$399 Oculus Quest Offers Premium Standalone VR

[bit_user]

Why don't they offer a pass through mode on the quest ? That would make it more appealing that way you could have game/apps but have a tether option to your PC to play more demanding games. Not sure what the specs are on the quest but I'm a mid tear PC could push better frame rates than a mobile processor. That would at least get my attention.

You can't just "pass through" like it's no big deal. It takes a cutting-edge wireless connection, which adds a lot of cost, requires you to plug an adapter of some sort into the PC, and also adds weight on the headset and drains the battery much faster. It's much better to have a separate headset for PC gamers, and then optimize the standalone headset for actual standalone use.

No one said anything about having it use a "cutting edge wireless connection". None of the existing headsets require a wireless connection after all, and that certainly wouldn't be expected in a device costing around $400 or so. Adding the ability for it to receive a video feed over HDMI would cost very little, and the device undoubtedly already includes the components necessary for charging and communication over USB. Likewise, battery power wouldn't be a concern, and the only weight added would be for the cable when running tethered. There's no particularly good reason why such a standalone device couldn't be used tethered. In fact, it would probably offer a better wired experience than the Rift, if the tracking is on par, due to its higher resolution and lack of need for external sensors.

You're oversimplifying quite a lot. Cable connections to HMDs need to be a lot more robust than what you've got on your cell phone. You can't just have a standard connector on the side, or it'll get yanked out too easily and broken before long. A proper, robust cabling solution will definitely add weight and bulk, and I get the feeling they're already on thin margins with this device, as is. If the goal is to increase adoption (particularly among folks balking at the cost of high-end PC VR), then hitting a low price-point is a priority.

Secondly, there's a fair amount of software work to get such a unit properly functioning as a tethered display, and all of that must be tested and supported. This adds development costs and time to market.

I understand why you want a dual-purpose unit, but that's not what they managed to build. Maybe someone will, eventually. Perhaps even Oculus will do this. But VR is still quite young, and I agree with Oculus' priorities.

Truthfully, how many products are ever released in their ultimate incarnation? Among those, which were the 1.0 product? Usually, trying to put every single feature and refinement in the first version of your product is a recipe for disaster. Such products are usually late, overbudget, and often lacking quality in key areas.

In any product - even good ones - there's almost always room for improvement. The tried-and-true approach is to iterate. Prioritize the features, make sure to get the important stuff right, and release. Then, get market feedback and figure out what can be fixed, added, or improved in the next version. Repeat.

 

[-Fran-]

Oh, I had forgotten about the VR Headsets already!

When are they making them cheaper and better?

Cheers!

Uh, ever since they launched..? Not sure if you've noticed, but the headsets don't cost $600 now. They've also been improving the quality of the headsets and controllers too. Are you expecting them to be free or something?

So you're fine with them as they are?

You don't want them to be better and cheaper?

You asked "When are they making them cheaper and better?", which has been an ongoing process since the Rift first launched. Were you unaware of this?

Did you mean to ask "when are they going to finish making them cheaper and better?". Because that's a very different question.

Also: "well, that escalated quickly". A lot of hyperbole in your assumptions!

In fairness, your post came across as a bit of a troll. It's not clear what you would accept as an answer that a disinterested 3rd party would consider both factually correct and informative. In that sense, it's almost rhetorical, as if you're complaining that VR is primitive and expensive. That would be a valid opinion, but it would be better just to come out and say that (or just skip this thread, entirely), so those of us who are interested in VR can carry on with a productive discussion about this news without being disrupted by it.

Cheers!

Yes, that's the idea.

Define "better and cheaper". I still see the same specs and a bit lower price points after... 4 years?

There's no "value" to be had here, so for me it's a really simple analysis: price(t1) ~ price(t1+d(T)) ^ spec(t1) = spec(t1+d(T)) => boohoo.

Cheers!

 

[bit_user]

Define "better and cheaper". I still see the same specs and a bit lower price points after... 4 years?

Then I don't know what you're even looking at. Which specs and price points haven't changed?

And Rift/Vive only launched mid-2016. Before that, the only accessible options were Rift DK2, Gear VR, Google Cardboard, and OSVR HDK (v1). Gear VR being the only actual consumer product among them.

There's no "value" to be had here

Define value. If you don't value immersion and the sense of physically being inside a virtual world, then no amount of improvement on specs or price point are going to satisfy you.

 

[-Fran-]

Define "better and cheaper". I still see the same specs and a bit lower price points after... 4 years?

Then I don't know what you're even looking at. Which specs and price points haven't changed?

And Rift/Vive only launched mid-2016. Before that, the only accessible options were Rift DK2, Gear VR, Google Cardboard, and OSVR HDK (v1). Gear VR being the only actual consumer product among them.

There's no "value" to be had here

Define value. If you don't value immersion and the sense of physically being inside a virtual world, then no amount of improvement on specs or price point are going to satisfy you.

LOL, you're funny.

That is correct, there's no "value" here, because the measurement of "how much you like VR" is impossible to measure and I haven't seen any good metrics for any VR-related things other than FPS from video cards. But you can compare prices and specs throughout the years to give yourself an idea of how they've been progressing (or regressing). I see the prices, I don't see variations compared to original specs.

So that begs the question: are they still expensive because they haven't been able to mass produce or is it because they are not willing to compromise on "experience"?

My original question still stands, but let me re-phrase it specially for you: at what price any VR headset will make you purchase one for you, or gift one, or recommend one to a friend(s)? Looks like you do have a well defined "value". Have they tickled your fancy already?

Cheers!

 

[cryoburner]

You're oversimplifying quite a lot. Cable connections to HMDs need to be a lot more robust than what you've got on your cell phone. You can't just have a standard connector on the side, or it'll get yanked out too easily and broken before long. A proper, robust cabling solution will definitely add weight and bulk, and I get the feeling they're already on thin margins with this device, as is. If the goal is to increase adoption (particularly among folks balking at the cost of high-end PC VR), then hitting a low price-point is a priority.

Secondly, there's a fair amount of software work to get such a unit properly functioning as a tethered display, and all of that must be tested and supported. This adds development costs and time to market.

I hardly think that having a way to securely attach a cable to the device is some insurmountable obstacle. Yes, obviously you can't just plug HDMI and USB cables into standard ports on the side and expect them to stay in place, but I doubt it would add more than a dollar to manufacturing costs, or add any substantial weight to include ports that secure them properly. The Vive has what amounts to a battery door to hold the connectors in place, and the Rift's cable is secured by the face cushion assembly.

The cable itself wouldn't need to be included, and like ikaz said, it could be a paid add-on for those interested in PC connectivity if they want to keep the costs down by not including the cable in the box. Or maybe offer a version with the cable bundled for a bit higher price. The only thing I can think of that might add a bit to the main unit's cost would be including an appropriate chip for receiving the HDMI video feed.

Any driver development costs would likely be relatively minimal as well, and on the PC side would probably just require some minimal additions to the Rift's existing drivers. Compared to the Rift, the data from the device should be easier to process though. With the Rift, the PC needs to determine the positions of the headset and controllers by processing multiple camera feeds in realtime, while with a standalone device, the headset already handles all this on its own, and would only need to transmit the resulting coordinates to the PC, much like any mouse or game controller. And once decoded, the headset could likely just treat the video frames it receives as if they had been rendered by the device itself. The cost of adding this support could even be figured into the cost of the cable, and even potentially recouped by the sale of software in their marketplace.

Of course, most likely Oculus has a second-generation PC headset coming to market in the relatively near future, maybe even within the next year or so, that will probably be substantially better, and might very well cost more, and they may not want to have what amounts to a half-generation update launching not too long before that.

Define "better and cheaper". I still see the same specs and a bit lower price points after... 4 years?

I would say things have certainly gotten better and cheaper compared to when the consumer Rift and Vive launched two and a half years ago. The Rift was arguably overpriced at launch, at least compared to the pricing that Oculus had previously suggested it might be. It was $600, and didn't even have any motion controllers available for it, making it only really suited for seated play. A little over a year later though, they dropped the price to $400 and included a pair of motion controllers and an extra sensor to expand the kind of games that it can handle. The price of the original Vive has also since been reduced from $800 to $500, even if HTC has arguably overpriced the Vive Pro, at least for home users. Then there are the Windows "Mixed Reality" VR headsets, with a number of models available in the $200 to $300 price range, including motion controllers. These lower-end models might not be as polished as a Rift or Vive in terms of controller tracking or ergonomics, but they do offer higher-resolution screens, don't require external sensors or base stations, and can be quite a bit cheaper, especially compared to what consumer VR headsets cost a couple years ago.

 

[bit_user]

LOL, you're funny.

That is correct, there's no "value" here, because the measurement of "how much you like VR" is impossible to measure and I haven't seen any good metrics for any VR-related things other than FPS from video cards. But you can compare prices and specs throughout the years to give yourself an idea of how they've been progressing (or regressing). I see the prices, I don't see variations compared to original specs.

I'm not here for your amusement.

I'm also not going to launch into a personal history of my involvement with VR, nor turn this into a referendum on my own values and priorities. Suffice to say that I bought my first HMD in December 2016 to use in a couple projects I'd been contemplating. I don't play any sort of games and I'm not really a gadget enthusiast, so I'm usually further toward the trailing edge of these trends.

are they still expensive because they haven't been able to mass produce or is it because they are not willing to compromise on "experience"?

I think you're interested enough to have an opinion, but not enough to have an informed opinion. That's your problem (to the extent it is one), not mine. Cryo just summarized some highlights of the past 2+ years (though sort of glossed over the sea change represented by MS' WMR devices), although we could also get into improvements in displays, standalone units, and software rendering techniques (e.g. ASTW) that are now deployed in shipping products. Then, we could talk about all the developments that seem just around the corner. Maybe someone else wants to paint you that timeline, but I've already sunk enough into this exchange.

I'll just reiterate that those of us who do follow VR all seem to agree that both the state of the technology and price points in products currently available to consumers have all markedly improved in the past ~2 years since the launch of Rift and Vive (not to mention the 4 years you cited). If you actually care, then the information is all out there. I'm not going to spoon-feed it to you.

My original question still stands, but let me re-phrase it specially for you: at what price any VR headset will make you purchase one for you, or gift one, or recommend one to a friend(s)? Looks like you do have a well defined "value". Have they tickled your fancy already?

Since I've already answered this to the degree I'm willing, I'll tell you what features would have me making additional purchases.

First, I almost pulled the trigger on Lenovo's Mirage Solo. I think standalone 6-DoF is a game-changer, as you can probably gather from my previous posts in this thread. I'm very interested, and it's likely going to be my next VR purchase.

As for upgrading my PC-connected VR setup, I'm interested in a first-class wireless implementation (i.e. not add-on kits), as well the obvious things like better resolution and maybe foveated rendering. Inside-out tracking would be nice - MS' offerings are very tempting, except for the huge performance hit you take by not using their WMR platform & APIs.

 

[bit_user]

I hardly think that having a way to securely attach a cable to the device is some insurmountable obstacle.

Nobody said it was. At the end of my post (if you read that far), I even acknowledged that someone will probably do it. Maybe even Oculus

And speaking of my post, you're missing the forest for the trees. The picture I tried to paint is of the typical mindset - especially in Silicon Valley and startup culture. Their mindset is to focus at the key priorities, for a new product. What things are truly make-or-break. For this product, it seems they're trying to drive adoption among the set of folks who don't have & aren't likely to buy high-end PC setups. They want to deliver as close to a first-class VR experience as possible, to a market segment that's previously only had mediocre 3-DoF, phone-based options available to them. Getting that right (which includes the price-point) & time-to market are basically their only concerns.

VR is not some mature market, where you're down to competing on bells-and-whistles, catering to all the different market niches, and working through long lists of nice-to-have features. It's still very much about opening up whole new market segments and trying to get this tech into as many hands as possible. Facebook has sunk a lot of money into VR, and is still a very long way from turning a profit from it. They are very much still focused on trying to stay relevant.

So, it's not a question of technical feasibility. The reasons they didn't bother are that it doesn't significantly factor into their key priorities, while adding time-to-market, cost, bulk, and weight, for a feature that only a minority will ever use. It was probably one of the first features cut from the product, if it even made it into the product requirements, at all.

Maybe if they have an AMA, you can put it to them, directly. I have no real knowledge of the issue, but I have a pretty good sense for how these types of companies operate.

Of course, most likely Oculus has a second-generation PC headset coming to market in the relatively near future, maybe even within the next year or so, that will probably be substantially better, and might very well cost more, and they may not want to have what amounts to a half-generation update launching not too long before that.

Yes. Oculus has a good presence in this market, and likely wants to continue serving it with a worthy first-class successor to its Rift.

Furthermore, if a company didn't have a foothold in the PC-based VR market, they just might add tethering option to a standalone unit as a way to break in. Again, it really comes down to strategic priorities.

I would say things have certainly gotten better and cheaper compared to when the consumer Rift and Vive launched two and a half years ago.

Thanks for the overview.

As I said above, I think MS really upped the ante with its WMR HMDs. Definitely the biggest thing to happen in PC VR, since the original Rift and Vive launched. You also neglected to mention the resolution improvements in Vive Pro, which directly answers one of Yuka's complaints.

 

[IceMyth]

Then seems for me is the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift1I know is cheaper but considering the wiring and the extensions you need to buy .. it ends same price as HTC Vive except with a lot of wires to hide!

 

[-Fran-]

I'm not here for your amusement.

Yes, you are. Even if you don't want to. I decide that, not you

You will have several impressions and internal debates, but you know that is the sad truth.

<snip>

Hey, I know advanced editing techniques!

Since I've already answered this to the degree I'm willing, I'll tell you what features would have me making additional purchases.

First, I almost pulled the trigger on Lenovo's Mirage Solo. I think standalone 6-DoF is a game-changer, as you can probably gather from my previous posts in this thread. I'm very interested, and it's likely going to be my next VR purchase.

As for upgrading my PC-connected VR setup, I'm interested in a first-class wireless implementation (i.e. not add-on kits), as well the obvious things like better resolution and maybe foveated rendering. Inside-out tracking would be nice - MS' offerings are very tempting, except for the huge performance hit you take by not using their WMR platform & APIs.

Well, your requirements are still basic IMO.

I don't have a lot of extensive knowledge nor testing, but I still think most HMDs are immature when they could be so much more technologically speaking. Price being a no-concern for the industry provided the tech is good enough.

Still heavy and clunky, dependent on standards which are not designed with the use case for HMDs and just bolted on (I haven't seen graphical frameworks being constructed form the ground up for VR as of yet) and worse, the price to have decent hardware (display, materials, weight and durability) is still at a point where they make them prohibitively expensive for consumers just from thinking of my "ideal" HMD specs with what i know can be used.

And that is not even going into the backend processing you can have at your disposal to actually power them.

My original question is a Jab at FB, in particular, that with all the money they had to throw at the problem, they still haven't figured out a way to subsidize the HMDs with a good enough set of specs to flood the market and take it from there.

I'll stop here, so I won't be amusing you anymore.

Cheers!

 

[bit_user]

Still heavy and clunky, dependent on standards which are not designed with the use case for HMDs

Nvidia's new RTX cards have a USB-C port designed primarily for VR. The idea seems to be for a thin, single-cable connection to the HMD. I would prefer low-latency wireless, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

I haven't seen graphical frameworks being constructed form the ground up for VR as of yet

Exactly what are you expecting, here? I don't know why the programming model of high-level frameworks like Unity 3D, Unreal Engine, etc. would be much different. And MS has their whole Windows MR ecosystem, which I assume includes all sorts of purpose-built APIs, though I haven't actually looked.

Nvidia also has some sort of SDK, although that's only good for running on their hardware. AMD has an equivalent (Liquid VR) that's open source and not tied specifically to their GPUs.

Meanwhile, Khronos has recently demo'd its OpenXR standard on StarVR and MS HMDs.

the price to have decent hardware (display, materials, weight and durability) is still at a point where they make them prohibitively expensive for consumers just from thinking of my "ideal" HMD specs with what i know can be used.

I don't follow that last part, but try comparing Windows MR HMDs with gaming monitor prices. $300 hardly seems prohibitive.

And that is not even going into the backend processing you can have at your disposal to actually power them.

Again, I'm going to come back to MS, here. Their minimum specs actually include late-model mainstream laptops with only an iGPU! That's pretty amazing, even if the graphics quality isn't.

My original question is a Jab at FB, in particular, that with all the money they had to throw at the problem, they still haven't figured out a way to subsidize the HMDs with a good enough set of specs to flood the market and take it from there.

I think you're not being realistic. They've probably already spent in excess of $3B on a pretty long-term bid. I don't know what investors are willing to tolerate, but the Oculus purchase already raised a lot of questions among their investors. If you're expecting Oculus to eat a few hundred dollars per unit, and sell them in the tens of millions, then we're talking about multiple billions more, without a clear strategy of how to make it back. In business, you can't just spend money because you have it - there has to be some idea of how they'll actually make a return on an investment.

For now, the best we can hope is that FB continues giving Oculus the resources it needs to carry on innovating, developing, and releasing more products. I'm sure they're not yet profitable, so even this is not not a given.

I'll stop here, so I won't be amusing you anymore.

I wouldn't say I'm amused. Just trying to educate, I suppose.

Building good mass-market products is hard and takes time. I'm optimistic that Rift v2 will have been worth the wait. In the meantime, there's been a lot of progress by MS, HTC, Google, and now Oculus Quest. And lots of exciting developments are just around the corner.

The hype bubble of VR might've deflated, somewhat, but improvements in the tech and pricing are continuing at a fairly rapid pace. You'd probably have to look back to early smartphones, in order to find another area with an equivalent rate of progress.

 

[bit_user]

Then seems for me is the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift1I know is cheaper but considering the wiring and the extensions you need to buy

Okay, but why are you talking about Rift? This thread is about the new Quest HMD which requires no cables or add-ons. The downside is that you'd have to wait until next spring.

.. it ends same price as HTC Vive except with a lot of wires to hide!

Depends on what you want. If you specifically want to play Steam VR games, then Vive (or Vive Pro) is the way to go.

If you're space or budget-constrained and don't like setting up cameras or lighthouses, then take a look at the Windows MR HMDs and check out what content is available for them. They can be used to play Steam VR games, but with some serious caveats you'll want to understand, if that's your goal.

If you want something like Oculus Quest, but you don't want to wait, then check out Lenovo's Mirage Solo. In that case, you'll be limited to Google's Daydream content.

 

[cryoburner]

I think you're not being realistic. They've probably already spent in excess of $3B on a pretty long-term bid. I don't know what investors are willing to tolerate, but the Oculus purchase already raised a lot of questions among their investors. If you're expecting Oculus to eat a few hundred dollars per unit, and sell them in the tens of millions, then we're talking about multiple billions more, without a clear strategy of how to make it back. In business, you can't just spend money because you have it - there has to be some idea of how they'll actually make a return on an investment.

They can sell advertisers access to the cameras. : D

 

[bit_user]

In business, you can't just spend money because you have it - there has to be some idea of how they'll actually make a return on an investment.

They can sell advertisers access to the cameras. : D

When your PC gets bogged down with ads, it gets laggy. When VR gets laggy, people start vomiting. So, yeah, why not?

 

[Sakkura]

The Oculus Rift is still a better value for a PC-based VR setup.

And what's wrong with MS? Lack of content? Lower-quality graphics?

Nothing's wrong with it. It's a very solid budget option (at least in the US). There are some downsides but for around $200 (for the standard versions) that's more than fair.

 

[jaexyr]

Cool..... what's it for?

Imaging bringing it over to a friend's house, or several of you get together, somewhere, where you can play a game in the same room. There are commercial operations where you can do this, but it requires expensive VR backpacks. This is a much more affordable and practical solution.

Another use case would probably be visualization in corporate boardrooms, where it would be a lot more practical to give each participant a standalone headset than to have PC VR setups for everyone.

Finally, if you don't have a VR-capable PC, this would be the only thing you need for a VR experience on another level than what phones can deliver.

Yeah, maybe... someday