What Display Daily thinks: This is an interesting product launch for a number of reasons, but mostly because it puts all the hype around Apple and Meta MR products in perspective. It is obvious that if you want to have a superior headset display and passthrough, it is going to cost a lot of money. You can’t get around the costs because that’s the price of the tech. Anything less is a compromise and Varjo isn’t making compromises here because it’s target audience is, according to the company, happy to pay for the performance.
The really interesting point is that the hardware that drives the graphics is external, and good old-fashioned performance iron. So, while we can laud Apple’s silicon in its Vision Pro, the real power, the kind needed to make all those sensors, cameras and near-eye displays pop, has to be traditional workhorse PCs. You’re tethered for your own good.
Which leads me to a finer point: Qualcomm has become the de facto platform of choice for a lot of AR/VR/MR devices. That’s great. Nothing wrong with the tech, but it is compromised in the same way that Apple’s own silicon is compromised, based on Varjo’s arguments. So, the question is, what is the point of compromised hardware performance other than pricing? I mean, what is the value in all the display technology, and all the tracking, and all the mixing of reality if you have compromised hardware that really doesn’t do it justice?
Varjo’s argument is that industrial and military applications need all the horsepower that can be provided because of the graphics demands of the application, particularly in design and simulation, but isn’t the company also saying , what’s the point of all this display technology if you can’t really use it to its maximum potential?
Are users going to end up paying for cut price visuals on premium displays when it comes to MR headsets? It could be that is the greatest compromise being made.
Finnish Startup Shows What it Takes to Build a $4,000 MR Headset
Varjo, the Finnish developer of industrial-grade VR/XR hardware and software, has released new XR-4 series mixed reality headsets, including the XR-4, XR-4 Focal Edition, and XR-4 Secure Edition. These headsets are designed to deliver deeply immersive VR/XR experiences with top visual fidelity and performance for industrial customers.
The XR-4 headset starts at $3,990 and features high-resolution 4K x 4K displays with 51 pixels per degree, surpassing even the upcoming Apple Vision Pro headset’s resolution, according to the company. It has a 120° x 105° field of view, 50% wider than previous Varjo headsets. Dual 20MP cameras enable photorealistic video pass-through mixed reality. The headset includes ambient light sensors, 8x improved LiDAR, and inside-out tracking.
The XR-4 Focal Edition adds gaze-directed autofocus cameras to the XR-4 for $9,990. These cameras provide enhanced mixed reality clarity, capturing the real world around the headset at up to 51 pixels per degree to match what the display can show. This boosts the pass-through resolution and optimizes mixed reality for cockpit use cases like flight simulation training.
Finally, the XR-4 Secure Edition starts at $8,700 and satisfies US Trade Agreement Act standards for government and defense use. It offers offline functionality with all radio components removed as an option for the most secure environments. The Secure Edition is assembled in Finland to prevent tampering.
Compared to standalone consumer-grade devices, the XR-4 series connects to desktop PCs, allowing utilization of significantly more powerful hardware. NVIDIA GPU and Omniverse integration enables photorealistic rendering with ray tracing that surpasses mobile/standalone computational capabilities.
The XR-4 series visualization fidelity and performance aims to enable industrial clients to create and work with virtual objects as easily as physical ones. Use cases include automobile design without clay prototypes, selling not-yet-constructed yachts, and aviation training for aircraft still on the ground. By virtualizing the physical, the headsets save costs and time across many industries, according to the company.
The XR-4 series is available for deliveries beginning in December 2023.
| Specs | XR-4 | XR-4 Focal Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Starting at €3,990/$3,990 | Starting at €9,990/$9,990 |
| Displays | Dual mini-LED 3840 x 3744; 51 PPD, 120° x 105° FOV | Dual mini-LED 3840 x 3744; 51 PPD, 120° x 105° FOV |
| Refresh Rate | 90 Hz | 90 Hz |
| Brightness | 200 nits | 200 nits |
| Color Space | 98% sRGB, 96% DCI-P3 | 98% sRGB, 96% DCI-P3 |
| Passthrough Cameras | 20 MP, 33 PPD | 20 MP, 51 PPD with Autofocus |
| Tracking | Inside-out | Inside-out |
| LiDAR | 300 KPix, 7m range | 300 KPix, 7m range |
| Eye Tracking | 200 Hz | 200 Hz |
| Audio | DTS 3D Spatial; Noise-cancelling mics | DTS 3D Spatial; Noise-cancelling mics |
| Comfort | Zero gravity fit | Zero gravity fit |
| Controllers | Varjo Controllers included | Varjo Controllers included |
