The only way i can see this work out from a customer perspective is that the status of the payment is stored in the headset firmware itself. And if the driver checks the status as “paid”, it doesnt need to “phone home” or anything, it just unlocks everything and done.
Personally i dont want to have hardware that needs online checks everytime i wanna use it. As others here stated, its too risky if the manufacturer goes out of business, and in this case here the paperweight would be WAYYY too expensive for my taste…
How would the Pimax software experience differ between a product bought from a reseller vs Pima directly? If the HMD from the reseller isn’t part of the Prime program, do they not need to have an online check implemented?
Not from my understanding. The online check itself applies to all pimax hmds. Which during a check for new pimax play versions. Checks the serial against a DB that houses pimax prime monthly payment hmds.
Hmmm. This gives me an uneasy feeling. Perhaps it was there all the time. Perhaps it will not matter in practice. But still, I don‘t like this concept of having a kill switch baked into the firmware of my device, b/c sometimes things go wrong, the unexpected happens.
It did temper my excitement over the apparently (relatively) imminent release of the Super a fair bit, and I will probably want to see how it fares for a couple of months after it has been released just to see if this mechanism leads to any hick-ups of any kind when something goes wrong on a Pimax server etc…
Let‘s see.
It has been there at least since it was first discovered in pitool.
The 7invensun ETs also have a kill switch. Gupy mentioned it too me on his quest to fix the ET.
Waiting is indeed best. Especially since pimax often has some issues to get worked out. If good then just software issues. However we have seen as with other companies. Often some hardware issues.
I also do not believe it is in the firmware. As if it was you could simply flash a non crippled firmware. The crippling I believe is built into the software.
Iirc Varjo needs to connect to inet to run. Unless you paid that release fee to get rid of the subscription. An actual subscription. Vs a dressed up payment plan.
I know it was there, I have seen the mechanism trigger because of bugs in the past more than once. I honestly think that there are enough construction sites in the software that would be worthwhile to work on to gain trust. Instead of fiddling with brittle kill switch implementations that accomplish the exact opposite.
I didn’t and likely won’t buy any Varjio headsets, I cancelled the preorder of the Visor (the introduction of that subscription being one of the reasons…). And the Pimax Crystal Super lost it’s place at the top of my list of headsets to consider as next purchase. So yes, others do that, too. I won’t buy from those either, as long as there are any viable alternatives.
Well the only thing they could do is ditch the entire payment option.
The idea itself is actually promoting sales. The issue is more ppl are concerned it is a subscription and not a payment plan. They need to make the 2 year warranty worldwide; so it covers the payment plan period.
The earlier we might as well call it what it was. A bad beta that once in awhile a glitch or Feild test caused some hmds to lock up.
While I can appreciate the appreciation. Any software that receives updates. Can disable a product. Sometimes a big/glitch or as intended.
Recent changes to Steam clarifies any game or software you buy is not actually yours. So in theory they could delist programs you bought and make them unavailable for reinstall.
Waiting is best to see how things pan out. The bugs, possible hardware recalls.due to defects etc… never wise to be first in line for new products. Let those who really can’t wait be the initial beta consumers
Indeed, as Kickstarter backers we were beta testers essentially. Which is generally fine for me as it is expected. (Well, the beta period took perhaps a little long in the case of the 5k+/8kX, some might argue that we are still in it )
Bugs are unfortunately impossible to rule out, that’s why it is so important to
a) have a solid rollback mechanism, so people can always go back to the last firmware+driver+software in case the latest one introduces any issues
b) not force updates on people, so we have the choice when is a good time to take a risk (=install an update) and when to better wait, particularly if everything is working perfectly fine with the current setup.
What Steam clarifies and how this would be ruled in case of a dispute are also potentially two things, particularly when this point wasn’t clear from the start. And as the saying says, it takes years to build up a reputation and potentially just moments to destroy it. So I guess Steam will think twice before pulling games from people’s libraries unless there is a very good reason (like the game turning out to be a trojan horse for a malware or whatever).
Yes, I think the message got across, some people including me were totally against subscriptions for expensive hardware. And now that “subscription” turns out as an unintentional naming (or backpedalling) we just have to see how things turn out. I hope they scrap this alltogether and just go back to when firmware was still firmware, drivers were still drivers and the PiTool was still PiTool, with the sole aim to make the Pimax headsets work the best they can, without undesired side-functions.
The steam issue is interesting. As you’re only technically buying a “license” vs buying from GoG and similar platforms.
Steam changed the wording to reflect this. Much like it was revealed that upon your death your library apparently is not transferable,?!?!? Sure it will depend on the courts if challenged
Some of the more toxic game studios are also going with you don’t own your copy. Like Take Two/Rockstar going after modders. Nintendo going after emulation stating it supports piracy.
I imagine we will see more questionable actions in general with companies …
The roll back and not forcing updates is a definite. When pimax was doing the brain-dead forced updates. It made my 8kX incompatible with my 1080ti. Which an update should not remove compatibility. I blasted the pimax client devs in the beta group. Took a bit (fingers crossed) but think they finally get it. At least for now, until someone thinks it’s a good idea again.
Well, as was proven today. The OFFLINE mode is totaly scammy. Offline mode only works if you leave your computer on at all times so it registered before. IF however say you reboot your computer, recieve a new Pimax, or install new Pimax Play software, and the servers are offline for any reason. The device is then a $1000+ paperweight until they decide to fix the servers.
Offline mode still needs you to login, but it uses a Pimax user.
I have a nice paperweight on my desk right now due to servers being offline today
In our next client update, we’ll add an offline option that has zero requirements to connect to the Pimax Play server (or any online server, for that matter).
We will also investigate what caused today’s server outage, to prevent this from happening in the future.
The introduction of an offline option will mitigate user concerns regarding the potential for headset inoperability resulting from server connection failures.
I still require a driver-only solution. I do not care about any fancy stores , and my sentiment and therefore my forecast has been proved as true. In case of, I will go backt to PiTool.
So, there is a reason, I never will buy Apple oder Meta or any other Headset bound to forced online connection.
Every continued forced online access go die straight away.
For Hardware there I do not accept any forced online access.
It is always misused for political purposes.
This is starting to feel like a neverending conversation but here we go:
So if this offline option is available for all HMDs including the ones that aren’t yet paid off via Pimax Prime, how is the payment status enforced on a technical level?
So, do I understand it right that Pimax Play essentially becomes software that has to be activated once and then works offline on that computer until some hardware or OS upgrade lead to a different machine ID? And for the subscription with monthly payment it would essentially be activations that are valid for a month each?
This concept is widely spread for pure software these days. I don’t really like it because I already have e.g. some software synthesizers that cannot be activated and thus reinstalled anymore because the company went down without distributing versions of the plugins that don’t need activation.
Also, when the servers are down (as we recently saw), activation is obviously not possible.
So I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand it might be unfair to hold Pimax to a higher standard than most other software vendors. On the other hand, these headsets are by factors more expensive than a usual synthesizer plugin. So it is a minus in my book when considering which headset to buy. Wouldn’t rule it out, but it would have to offer better value to outweigh the activation caveat.
I just hope Pimax does two things:
a) Provide an alternative offline activation procedure. So in case the servers are down for a longer time we can at least open a ticket, send in some machine id and get back an activation code.
b) use the serial number of the headset as machine id. And in case of online activation it should be possible to read out the activation response key, so we can safety store it. Then with the offline activation capability asked for above, we could reactivate the headset on arbitrary computers without the need to go online (or the servers to still exist…) once we ran through the activation procedure once.
Think that would be good enough for me to reconsider Pimax headsets. Main remaining disadvantage would then be that the concept still diminishes the resell value of the headsets because people can never be sure whether a headset is already fully paid off.
Or c) Best: Reconsider this and just drop the activation/online idea. Split PiTool and the shop, make everything needed to operate the headset completely independent of any servers or online activation. Then no caveats would have to be counterweighted in the purchase decision.
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