Nolo VR Unveils New All-in-One VR Headset for CES 2021

Nolo VR

CES 2021 is a few days away from opening and like most is having to adjust to an all-digital event due to the pandemic. As companies gear up for a mass load of Zoom calls, virtual reality (VR) specialist Nolo VR has unveiled a couple of new products making their debut including an all-in-one headset.

Nolo VR All-in-One ODM Solution
6DoF Inside-Out All-in-One VR headset ODM Solution. Image credit Nolo VR

Currently without a product name – simply referred to as the 6DoF Inside-Out All-in-One VR headset – Nolo VR’s new device is an ODM solution designed for brands, mobile networks and other companies wishing to get into the market.

The headset uses Nolo VR’s SodarTraq ultrasonic positioning technology combined with a dual-camera SLAM solution for its 6DoF tracking. The system also comes with accompanying controllers with button configurations similar to Oculus Touch and Vive Cosmos designs.

No actual specs such as screen resolution or battery life have been revealed so far. Nolo VR has said the ODM solution will support brand customization needs such as regular/short-focus display, differentiated configuration and so forth. So expect the design to pop up in a few funky colours bundled in with a future phone contract.

Nolo VR X1
Nolo X1. Image credit Nolo VR

For CES 2021 that was Nolo VR’s only unrevealed bit of tech with the rest having previously featured at last years event. These include the Nolo N2 and Nolo CV1 Pro combo, a smartphone-based headset and 6DoF tracking solution.

Then there’s the Nolo CV1 Air, a 6DoF tracking kit designed for Huawei VR Glass and other similar VR headsets. Finally, there’s the Nolo X1 standalone headset, a true consumer focused standalone device offering wireless streaming for SteamVR. Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR1 CPU the Nolo X1 features 3GB RAM, a 96-degree FoV, 75Hz refresh rate and a 2560 x 1440 resolution.

Unfortunately, with no physical event, VRFocus will have to wait and see what the new headset is like and then report back.

CES 2020 Interview: Nolo VR’s 6DoF, 5G Vision

It’s almost the end of VRFocus’ selection of CES 2020 interviews which have been running for the past few weeks. The massive tech event which starts early every January in Las Vegas had quite the selection of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) products available. From new hardware like the Pimax 8K headsets to software solutions such as Spatial’s collaborative tool, there were lots going on. Chinese manufacturer Nolo VR was on hand to showcase its latest products, with Senior Sales Director Xi Chen available to explain more about them.

Nolo VR - Huawei

One of Nolo VR’s major show announcements was its 6-degrees of freedom (6DoF) solution for Huawei VR Glass. Called  Nolo CV1 Air, the kit is comprised of a sensor bar which attaches to the top of Huawei’s glasses, an additional sensor which is placed in front of the user (on a shelf for example) and two wireless controllers.

The whole system is designed to support SteamVR and mobile 6DoF gameplay, with the show demo using BoxVR to demonstrate the tracking. From initial inspection, VRFocus found that it worked fluidly enough, even on faster-paced sections.

CES 2020 was filled with 5G talk and the Nolo VR stand was no different. The company also showcased its Nolo N2 VR headset and Nolo CV1 Pro tracking kit. A smartphone VR gaming solution with 6DoF control, it’s designed to provide PC VR quality inside low-cost solution, all thanks to 5G and Cloud VR services. Nolo VR has started cooperation with China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom on these services.

Nolo VR

The Nolo CV1 Pro improves upon the previous Nolo CV1 in a number of ways, providing higher positioning precision, refresh rate, and lower latency for a smoother gameplay experience. In the interview below Chen goes into further detail regarding the new products and what they’re capable of.

For more VRFocus’ CES 2020 coverage why not take a look at the interview with HaptX, our chat with Teslasuit about its new glove, with Spatial regarding its AR collaboration tool, Insta360 and its new ONE R action camera or Pimax with an ever-growing lineup of headsets. For all the latest VR tech news, keep reading VRFocus.

New Pimax Artisan Headset to Include Optional NOLO VR Tracking & Controllers

Before the holiday season, Pimax announced a new VR headset called Artisan that looks to fill the low-price gap in the company’s product offerings. Although the headset is able to use Valve’s SteamVR tracking standard, a model is set to arrive with a NOLO VR tracking and controller kit, a move that’s meant to appeal to entry-level users without SteamVR base stations or controllers.

The Artisan headset itself is said to reduce costs by including less expensive RGB stripe LCD panels, which features dual 1,600 × 1,440 displays clocked at 120Hz refresh, and a diagonal 140 degree horizontal (170 diagonal) field of view.

Talking to MRTV’s Sebastian Ang, Pimax COO Kevin Henderson detailed the company’s two upcoming versions of Artisan: a standard model without accessories or integrated audio, and a version with Nolo VR tracking base station, Nolo controllers, head tracking marker, and a flexible head strap with integrated audio—the later of which Henderson compares to the company’s previous “4K” headset in function.

Pimax “4K” with integrated audio, Image courtesy Pimax

Both versions of Artisan feature compatibility with SteamVR tracking, however Henderson explains the move to include Nolo VR tracking was a way of letting users play 6DOF PC VR games out of the box at a cheaper all-in price than something like Valve Index whilst simultaneously leaving an upgrade path for users looking to adopt Valve’s tracking standard later down the line. When purchased separately a pair of SteamVR 2.0 base stations and Index controllers alone costs $580.

While Pimax is couching Artisan as an entry-level solution, it’s still unclear what either Artisan versions will cost, or when they’re slated to arrive. Pimax is showing Artisan at CES 2020, so we’re hoping to find out more when we stop by their booth on our haunt through the convention’s massive halls.

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Nolo VR Tracking

Nolo VR, a Beijing-based company, offers its $200 6DOF tracking kit which is typically paired with 3DOF headsets such as Oculus Go or Samsung Gear VR in order to ‘convert’ them into 6DOF headsets, replete with 6DOF head and controller tracking.

Image courtesy NOLO VR

Nolo VR does this wirelessly by way of its PolarTraq technology, which is based on an optic-acoustic-radio-signal tracking technology developed by the company.

Henderson tells MRTV that support for Nolo VR is also going to be baked into Pi Tool, Pimax’s compatibility layer for their range of “8K” and “5K” wide field of view headsets.

Nolo VR’s solution is by no means perfect, as it suffers from the same sort of occlusion issues that any single base station tracking standard might, however it seems to be popular enough to garner the company with continued investments, the latest of which arrived to the tune of $15 million in June 2019. We’re looking forward to find out just how far Nolo VR has come in terms of reliability and latency, two sticking points for the system when it was first introduced in 2017.


We have feet on the ground in Las Vegas for CES 2020, which takes place January 7 – 10. Check back soon for all things AR/VR to come from one of the world’s biggest consumer electronics shows.

The post New Pimax Artisan Headset to Include Optional NOLO VR Tracking & Controllers appeared first on Road to VR.

NOLO VR Raises $15M to Further Develop 6DOF Tracking Tech

NOLO VR, the Beijing-based VR startup behind one of the earliest mobile 6DOF tracking platforms, announced the completion of the $15 million series A+ financing.

The funding round was led by Joy Capital, followed by BlueRun Ventures and Peakview Capital.

Joy Capital’s involvement in Nolo’s latest funding round comes alongside a broader $700 million investment in various early stage startups across a variety of sectors. The Beijing-based venture capital firm is also a key investor in a number of hot ticket Chinese startups including bike sharing company Mobike, Starbucks competitor Luckin Coffee, and Tesla competitor NIO.

The series A+ funding round brings the company’s overall funds to $24.5 million, according to Crunchbase.

Image courtesy Nolo VR

Nolo VR says in a press statement that its fresh round of financing will be “mainly spent on the continuous R&D and commercialization of its VR tracking technology.”

Founded in 2015, Nolo VR has since commercialized both its main hardware platform, Nolo CV1, and its Nolo Home streaming software, which allows Oculus Go and Gear VR headset users to  play SteamVR games.

Nolo CV1 is a wireless 6OF tracking device based on the company’s PolarTraq technology, which is based on an optic-acoustic-radio-signal tracking technology developed by the company. It includes a room-mounted basestation for 6DOF head & motion controller tracking, a head-mounted marker, and two motion controllers.

Up until now, Nolo VR claims to have invested more than $15 million in VR tracking technology, with 125 patents authorized or accepted globally, and the international patents applied in 12 mainstream countries.

The post NOLO VR Raises $15M to Further Develop 6DOF Tracking Tech appeared first on Road to VR.

Full Version of NOLO Home Now Available

Many commentators on virtual reality (VR) are of the belief that six degrees of freedom, or 6DoF represents the most immersive and realistic experience that modern VR can provide. To cater to this, NOLO VR have launched the full version of its NOLO Home content platform for 6DoF content.

NOLO Home is a mobile VR platform for the NOLO CV1 tracking system which allows users to assemble a NOLO CV1 with a smartphone to enjoy wireless VR experience using 6DoF.

NOLO Set 1

The new version of NOLO Home includes several important updates to the software, including five new mobile VR titles which have been designed specifically for the NOLO CV1 hardware. The titles have been designed with Unreal Engine 4 or Unity, along with the NOLO SDK so developers can easily port games from other platforms such as Steam or Google Play.

Feedback from beta testers and early NOLO adopters has meant that NOLO Home has dropped support for Google Daydream in favour of support for Samsung Gear VR. This is partially due to the Samsung Gear VR being a more popular platform, so offering the positional tracking of NOLO CV1 to Gear VR users would appear to be a sound business move.

Users of NOLO Home will now be able to use the integrated online payment system to buy VR videogames from NOLO Home. The average price of titles on the platform is roughly $5 (USD). There are currently two free titles and six paid titles on NOLO Home to choose from, and NOLO Home supports Paypal, with other methods of online payment planned to be introduced at a later date.

According to NOLO, over 100 developers from around the world have already begun to work on creating content for NOLO Home, whether that is porting existing titles or creating original content. For interested content creators or developers the NOLO SDKs can be found on the official NOLO website along with supporting documentation.

NOLO HOME

Further news on NOLO VR projects will be reported here on VRFocus.

HTC Vive Emulator VRidge 2.1 Update Expands NOLO and Language Support

Mobile virtual reality (VR) users who want to experience high-end VR have been able to do so since 2016 via RiftCat’s HTC Vive emulation software VRidge. Having released the 2.0 update for VRidge back in January, RiftCat has now rolled out the 2.1 version, adding greater language support on top of several other additions.

The software works in tandem with the PC-based RiftCat client, but users were having issues with the connection screen on the 2.0 version, with poor information being relayed to users. The update addresses this, improving the handshake between VRidge and RiftCat client as well as keeping users better informed. Additionally, it will also tell them when the mobile app has a different version to that of the desktop client – both apps need to be updated to see each other.

The new version will now support 13 different languages in total: Czech, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian and Turkish.

And for NOLO VR users the improved version now includes wireless support. They’ll now be provided with an option to connect it to VRidge wirelessly, so a combination of both systems allows for a full wireless room-scale VR experience.

In addition to the above improvements RiftCat has created a “Discover” tab in the RiftCat client so everyone will be able to find videos detailing what they can do with VRidge, the LIVE settings concept has now been expanded upon, and USB tethering has now been made easier alongside numerous bug fixes.

Available through the RiftCat website, both pieces of software are free to download. The free version of VRidge still supports SteamVR, Oculus Rift (with Revive), Gear VR and Google Cardboard but sessions only last ten minutes. The full version of VRidge retails for €14.99 EUR. For further updates on VRidge from RiftCat, keep reading VRFocus.

NOLO Partner With Media Kobo To Expand Into Japan

NOLO entered the virtual reality (VR) scene with the launch of its 6DoF mobile VR hardware product, the NOLO CV1 and its content delivery platform NOLO Home. The company is now teaming up with Media Kobo Inc. to expand its reach into Japan.

The partnership is intended to allow NOLO to work with Japanese develops to create localised content that can be delivered in Japan and other countries. The two firms believe this will offer opportunities for market expansion and promotion.

NOLO Set 1

Media Kobo is primarily known for developing, distributing and publishing smartphone apps and creating other digital content. Media Kobo will be collaborating with developers in Japan to deliver new content for NOLO Home, as well as promoting development of the VR industry in Japan.

The NOLO CV1 was designed to bring the mobile VR experience more in line with what users of high-end PC VR technology such as the Oculus Rift or HTC vive can expect. NOLO has integrated patented spatial tracking technology called PolarTraq to allow portable 6 degree-of-freedom experiences to be accessible to smartphone VR users.

The company believes that high-quality 6DoF VR content is a key part of building the Mobile VR ecosystem. The release of NOLO Home formed part of the company’s strategy towards building the smartphone-based VR industry. The end goal is to allow developers to upload custom built applications to NOLO Home by using the NOLO Home SDK so consumers can pay to download them, giving those developers greater access to worldwide profit shares.

NOLO believes that the partnership with Media Kobo will provide exclusive new content on the NOLO Home platform as well as providing the basis for future deals with other developers and publishers to expand the available library of content and increase the reach of NOLO into new regions.

Further news on NOLO and other updates form the VR industry will continue to be reported here on VRFocus.

NOLO Unveils New 6DoF Platform for VR

NOLO Inc is hoping to combine the portability and convenience of mobile virtual reality (VR) with the precision control of motion tracking with the launch of its new platform dedicated to presenting mobile VR content with six degrees-of-freedom capability called NOLO Home.

NOLO have previously launched its own brand of VR tracking system, the NOLO CV1. The company is now expanding its reach with the launch of its new platform, which allows users of the NOLO CV1 to explore 6DoF-capable content. The platform also supports other devices, such as Google Cardboard and Google Daydream, with plans for Samsung Gear VR support to be added soon.

The NOLO CV1 comes with three components; a base station, headset marker and two controllers. The device is designed to work out-of-the-box with all major Android phones. The device is designed to be simple to set up and use. The base station should be placed on a flat surface such as a table. The headset marker is then attached to a Google Cardboard or similar headset, and the controller plugged in to the smartphone vis USB cable. The rotation of the controllers will then need to be calibrated.

The NOLO CV1 base station has a 100° field-of-view and is capable of supporting a roaming area of up to 17fx 17 ft. The 6DoF controllers take advantage of PolarTraq technology to create a more immersive experience. The base station has a 4-hour battery life on a full charge, while the controllers can go for up to seven hours on a full charge.

Software development kits of Android, Unity, Unreal Engine 4 and Windows are all available from the NOLO official website along with the relevant supporting documentation. This has been provided with the aim of allowing developers to easily port software to the NOLO platform.

NOLO was originally launched as part of a Kickstarter campaign, but NOLO CV1 units are now available from Amazon as a pricew of $199 (USD).

Further news on NOLO Home or other new VR platforms and services will be here on VRFocus.

NOLO VR Reveals Universal Motion Tracking System

Motion tracking is often considered one of the key components of modern high-end virtual reality (VR). The lack of accurate positional tracking is one of the marks against mobile VR, but positioning systems are also one of the trickiest things to get right. LYRobotix is offering a possible way for mobile and PC VR with its NOLO universal motion tracking system.

The NOLO Motion Tracking System is designed to be used on all types of VR systems, from Mobile VR like Google Daydream, PC-based VR like the Oculus Rift, or even standalone systems like the upcoming HTC Vive Focus. The system is said to offer room-scale, six degree-of-freedom motion tracking, with only a few settings needed to integrate it into any VR rig.

The NOLO system comes in several parts, the Base Station forms the ‘core’, a small form-factor and lack of wires means it should be fairly easy to place, needing to face the play area on a flat, horizontal surface for best effect. The NOLO Base Station can last for up to four hours on a charge. The Headset Marker provides the 6DoF head-tracking for the system. It fits onto the headset using a provided headset mount, and its powered either by a PC or smartphone using a Micro USB cable.

There are also two controllers which provide 6DoF hand-tracking. The controllers ave a touch pad, full button function, including a trigger and can last up to seven hours on a charge.

Funding for the project was initially acquired by Crowdfunding, with the launch of a Kickstarter campaign in March 2017 that managed to achieve its funding goal in old eight hours, eventually getting over 400% of its initial funding goal by the end of the campaign.

LYRobotix claim the NOLO system is compatible with almost every currently available VR and AR headset, including the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Google Daydream, Google Cardboard and Microsoft HoloLens. The company is also working with several companies involved in VR and AR technology, such as Huawei, Pimax, Nibiru and Trinus VR to further develop the NOLO Motion Tracking system.

Further information on the NOLO Motion Tracking System is available on the official website. VRFocus will continue to report on further developments.

NOLO VR Roomscale Mobile VR Solution Meets Funding Goal

NOLO VR is an inexpensive solution for bringing room-scale virtual reality (VR) to mobile VR devices such as Google Cardboard. The designers behind the project, LYRobotix launched a Kickstarter campaign in January that has since succeeded in meeting its funding goal.

The campaign sought $50,000 (USD) of funding. It has since blasted past that goal to reach a total (as of writing) of $231,491 (USD). As a result, the project has easily passed its stretch goals.

Backers of the project are expecting to begin receiving their product sometime in May 2017. The basic product bundle itself consists of a tracking base station, headset marker, 2 controllers, USB connecting cables and a charger.

LYRobotix say the product is designed for low latency on Android-based mobile VR devices such as Google Cardboard and Gear VR smartphones, as well as SteamVR. NOLO VR allows for six degrees of freedom tracking in a space of up to 13ft.

The developers are now working on a new variant for the tracking base station – a ceiling-mounted version which will allow for full 360-degree room-scale tracking as shown in the video below.

The company says that with the generous amount of funding they have received from the Kickstarter campaign, they can now go to work on other VR motion tracking products.

Devices using iOS are compatible with NOLO VR in Mobile VR mode, and LYRobotix are planning on releasing an iOS SDK for developers soon. An SDK for Android is already available.

For further information and to get future updates, you can visit the official Kickstarter page.

VRFocus will bring you any updates on NOLO VR and other VR Kickstarter projects.