Like others have said, pancake lenses drastically reduce brightness. For example, the current Arpara panels in the units sent out to youtubers are 1500 nits but after going through the lenses end up producing 70-90 nits only (depending on firmware revision).
3000 nits would indeed be insane, but through pancakes lenses like Arpara uses you’re only talking about average headset brightness levels (if even).
Interesting,
so remember that gear vr lens mod? What kind of lenses were those and do you think switching to them over fresnels would increase light to the eyes?
I also wonder if you could reverse lens mod the arpara by putting the vive fresnels in there if you could increase brightness. 
I would imagine the magnification would be quite different that a simple lens swap probably won’t do the trick, as micro oled is much smaller.
Just a guess I have zero background on this.
Hi,
I wonder how the Arpara would compare to the upcoming Panasonic/Shiftall Megane X headset.
Tethered mass production delayed to early April
AIO trial production delayed to early april
My biggest concern with the MeganeX is the controller tracking. They still haven’t locked it down (according to them in that interview) and that is this close to the launch date. If the controller tracking is Quest 2 at least then it will be a great headset but I don’t have much hope. Might be a good headset for simmers and those that only need good headset tracking.
Also the controllers themselves might be terrible, even if tracking is good, we just don’t know yet. So Arpara with steam tracking is the safer bet right now imo (plus near half the price, at kickstarter prices).
Ha, that would be amazing but unfortunately it definitely won’t be happening. The lense distances for fresnel like gear VR need to be much larger than pancake lens (one of the major benefits of pancake is the small required distance allowing for the smaller form factor).
You’d essentially need to build a new headset just reusing some of the components from the Arpara, goes far far beyond being just a mod at that point. Also, from the few videos of pancake lens headsets that I’ve seen (arpara, htc flow, meganex) they all seem to be different sizes, so even just switching pancake lens out as a mod seems to be highly unlikely.
Hi @SmallBaguette ,
Good point about the controllers. Since I am a simmer, I do not need or use controllers. I prefer my yoke or HOTAS. So the thought of controllers never occurred to me.
Can’t wait to see the first reports and reviews about the Megane X, so I can draw my own conclusions.
Yup they could straight-up “Cosmos” it.
Still can’t be much worse than the swords. Yes I have them.( @Heliosurge you might want to keep yours in the box)
Yes its good for travelling and use laid back on a couch or bed for some “movie” watching. 
Better to try them and compare with those whom have decent XP with them to see what tips they might have.
I have read a variety of impressions. Some have nice impressions. I am more interested in seeing it’s finger tracking even if needs polish. What would be great would be for pimax to opensource the driver for there Finger tracking
Only first impression so far on the Bad. Do not like the position of the system button.
so i saw on twitter users of the arpara 5k(aparently they can buy it and just get it rn) they be adjusting the colors in nvidia control panel,how tf that works is it recognized as a monitor?weird.
Its probably using Direct Display mode. Old VR headsets used to show up as a second monitor.
So I just noticed 1 potential huge flaw with OLED headsets last night whike playing Cyberpunk.
Maybe this is specific to the Vive Pro.
But in dark scenes it is very easy to see mura. It seems that the display pixel uniformity randamly varies between pixels and its noticible when the pixels have minimal energy applied to them such as in really dark but not black scenes.
I actually find this effect far more disturbing than the gray-blacks of LCD as it looks like a permanent grain filter stuck to the lense. As it is static and moves with you.
Hope the Arpara doesnt have this problem.
Extend Mode …
Wow that one video had some serious plastic. The hmd not so much 
so any news?idk if im excited that much for it anymore i got a random discounted quest 2 64gb that im gonna return asap,the fov is amusingly small lol after almost 1 year of 8kx the potato mode is generous,the quest 2 fov is unusable for me id rather play at 1200p per eye than looking trough that toilet paper roll(let alone colors and everything else is bad i find the 8kx way more comfortable too),ik arpara 5k gonna have identical fov with quest 2,im proly only gonna use it in elite dangerous and thats it.
No news really, a bunch of them got covid which delayed everything about 2 weeks. They said they will finally give the decision next week on whether they will use the brighter display or not.
You know… Something that has been on my mind for quite a bit the last few weeks just decided to cross beams with thoughts on devices like the Arpara…
Many of these new HMDs have diopter adjustment… I am inclined to presume that making this adjustment would have a bit of a zooming effect, much like it would with a simple single-lens setup. If so: How does the driver account for this? -Are there (unlikely) pots on each assembly? -Is it incumbent on the user to type the numbers into settings (EDIT: …like was the case with the Oculus Rift DK1)?
Regardless whether this is a concern at all, or adjusting the dial has no other optical effect on the view than focus alone, (here comes the bit that intersects with my idle musings): I wonder whether any hackery-inclined individual is going to try attaching a servo to the focus dials, as a relatively low effort experiment with making their headset varifocal. I’m thinking even without eyetracking, it could still be an interesting thing to fiddle around with… Maybe just a hand dial which lets you shift between far and near at will; On the more complicated end, maybe injected software which does a raycast onto the depth buffer, for something more automated, albeit janky…
(I am becoming increasingly unhappy with how the distant landscapes I see through my spaceship canopy in Elite: Dangerous are little more than an arm’s length away, focus-wise (maybe I should try with some unfocussing glasses, or dig out my old Rift DK1 (apparent focus at infinity). :7)
I imagine it wont be an issue