Bigscreen Beyond – Small VR Headset

This is just the beginning of the wave of next gen headsets that are employing microOLED + pancake lenses, both technical breakthroughs that have only become available recently in the VR &#x2F; AR space. Expect to see a lot more like this over the next 6-12 months (including Apple), especially once XR2 gen2 chips are widely available (this one not requiring it because it&#x27;s entirely dependent on an attached PC). In fact, to some extent, I would say what we are seeing now is a rush to forward-announce by those trying to get in ahead of the big players that will be rolling out this tech. Hence why shipping is in Q3.<p>This is one of the reasons why I think the people discounting VR&#x2F;AR are misguided or at least basing their thinking on incorrect assumptions. These breakthroughs will fundmentally change some aspects of the value proposition.

To summarize for anyone not wanting to click around their website:<p>- $999<p>- Molded to your face<p>- 2560 × 2560 per eye (higher than the HP Reverb and nearly every other headset, lower than PIMAX 8K)<p>- 90° × 93° FOV (lower than most other headsets)<p>- 127g (excluding strap&#x2F;cord, MUCH lighter than any existing headset)<p>- Does not come with controllers or trackers (compatible with existing lighthouses, bring your own)

Bigscreen is a VR app that’s been on the market for quite a few years. It focuses on VR movie watching in virtual theaters with other people. It works “ok” with current gen headsets. It feels like going to the movies wearing heavy ski goggles. The weight, comfort, resolution and optics of current VR headsets are not there yet. Looks like they sat down and designed the perfect VR headset that would showcase the experience they always wanted users to have in their app.

I have a lot of respect for products taking bold decisions to excel in 1 axis, in this case weight.<p>Going for fixed IPD and producing 15 different size displays this commitment.<p>Compare this 127g to Valve index&#x27;s 809g, anybody owning an headset knows the impact on immersion, especially mass away from the center of gravity (like the display)

<i>&quot;An Apple iPhone XR or newer is required for the 3D Face Scan. Bigscreen Beyond is manufactured based on this 3D Face Scan, and cannot be manufactured without it. If you do not own an iPhone, you can complete your 3D Face Scan by borrowing a friend&#x27;s iPhone or using an iPhone at an Apple Store.&quot;</i>

This makes me want to try and prototype something I&#x27;ve been thinking about for a while.<p>Keep the lens and display assembly + tracking cameras on headset but power and computing is USB-C to an android device.<p>So same concept software wise as the Go but not strapping a phone to your face.<p>With pancake lens and all I think you&#x27;d get a very thin and light headset with the same computing power as a Quest 2 with a better profile and something people might actually be comfortable wearing for many hours.

Nice video overview of this headset from &quot;Sadly its Bradley&quot;, a youtuber who has been testing this product under NDA for a couple years. Bradley has a lot of insider knowledge and makes good videos.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=yvih_ljVc_w">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=yvih_ljVc_w</a>

Interesting. Lightweight, $1000, iPhone only (for face scanning), but tying into the SteamVR&#x2F;Index ecosystem. No inside-out tracking.<p>They advertise shareability via magnetically removable foam, but also say they&#x27;ve reduced weight by making 15 different versions for IPDs between 58mm and 72mm, suggesting sharing will only work well among those with similar IPDs.<p>Not super compelling IMHO unless you own a modern iPhone and you&#x27;re already heavily invested in a gaming PC and the Steam ecosystem (which, admittedly, many are!)

It looks amazing - an uncanny leap into the next gen computer displays. Can&#x27;t wait till the leap after! This headset could be the beginning of normal computer users (like Hacker News readers) starting to use XR displays. Maybe... we are 1 headset away but we are close!

I don&#x27;t understand the logic of the custom face fitting step.<p>Sure, it&#x27;s nerdcool and might get you a slightly better fit to your face, but it makes it much harder for people to try their friend&#x27;s headset and say &quot;whoa! I need one too!&quot;<p>Optimizing for virality as a consumer product designer is pretty much always the right business decision.

These look light enough and have high enough resolution per-eye to possibly use them as a PC monitor.

I&#x27;m glad people are using &quot;resolution&quot; terms again, it was super cringe when enthusiasts were justifying low quality visuals by saying the terms were different.<p>old headset criticism: &quot;hey the resolution is pretty bad&quot; <i>its not resolution bro, headsets use this other term that doesn&#x27;t address your actual observation at all.</i><p>fun fact, nobody cares!<p>so now we have high quality visuals, the same quirky new terms that more closely match some technological aspect that nobody cares about, <i>and</i> equivalent resolution terms that manage expectations pretty perfectly!

- Wired<p>- 90 FOV<p>No thanks! Compelling though, if your use-case is viewing 2D content on virtual screens -- the metaverse app Bigscreen makes, a virtual environment for sharing 2D content.

Wow, I&#x27;m usually patient through slow &quot;reveal&quot; videos but I was surprised to feel disgust at how slow the pacing of that video is within 5 seconds. The very first non-black half second where it just showed the outline subconsciously triggered something that made me realize that this video is going to have terrible pacing.

Being Mico OLED, this display has better blacks and a large dynamic range than Quest 2, Index, etc which are LED based.

Is this a repackaged &quot;Megane X&quot;? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.shiftall.net&#x2F;products&#x2F;meganex" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.shiftall.net&#x2F;products&#x2F;meganex</a><p>If so, that&#x27;s great! Previously it looked like Shiftall had a great product, but no budget to bring it to a large market.

The face-scanned insert sounds nice. Can you just sell me one of those for my $300* Quest 2?<p>*when I purchased mine

Very cool, don&#x27;t care for the iPhone requirement for the custom fitting but I&#x27;m not sure how they&#x27;d get get around that since most people don&#x27;t have an accurate 3D scanner just sitting around.

So excited for the future VR products like this!<p>Btw, does it consider the myopia users?

90° FOV is a no go for me. I already have a bit of imertion break on the index, these would just feel like crap.<p>Wake me up when we have at least 180 without early adopter prices.

Only 90hz though which is less than the valve index, but it has a higher resolution

Bigscreen VR is the most disappointing VR app I&#x27;ve ever used. Please stop wasting time making hardware and make your app better.<p>I see the potential and I experience the need regularly: I want to watch movies with friends remotely in a cool VR environment that feels like we&#x27;re watching together in a theater.<p>In practice my options are to:<p>- pay to watch &quot;a vast movie selection&quot; of 140 films, the majority of which are anime[1]<p>- run the buggy (and so aptly named) Bigscreen Beta PC client[2] which will probably crash during weird unlikely edge cases like your screensaver turning on and critically depends on your internet upload speed for a good movie watching experience for everyone. Get ready for frequent &quot;wait is it showing a black screen for you guys?&quot; troubleshooting. It only runs on beefy PCs right now but don&#x27;t worry: a macOS version is being worked on circa 2019[3].<p>- send the video file to everyone and get them to download it to a folder of their headset (which involves running Android File Transfer; nontechnical friends will struggle) then start a shared room. Arguably the least painful option with the best overall quality.<p>When it works though it&#x27;s <i>so good</i>. Watching a film in Bigscreen feels like watching a film in an actual theater. Their drawing and popcorn throwing features are hilarious and fun. Their spacial audio is a blast. Their selection of virtual theaters is plentiful.<p>Here&#x27;s the experience I want to watch a film with friends in Bigscreen:<p>- log into my Netflix&#x2F;Hulu&#x2F;Disney+ account through Bigscreen<p>- create a new room<p>- pick a movie<p>- share an invite code<p>I understand for that to work Bigscreen would need to make complicated partnerships happen, so in the meanwhile I&#x27;d like to be able to:<p>- drag and drop a video file into bigscreen.com&#x2F;newroom<p>- see an invite code I can join from my headset and share with other people<p>Please someone create this experience. You can use WebXR[4] to do the whole thing with the web stack you already know and you could probably just download a ready-made 3D model of a movie theater[5].<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bigscreenvr.com&#x2F;movies&#x2F;catalog" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bigscreenvr.com&#x2F;movies&#x2F;catalog</a><p>2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;457550&#x2F;Bigscreen_Beta&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;457550&#x2F;Bigscreen_Beta&#x2F;</a><p>3. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;OculusQuest&#x2F;comments&#x2F;c7kx2n&#x2F;bigscreen_vr_and_macos&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;OculusQuest&#x2F;comments&#x2F;c7kx2n&#x2F;bigscre...</a><p>4. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;immersiveweb.dev&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;immersiveweb.dev&#x2F;</a><p>5. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.turbosquid.com&#x2F;Search&#x2F;3D-Models&#x2F;free&#x2F;theater" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.turbosquid.com&#x2F;Search&#x2F;3D-Models&#x2F;free&#x2F;theater</a>

So they compromised FOV for a lighter headset. Not a great choice IMO. From using countless headsets, I can say the number one thing that distracts from presence is low FOV; far more so than bulkiness or wires. And presence is the goal above all else.

with more and more tech being put next to the brain i wonder if we&#x27;ll see an increase of brain cancer cases this decade..

Eye tracking is must for fauviated rendering