Finland's industrial VR/XR hardware manufacturer Varjo has announced the latest edition of its mixed-reality headset for enterprise and military, which is claimed to offer "virtual and mixed reality experiences practically indistinguishable from natural sight."
Varjo boasts that more than a quarter of Fortune's top 100 companies make use of its immersive technology to "train astronauts and pilots, radically shorten automotive production timelines, power medical breakthroughs, and render stunning 3D visualizations for architects and designers."
It's been almost three years since the previous generation XR headsets were announced, and the fourth generation models are a significant upgrade.
"As we enter a period of rapid expansion in mixed reality adoption, we’re proud to drive the industry forward by bridging the gap between human vision and computer vision with our new XR-4 series," said Chief Product Officer at Varjo, Patrick Wyatt.
The XR-4 is designed to operate with workstations running Nvidia GPUs for photorealistic visuals on dual 4K mini-LED displays at 51 pixels per degree over a 120 x 105-degree field of view. Users can expect 200 nits of brightness, a refresh rate of 90 Hz and eye tracking at 200 Hz, as well as coverage of 98% of the sRGB color gamut and 96% of DCI-P3. The headset can be used with glasses without the need for prescription lenses, and auto IPD adjustment allows for usage by various team members.
To help recreate the real world around the user that's "indistinguishable from natural sight," the headset employs low-latency 20-megapixel front-mounted cameras to enable high-fidelity, mixed-reality pass-through that's ready for virtual content to be added – with the Focal Edition sporting gaze-directed autofocus and improved resolution for cockpit-based applications, an industry first.
There's 300 KPix LiDAR depth sensing with a range of 7 meters (23 ft), an 8x resolution boost compared to Gen 3, new ambient light sensors have been cooked in, and the setup rocks integrated DTS spatial audio chops through built-in speakers, plus noise-canceling microphones, for teamwork. The headset also comes with tracking controllers powered by Razer for "precise interactions with high tactile immersion."
Supported 3D platforms and software include Nvidia Omniverse, Unreal Engine, Unity, OpenXR, Blender, EngageVR, MetaVR and Autodesk VRED.
The base XR-4 starts at US$3,990, while the Focal Edition has a starting price of $9,990. Both editions can be optioned for offline use. A Secure Edition that complies with all government and enterprise-level security requirements is also available, but that one's a "price on asking" kind of deal.
The headsets are only available for enterprise and military customers at the moment, but the company is planning to open sales to consumers some time in the future. You can get a taste of what's on offer in the video below.
Product page: Varjo XR-4
