Varjo stellt bereits seit einigen Jahren unterschiedliche High-End-Brillen für Unternehmen her. Nun hat der Hersteller die Varjo XR-3 und Varjo VR-3 vorgestellt, welche sich ebenfalls durch starke und besondere Hardware auszeichnen.
Varjo XR-3 und VR-3 angekündigt
Auch die neuen Brillen von Varjo werden ein Fokus-Display für jedes Auge enthalten, welches für eine extreme Klarheit durch eine hohe Auflösung auf kleiner Fläche sorgt. Die XR-3 wird zudem einen LiDAR-System besitzen, welches die Vermischung von virtuellen und realen Objekten verbessern soll. Auf dieses System wird bei der VR-3 verzichtet, um den Preis geringer zu halten.
XR-3 ist jetzt zur Vorbestellung verfügbar. Die Auslieferung ist für Anfang 2021 geplant. Es ist nur für Unternehmenskäufer zum Preis von 5.495 US-Dollar zusammen mit einem Varjo-Abonnement zum Preis von 1.495 US-Dollar für ein Jahr erhältlich. Das ist eine deutliche Preissenkung gegenüber dem ursprünglichen XR-1, welches für ca 10.000 US-Dollar verkauft wurde .
Die VR-3 verzichtet auf die Mixed-Reality-Funktionen (wie LiDAR), um den Preis auf 3.195 US-Dollar plus Abonnement zu senken.
Alle Informationen zur VR-3 und XR-3 findet ihr auf der Homepage von Varjo.
The new Varjo XR-3 and VR-3 headsets feature automatic physical IPD adjustment with eye-tracking and foveated rendering, and that’s just for starters.
The enterprise-level headsets also include inside out tracking (but you can use SteamVR base stations too). There’s even Ultraleap hand tracking. All that comes together with Varjo’s (pronounced var-yo) latest dual resolution “bionic” display. The company pitches it as having a “Focus area (27° x 27°) at 70 PPD uOLED, 1920 x 1920 px per eye” with a “Peripheral area at over 30 PPD LCD, 2880 x 2720 px per eye.” The XR-3 also features LiDAR and stereo RGB video passthrough said to be running at 90 Hz.
Varjo XR-3 And VR-3 Announced
What’s that LiDAR being used for? Varjo says its depth awareness will help enable the “seamless merging of real and virtual for perfect occlusions and full 3D world reconstruction.” The combination may power some of the best mixed reality experiences possible today; we’ve been very impressed by Varjo’s tech in the past — but we haven’t had a chance to see the new headsets yet.
XR-3 is available for pre-order now with plans to ship in “early 2021”. It is only available to enterprise buyers priced at $5,495 together with a Varjo Subscription “to replace the previous software and support services” priced at $1,495 for one year. That’s a pretty significant price cut from the original XR-1, which sold at around $10,000 (there was never an XR-2).
The VR-3 ditches the mixed reality features (like LiDAR) to bring the price down to $3,195, plus subscription.
The new XR-3 and VR-3 are likely competing against HP’s upcoming Omnicept edition of the Reverb G2 in 2021. HP’s headset, though, turns its sensors inward for facial tracking. XR-3 looks designed to understand its environment in ways other headsets can’t yet.
Varjo representatives said the company employs around 130 people now, with large teams working on software.
Varjo XR-3 Technical Specifications:
Display & Resolution:
Full Frame Bionic Display with human-eye resolution.
Focus area (27° x 27°) at 70 PPD uOLED, 1920 x 1920 px per eye
Peripheral area at over 30 PPD LCD, 2880 x 2720 px per eye
Colors: 99% sRGB, 93% DCI-P3
Field of View:
Horizontal 115°
Refresh rate:
90 Hz
Mixed reality:
Ultra-low latency, dual 12-megapixel video pass-through at 90 Hz
XR Depth:
LiDAR + RGB fusion, 40 cm–5 m operating range
Hand tracking:
Ultraleap Gemini (v5)
Comfort & Wearability
3-point precision fit headband
Replaceable, easy-to-clean polyurethane face cushions
Automatic IPD 59–71mm
Weight
594 g + headband
Connectivity
Two headset adapters in-box
Two USB-C cables (5 m) in-box
PC Connections: 2 x DisplayPort and 2 x USB-A 3.0+
Positional Tracking
SteamVR™ 2.0 tracking system
Varjo inside-out tracking utilizing RGB video pass-through cameras
Eye tracking
200 Hz with sub-degree accuracy; 1-dot calibration for foveated rendering
Audio
3.5mm audio jack with microphone support
Varjo VR-3 Technical SpecificationsDisplay & Resolution
Full Frame Bionic Display with human-eye resolution.
Focus area (27° x 27°) at 70 PPD uOLED, 1920 x 1920 px per eye
Peripheral area at over 30 PPD LCD, 2880 x 2720 px per eye
Colors: 99% sRGB, 93% DCI-P3
Field of View:
Horizontal 115°
Refresh rate:
90 Hz
Hand tracking:
Ultraleap Gemini (v5)
Comfort & Wearability
3-point precision fit headband
Replaceable, easy-to-clean polyurethane face cushions
Automatic IPD 59–71mm
Weight
558g + headband
Connectivity
Two headset adapters in-box
Two USB-C cables (5 m) in-box
PC Connections: 2 x DisplayPort and 2 x USB-A 3.0+
Positional Tracking
SteamVR™ 2.0 tracking system
Eye tracking
200 Hz with sub-degree accuracy; 1-dot calibration for foveated rendering
Audio
3.5mm audio jack with microphone support
Varjo today announced its latest high-end headsets, the XR-3 and VR-3, with a range of improvements including an expanded field of view, inside-out tracking, and a redesigned headstrap. While still expensive and definitely aimed at large enterprises, the new headsets also get a significant price reduction compared to prior models.
As far as XR headsets go, Varjo’s are quite unique. The company’s headsets use two displays for each eye: a high-density ‘focus’ display at the center, and a larger ‘context’ display to fill out the field of view to immersive levels. The two displays are blended together nearly seamlessly, allowing the very center of the field of view to achieve retina resolution that’s unmatched by any other headset on the market.
The company’s new XR-3 and VR-3 headsets—available for order today and due to start shipping in January—are based on the same concept, but push it further still by expanding the field of view of both the focus display (such that a larger area of the screen is retina resolution) and the context display (for a larger peripheral field of view). At the same time as expanding the field of view, the company has also boosted pixels per-degree across the board.
Boosted Field of View & Resolution
Image courtesy Varjo
Compared to the company’s prior headsets, the XR-3 and VR-3 expand the FoV of the focus display (retina resolution area) from 26° × 16° (30.5° diagonal) to 27° × 27° (38° diagonal). At the same time, the focus display’s resolution is boosted from 62 pixels per-degree to 71 pixels per-degree, offering even finer resolving power (assuming your vision is sharp enough to appreciate it). From a resolution standpoint, the focus display is 1,920 × 1,920 @ 90Hz (compared to 1,920 × 1,080 previously).
As for the context display in the periphery, the field of view is boosted from 87° horizontal on Varjo’s prior headsets to 115° horizontal, the company says. And while the context display hasn’t yet crossed the retina resolution threshold of 60 PPD, it gets its own significant boost from 14 PPD to ~30 PPD. In terms of resolution, that’s an upgrade from 1,440 × 1,600 to 2,880 × 2,720 (both at 90Hz).
Through-the-lens photo | Image courtesy Varjo
If you haven’t had a chance to look through Varjo’s headsets, it’s difficult to appreciate what all these numbers mean. For a coarse idea of relative resolving power we can consider the megapixels of the displays as compared to consumer headsets:
Headset
Megapixels per-eye
Rift DK1
0.5
Rift DK2
1.0
Rift CV1
1.3
Vive Pro
2.3
Rift S
1.8
Quest
2.3
Index
2.3
Quest 2
3.5
Reverb G2
4.7
Varjo XR-3/VR-3
9.7
That is to say: that’s Varjo’s headsets are far beyond anything in the consumer realm. And of course we’d hope so… given what they cost.
Lower Price (but still pricey)
Image courtesy Varjo
While Varjo’s new headsets aren’t cheap by any means, the company has managed to significantly drop the price despite boosting specs. Here’s the breakdown:
Headset
Varjo VR-2 Pro
Varjo VR-3
Varjo XR-1
Varjo XR-3
Purchase Price
$6,000
$3,200
$10,000
$5,500
Support (annual, required)
$1,000
$800
$1,000
$1,500
Total
$7,000
$4,000
$11,000
$7,000
Both headsets are available for order starting today, with shipments expected to begin in January.
Eye-tracking, Automatic IPD, & More
Image courtesy Varjo
There’s no doubt these headsets are expensive, but Varjo is loading them full of premium features.
Like the company’s prior headsets, the XR-3 and VR-3 both feature 200Hz eye-tracking tech developed in-house, which the company claims is the “world’s fastest and most accurate” integrated eye-tracking solution. Eye-tracking is also used for foveated rendering and automatic IPD adjustment, allowing the bi-convex lenses (not Fresnel) to align themselves with the user’s eyes for optimal clarity and comfort. Both headsets also include hand-tracking from Ultraleap.
XR-3 and VR-3 see a brand new industrial and ergonomic design, reducing weight by 40%, according to Varjo. The new headstrap uses a halo-like design with tightening dials on both the back and top strap.
Both headset’s displays also now boast pro-level color reproduction with 99% sRGB and 93% DCI-P3 color gamut.
Computing giant Lenovo may have been interested in consumer virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) in the past with devices like the Mirage Solo and Mirage AR but now its firmly focused on enterprise use cases. Today, the company has announced its become a reseller for Varjo‘s high-end, enterprise-class headsets.
Varjo’s latest range of headsets includes the mixed reality XR-1 and the new VR-2 & VR-2 Pro, with pricing starting from €4,995 EUR for the VR-2. They come with Varjo’s unique display design, the Bionic Display. It’s made up of two screens, a small 3000ppi display for fine, close up detail and a larger, lower-resolution ‘Context Screen’ to provide a wider field of view (FoV). While the VR-2 Pro features Ultraleap hand tracking.
Enterprise customers will now be able to purchase the headsets directly through Lenovo, either by contacting a local Lenovo representative or via the “Contact Us” link on Lenovo.com.
“Many existing VR offerings in the market today are enterprise versions of a consumer designed product,” said Mike Leach, solution portfolio lead, Lenovo in a statement. “However, Lenovo’s professional workstations and Varjo’s VR and XR headsets are specifically engineered to perform in the most sophisticated and demanding enterprise use cases. Our ability to offer customers a single point of purchase for certified workstations and VR/XR devices streamlines access to the tools needed for immersive workflows that are changing the way we work today.”
The announcement also adds more certified Lenovo workstations to the Varjo compatible catalogue for companies looking for a suitable pairing. These are:
Optimized to support the VR-2, VR-2 Pro and XR-1 devices:
ThinkStation P520
ThinkStation P720
ThinkStation P920
Optimized to support the VR-2 and VR-2 Pro devices:
ThinkPad P53
ThinkPad P73
ThinkPad P15
ThinkPad P17
“One of the biggest obstacles in accelerating the usage and growth of professional VR/XR is getting all the right equipment sourced for an enterprise-grade set-up and ensuring compatibility between computers and headsets,” said Timo Toikkanen, CEO of Varjo. “With Lenovo becoming a Varjo reseller, we eliminate a lot of this complexity, making it even easier for customers to adopt VR/XR in the workplace for increased productivity and ROI.”
Varjo, the Helsinki, Finland-based creators of high pixel density VR/AR headsets for enterprise, today announced it’s closed a $54 million Series C funding round. The company says it will use the funds to accelerate the global expansion and development of its XR hardware and software products.
Investors include Tesi, NordicNinja, Swisscanto Invest by Zürcher Kantonalbank, Lifeline Ventures, Atomico, EQT Ventures and Volvo Cars Tech Fund.
The Series C financing brings the company’s overall total funds to $100 million to date.
In addition to the latest funding round, the company’s COO, Timo Toikkanen, will be leading Varjo as CEO. Co-founder and previous CEO, Niko Eiden, will be continuing as CXO and as a board member.
“We are seeing tremendous demand for virtual and mixed reality use cases, particularly as much of the world continues to work remotely,” said Toikkanen. “When you combine the photorealistic resolution and accurate, integrated eye tracking found in our devices with the broad software compatibility we offer, the possibilities for creating, training and running research in immersive environments are endless. With support from our growing group of investors, we look forward to scaling our operations and delivering the cutting-edge technology our customers need to transform the way they work.”
Varjo is known for its enterprise-level “human-eye resolution” VR/AR headsets, including the XR-1 Developer Edition, VR-2 and VR-2 Pro. Companies such as Volvo Cars, Boeing, Audi, and Siemens use Varjo headsets for industrial applications including training and simulation, design and engineering, and research and development.
Since its founding in 2016, Varjo has expanded its global operations and reseller network to over 40 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, with the launch of sales and direct shipping to markets such as Singapore, Israel, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Professional-grade VR headset maker Varjo has raised a further $54 million in funding, and it attributes a good amount of its success to its new XR-1 headset.
Announced today, Varjo’s Series C round of funding was supported by the likes of Tesi, NordicNinja, and Swisscanto Invest. Plus, the company has a new CEO – former COO Timo Toikkanen is taking over from Niko Eiden, who will continue on as CXO and a board member.
This latest round of funding pushes the Finnish company past $100 million raised to date. In the press release, Varjo says it will use the funds to “accelerate its global expansion and development of industry-leading hardware and software products.”
It’s been an eventful year for Varjo, which has been keen to push out new hardware and features against growing demand for enterprise VR offerings. In December, for example, the company launched the XR-1, a $10,000 device that built on its ultra-high-resolution VR-2 headset with passthrough AR support. Speaking to UploadVR, Toikkanen noted that demand for the device had been stronger than anticipated.
“XR-1 has generated interest way beyond what we originally thought – the world’s first photorealistic mixed reality device has started a new era for our customers for example in advanced pilot training and automotive design, where virtual and real environments start to blend seamlessly together,” he said. “At the same time we have been fortunate to have customers like Boeing to take our VR technology to unseen heights with their Starliner astronaut training program, so there’s a lot of innovation and exciting customer developments happening in that space too.”
Varjo has also been announcing key partnerships, like a recent collaboration with MeetinVR for a specific version of its VR collaboration app that supports its headsets. Toikkanen says to expect more of these partnerships going forward.
But what about new hardware? When asked about the possibility of a VR-3 or XR-2, the CEO told us “our teams are working super hard to implement new features for both our virtual and mixed reality products that are driven by our customer needs. Some of these worth mentioning are the support for visual markers, the ability to manipulate the video pass-through feed in real time with different visual effects and real-time chroma keying support in mixed reality.”
Having launched its Epic Megagrant initiative last year the company has awarded over $42 million from the $100 million fund. Today, the latest beneficiary from the virtual reality (VR) industry is enterprise headset manufacturer Varjo.
Varjo has received a MegaGrant to help further its mixed reality (MR) support for Unreal Engine, mainly focused on the Varjo XR-1 Developer Edition. The $10,000 headset launched back in December, a combination of the original VR-1 device coupled with two 12mp cameras on the front, enabling users to switch between MR and VR modes.
“Varjo currently provides one of the most advanced mixed reality hardware and software solutions for demanding industrial use,” said Sebastian Loze, industry manager for simulations at Epic Games in a statement. “We are excited to soon have mainline support for Varjo products in the primary Unreal distribution to continue delivering the highest-end visualization for our customers. The addition of new mixed reality features in Unreal Engine enables a new class of application development.”
The headset manufacturer has always focused on the enterprise market for commercial, government, and academic organizations. Its headsets have been used in automotive design, to train pilots and astronauts and help in clinical research. Customers include Volvo Cars, Boeing Starliner, FlightSafety International, and Lockheed Martin.
“We are thrilled to have this support from Epic Games to expand our delivery of mixed reality solutions for the most demanding enterprise VR/XR applications through Unreal Engine,” said John Burwell, global lead of simulation and training at Varjo.
“With OpenXR as the target interface, developers will, for the first time, have access to the industry’s most advanced enterprise-grade mixed reality features to support composing real and virtual environments for a wide variety of applications,” Burwell continued. “Planned features include full support for Varjo’s photorealistic visual fidelity, eye tracking and real-time chroma keying. The resulting solution is likely to position Unreal Engine as the most advanced platform for enterprise mixed reality development.”
Neither Epic nor Varjo have revealed how much was awarded. As further details on Varjo future developments are released, VRFocus will let you know.
US aerospace giant Boeing will use Varjo’s VR-2 advanced mixed reality headset to train astronauts for its Starliner spacecraft.
NASA has used virtual reality for training for decades, but the low resolution limited the range of tasks that could be simulated. Boeing says this is the first end-to-end VR astronaut training system.
Starliner, currently in the uncrewed testing phase, is Boeing’s upcoming reusable crew capsule. It will be used for the same NASA program as SpaceX’s Dragon 2, which in late May launched astronauts for the first time. Essentially, the task once handled by the Space Shuttle (ferrying crew to the International Space Station) will now be taken by these two private companies.
Varjo is a Finnish company which sells ultra high end VR headsets, some with powerful mixed reality capabilities. The unique “bionic” display system projects a smaller but higher resolution image in the center of the lenses. Within this central area, Varjo claims “human eye” resolution.
That comes at a cost though- the VR-2 is priced at $4995. Companies like Facebook and Sony design hardware for a consumer market, but Varjo doesn’t have this restriction.
The astronaut training system can be used for an entire mission, from pre-launch to docking with the international space station, and the full journey back to earth.
The system’s development was lead by Boeing’s Connie Miller. Engineers in Australia recreated the Starliner in Unreal Engine, and this was then integrated in the Houston training center. Miller saw Varjo’s headsets as a breakthrough thanks to the resolution, which allows even the smallest controls to be read clearly.
Using VR also has the advantage of allowing training to continue in pre-launch quarantine, which was not possible with traditional systems.
Starliner includes one seat for potential space tourism. Boeing hasn’t announced concrete plans to commercialise this, but the Varjo based training system has the potential to make training tourists much easier than before.
Boeing hopes the VR system can be brought aboard Starliner itself when it launches in 2021, allowing for in-orbit training of advanced scenarios. In 2017 an Oculus Rift was sent to the International Space Station, but Varjo’s resolution enables completely new use cases.
Varjo announced today that Boeing is spinning up a VR training program for its upcoming Starliner mission to the International Space Station in 2021. The company says that its retinal resolution headset enables virtual training scenarios—like docking to the ISS—that weren’t feasible before.
Varjo is the creator of high-end enterprise VR headsets, and the only headset in its class that offers “retina resolution,” meaning that it can resolve detail to the limit of human vision. The headsets accomplish this by using two displays per-eye: one for high detail at the center of the image, and another for an immersive field of view.
The company announced today that Boeing is using Varjo headsets for a new VR training simulations that will prepare astronauts for upcoming missions, including the company’s first crewed mission aboard its Starliner spacecraft which is set to launch and dock with the International Space Station in 2021.
This would be far from the first time that an aerospace company is using virtual reality for training. NASA was experimenting with its own VR headsets at least as far back as 1985, and has been using modern VR tech too, while HoloLens and Rift took their first trip to the ISS back in 2016.
Boeing had been exploring VR hardware and software since 2017, but found that the limited resolution of headsets made many types of training impractical. Varjo says that its unique advantage—retina resolution—is allowing Boeing to create virtual training scenarios for situations that wouldn’t be feasible with lower resolution headsets, like the ISS docking procedure.
The key, Varjo says, is that astronauts can read instruments, displays, and buttons at a regular viewing distance with its headsets. This makes training scenarios inside the cockpit more practical.
While physical simulators are extensively used for aerospace training, virtualizing expensive physical systems—like complete cockpit replicas—not only stands to save time and money, but also allows astronauts to the training remotely as long as they have access to a headset (handy when you’re in a pandemic situation). Virtual reality training also enables more realistic training of emergency scenarios which would be impractical to recreate in a physical simulator.
Varjo says that the Starliner crew will clock hundreds of hours in Boeing’s virtual reality training program to learn procedures like launching, docking, re-entry, and landing phases ahead of the actual flight to the ISS in 2021.
Work-focused VR collaboration platform, MeetinVR, is launching a public beta today, along with announcing a partnership with professional-grade VR headset maker, Varjo.
MeetinVR is another VR service that allows users from around the world to meet up inside headsets and work together using a set of tools. The platform is designed to support brainstorming and mind-mapping sessions as well as presentations. To do this, users have access to specific interactions like drawing on surfaces or in mid-air 3D with pens, or placing sticky notes around the environment to help with speeches.
Crucially, these actions are assigned to intuitive interactions. For example, you can always grab a pen from right behind your ear. It’s MeetinVR’s hope that, even though VR headsets have a ways to go before they can accurately reflect real life, the current world climate, highlighted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, will start shifting towards VR as a means of remote work. Last week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself said he expects around half the company’s staff to be working from home by 2030.
Companies that sign up are able to sample the platform with a free 30-day trial.
Alongside today’s launch, MeetinVR also partnered with Varjo, a company best known for its impressive, ultra-high-resolution VR headsets designed for the enterprise market. MeetinVR has developed a native port of its platform for Varjo’s entire library of headsets. Plus anyone that buys a headset from Varjo will be given six months of the platform for free for up to five users.
