Human eye-resolution VR is almost here

Through my work finding new AR/VR technology, I often try products years before they are commercially available. One example is the Varjo human-eye resolution VR HMD.

When I learned about the headset one year ago - I was even compelled to make the trip over the Atlantic to Helsinki to try it out. Thankfully I 'only' had to make it over to Bohemia Interactive Simulations in Orlando to try it. Even then, with an early 3D printed version and hardware exposed, I was impressed enough to share it at a briefing to a large group NASA.

At Augmented World Expo last week, one of the most important events in the AR and VR industry, Varjo shared a teaser with real-time footage shot through their early Mixed Reality headset.

Experiencing 50 times higher resolution than a standard VR headset is like taking a cloth and finally cleaning the glasses. It is just mind-blowing. At a commercial price-point of around $10.000, it won't be a household item. At the same time, in the training & simulation world, auto and real-estate show-rooms, architecture, construction and 3D design, this price won't matter. This holds especially true in the military simulation market, where the high-end simulators are costing up to $20 MUSD. VR headsets and 6DOF motion-chairs can to a very high extent replace these setups at the cost of 1%.

Companies like Neurable that measure your brain activity will help create adaptive learning scenarios, enabling education content to adapt based on what you haven't mastered. Having spent the last 2 days at Training and simulation industry symposium, one of the largest military simulation events, I can without a doubt say that the simulation market is craving this type of hardware. Three weeks ago I was at another simulation event called ITEC in Stuttgart. Almost all of the companies on the expo floor had some type of VR (watch recap video from the event).

We are soon going to see massive updates in both AR, with Magic Leap shipping this year, and VR. What is out on the market right now is still version one, and the HTC VIVE Pro was a refresher. Samsung that is leading when it comes to producing displays and are making headways in terms of resolution. Qualcomm just announced XR1, its first chip dedicated to augmented and virtual reality, making stand-alone devices more powerful.

When it comes to FOV (field-of-view), companies like VRHero already shipping their first developer kits (pictured) of their 170 degrees (a magic number in the high-end aerospace simulation field because of FAA regulations for pilot training) or even 200 degrees like Pimax 4k and 8k HMD. In addition, Google will be announcing an 18-megapixel OLED display soon.

Only a fraction of all funded Kickstarter actually gets a product to the market close to when they promised it. Companies such as 3D Audio headphone company OSSIC left more than 10.000 people who spent $3MUSD without a product. Being able to hear from where, and how far away the sound is coming will be critical for full immersion. Microsoft Hololens already had spatial sound when released in 2016, and Magic Leap put a huge focus on hiring audio engineers and are trying to teach creators how to use spatial audio in their ongoing live stream series at Twitch.

Every immersive element I can think of is being worked on in the AR/VR field.

For those that say that VR won't happen, I can say, wait for 2019. Soon we won't be able to distinguish between what's the real world and what is virtual reality.