Varjo’s professional-grade headset features retina-grade resolution and eye-tracking functionality.
Industry-caliber VR/XR specialists Varjo today announced their latest hardware release, the Varjo VR-1. Marketed specifically towards industry professionals, the reflective PC VR headset features an impressive resolution of more than 60 pixels per degree – 20x higher than current competitors.
Image Credit: Varjo VR-1 headset
Combined with the headsets integrated eye-tracking functionality, users can supposedly expect lifelike virtual content featuring levels of detail not currently offered by other major providers. Varjo hopes these hyper realistic environments will serve as the perfect tool for fields such as architecture, construction, engineering, industry design, training simulations, and other industries where accuracy is paramount.
“Premium cars can only be made with premium tools. To design in virtual reality, we need the high resolution of the Varjo device. With this high resolution there is a seamless transfer between the real world and the virtual world,” said Jan Pflueger, Coordination Augmented & Virtual Reality at Audi, in an official release.
Side-by-side comparison of the HTC Vive Pro (left) and Varjo VR-1 (right) / Image Credit: Varjo
Alongside its proprietary 20/20 eye tracker and 60-PPD Bionic Display with “human-eye” resolution, the VR-1 also features support for a large helping of photorealistic virtual workflows, including Unreal Engine, Unity, Autodesk, VRRED, PREPAR3D, ZeroLight, and VBS Blue.
“Varjo is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in VR fidelity,” spoke Timoni West, Director of XR Research at Unity Technologies. “The text quality, combined with eye tracking, makes this the first headset to move us closer to virtual reality feeling real. With such high graphical fidelity, we’re really proud that Varjo chose Unity as their development platform of choice for their headset.”
Side-by-side comparison of the HTC Vive Pro (left) and Varjo VR-1 (right) / Image Credit: Varjo
“The incredible visuals provided by Varjo VR-1, combined with the industry-leading graphical power of Unreal Engine 4, show an exciting future for high-end visualization,” adds Simon Jones, Director of Unreal Engine Enterprise at Epic.
Varjo has also confirmed plans to integrate support for AR passthrough later this year.
Varjo’s VR-1 practical use-case scenarios / Image Credit: Varjo
You can check out a full list of the confirmed specs here:
- Optics: Dual lens design combining different refractive index lenses for minimal color aberrations, zero ghost rays, and minimal reflections.
- Colors: Contrast ratio at over 10 000:1
- Resolution: 1,440 × 1,600
- Eye Tracking: 20/20 Eye Tracker™ w/ Automatic IPD adjustment.
- FOV: 87 Degrees
- Connectivity: 10-meter optical fiber cabling w/ USB-C Link Box.
- Tracking: SteamVR™ Tracking V1.0 + V2.0.
- Weight: 605g (905g w/ headband).
- Mixed Reality: Upgradeable with Varjo’s Mixed Reality Add-on, available in 2019.
Varjo’s enterprise-only VR-1 is available for shipping in 34 countries, in North America, Europe, and Asia for $5,995 USD, not including an additional yearly licensing fee of $995 USD.
While this may no be the most affordable headset currently on the market, for industry professionals looking to cut training expenses without sacrificing the level of detail required to maintain a safe work environment, the VR-1 may just be the industry-grade alternative they’ve been searching for.
