display. It has a stable 100-degree discipline of view. It helps 6DoF monitoring (which means it responds to movement on totally different axes, not simply easy head rotations), and it provides hand and eye monitoring and assist for over 5 screens in a digital or combined actuality setting.
Within the presentation, Bijoy revealed that the Immersed Visor solely weighs 186g, barely lower than an iPhone 16 Professional. It’s 64 % lighter than the Meta Quest 3 (515g) and round 70 % lighter than the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional (600 to 650g). Weight and ergonomics have been drawbacks for a lot of early adopters of VR and mixed-reality tech. (That contains some clients of the $3,500 Imaginative and prescient Professional.) So, trimming the Visor’s weight to about the identical as a high-end smartphone might, in principle, assist it succeed the place opponents struggled. A part of that comes from (in borrowing a trick from Apple) a wired battery pack you stash in your pocket.
However in contrast to these units, the Immersed Visor doesn’t embrace an app retailer or onboard experiences like video games. As an alternative, it’s tailor-made for work: hyperlink it to your Home windows, macOS or Linux pc (wirelessly or wired), and get stuff executed on its immersive array of digital screens. Its 6DoF monitoring means you possibly can get up, lean or twist, and the digital screens will stay planted the place you place them, slightly than awkwardly following you thru area.
Like the corporate’s workspace app for Meta Quest and Imaginative and prescient Professional, you possibly can function both in a passthrough view of your area or a completely digital one. (It contains nice digital environments like a mountaintop ski resort by a comfy hearth.) You may as well work with others in a shared area.
The gadget runs on the Qualcomm XR2+ Gen 2 chip, which debuted at CES 2024. The chip helps as much as 4.3K per-eye decision and may deal with content material as much as 90fps.
Immersed has chosen an unconventional pricing scheme. The gadget begins at $1,050 to purchase outright. However you may get it for $400 upfront should you conform to a subscription mannequin: $40 month-to-month for twenty-four months or $60 month-to-month for a 12-month time period. Oh, and that mannequin doesn’t ship till “six months after” October, which means April 2025. If you would like a tool that begins transport subsequent month — i.e., the “Founder’s Edition” — that value will increase to $1,350 outright or $700 plus the month-to-month subscription charge (identical costs because the later-shipping model).
In principle, the Immersed Visor might hit a candy spot for a lot of spatial computing-curious people who need one thing cheaper than the Imaginative and prescient Professional, with the next decision than the Meta Quest 3 and that’s (maybe) much less like a beta product than Xreal’s AR glasses. Whether or not it succeeds on these factors, nicely, we gained’t have a clue till we get some hands-on time. So far as I can see, no main media retailers (together with Engadget) have shared hands-on demos of the gadget. As this yr’s wave of absurdly hyped AI devices reminded us, massive guarantees imply nothing if you find yourself with a $1,000 paperweight.
You’ll be able to watch the presentation under and, if it tickles your fancy, pre-order from Immersed’s web site.
