Well imho. Pico should see about if Valve will give them help loading the SteamOS on their new headset. As the key problem Pico and other Android headsets have faced is lack of Standalone Content with Meta more or less Hoarding this area.
This is why even the Vive Focus and such has not done in part well.
As for the Steam Frame the expansion pciX port for pass through could be interesting. Though I do agree the screen res is quite disappointing it dies make sense if the price is decent; though it seems it will not be sold at marketable loss with relying on software sales to subsidize the headset price.
That being said it is likely the Arm SteamOS could potentially reduce eWaste in abandoned Headsets of planned obsolescence. Bootload SteamOS and continue enjoying.
They completely dropped off the social media space probably because they chase professionals and military simulations because they don’t critique their products the way consumer customers do. That’s all well and good but you’re only as good as your last headset.
In the last 2 years we’ve seen a wave of companies release new headsets. Varjo seem to be resting on their laurels while spending in esters money keeping them afloat.
Varjo have Meta and Palms Luckeys partnership to worry about. Boba3 waiting for the right time to release. Valve releasing SteamOS that might become the PCVR standard. Bigscreen releasing solid regular headsets, Apple gearing up for a second bite of the erm, Apple. Samsung entering the market, Pico going high end. Pimax splatter gun approach. Jesus there’s more HMDs than ever, Somnium, Lynx, Shiftall all improving, all ticking more and more boxes.
I don’t think it will be long before we see mergers buy out or even companies just drop out all together.
Varjo need a new HMD and hopefully they release something new in 2026.
Well actually it seems Varjo is still just in the XR-4. So nothing new on there horizon yet. But if they have sakes, then really ATM don’t need a new product. Though the XR-4 did have some panel issues that ppl were concerned pimax Super may share like the tiger stripe/Mura.
They do though have a nice pass through. But I am curious with it being old now with how it compares with AVP. Maybe @twack3r can give us some insights as at one time he shelved the iirc xr-4 in favor if the AVP due to a variety of reasons. I believe one of them was software stability with updates breaking the headset functionality.
I would be curious if he or @Djonko has explored the m5 AVP. Though I believe main upgrade being processing power.
They might have something perhaps with insider direct enterprise customers. Who wouldn’t be as likely to leak info. But yeah don’t look like anything new. Which is surprising with the AVP being around half the price
Nope. It did cross my mind but I jumped ship to the Samsung XR. Which BTW has tons of flaws and is worse than the AVP in pretty much everything. EXCEPT two very important things and that’s the panels and the weight. The XR panel’s are just GORGEOUS, they’re really a step up from the AVP. Like I can look at a photo rendered in 3d and it just looks like on my monitor. With the AVP it’s still a bit ‘noisy’ probably because of the lower resolution.
But apart from that the XR is really FAAAR from perfection. The comfort was so bad that I took a stanley knife and just cut off the whole headrest interface part. In their infinite wisdom Samsung decided that users cant remove it, so I just cut it off. Haha incredible stupid decision from Samsung. The whole UI is nowhere close to the AVP quality. Both handtracking and eye tracking don’t work as good as the AVP. The passthrough video quality sucks and is more like Q3 quality. And there’s (slight) wavy distortion on the screen. BUT, again, those panels are so gorgeous that I’m still happy with the device.
The M5 is an interesting upgrade, but still, the weight of the AVP hasnt changed and it’s just a big downside of the headset. I decided that until apple changes that, i won’t buy an AVP again. Comfort is just really an important part of a VR headset. And after my mods the XR actually is super comfortable now.
One interesting thing is that Valve has almost everything needed to make a Valve Phone.
They recently mentioned wavedroid which lets run android apps on Arm Linux, they have mobile Frame that can run APKs, they clearly want to expose Steam Library interfaces as much as possible, Google makes Android closed, Apple & MS all recent years start to propriatate everything + ads, spying, data selling. A Arch Linux based (ie SteamOS) open source Arm mobile phone can be a very big market with supporting all existing Android APKs. It will let play you x86 & Arm Win & Linux games as well as Mobile Android ones + seemless integration with Steam.
I just imagine you grabbed your phone, its always with you. Came somewhere docked it & it runs blender / IDE natevely on a desktop monitor / TV with wireless Steam controller (I actualy code on a dualshok4 with gyro quite efficintly + onboard & AI voice input stuff, I miss very much gesture sliding keyboard if I need to write tons of documentation text so I use phone for that purpose but just for code dev its supper handy) or with keyboard / mouse & that’s it.
The XR4 is still shelved, actually in the process of selling it.
I did get an M5 AVP in addition to the M2 version. It’s noticeably faster and the 120hz make it the ideal allround HMD for me, including perfect PC streaming via ALVR. Using an Anapro2 and the new dual knit band with no light seal is a super comfortable solution for me.
So together with the PSVR2 controllers the M5 AVP is now my daily driver and I have 0 intentions of going back to PCVR-only HMDs or any form factor that is larger than the AVP.
Yeah have read a lot on the Samsung XR. It is a bit of mix bag. But imagine software wise it may improve over time. Some of the ideas in design for sure we’re not well thought out.
I would say not good news for Varjo then unless they dual things up. Too many cheaper options seem to be a much better option. Iirc the AVPs are both still cheaper than the XR4?
They already do as the Frame is just mostly a current high end phone running Linux. Not sure how well it works but there is also an android project that allows you to run OC apps and Games. Iirc @SweViver demonstrated it or someone did in the Portal
Though running Arm SteamIS with the Android later Valve helped finance is a cool route as well
I have seen an Apple blog talking about running Steam Games in phone, so likely via steam link; but that is honestly old news. So should read more than just the title to see if there is something new.
