I just lately went hands-on with Varjo XR-4 Focal Version, the $9990 headset the corporate claims offers VR and MR “indistinguishable from pure sight”. However does this declare actually maintain up?
Varjo XR-4 Guarantees Extremely Excessive Decision Passthrough
Varjo simply introduced the XR-4 collection, its newest vary of extremely excessive finish PC-based headsets for enterprise.
Consolation & Cable
At over 1 kilogram Varjo XR-4 is on paper an especially heavy headset, however you wouldn’t know that when carrying it. It contains a hybrid halo strap design which places a lot of the weight in your brow whereas additionally having thick high and rear padding. The result’s a headset that didn’t really feel uncomfortable at any time in my roughly 45-minute demo.
The power to regulate the attention aid additionally means Varjo XR-4 ought to simply accommodate glasses, although I do not put on glasses, so I did not take a look at this myself.
The drawback of this design is that the headset at all times felt just a little too free on my face, irrespective of how I adjusted it. This may make it deeply unsuitable for lively gaming, however this isn’t a headset designed for that. It’s principally designed for visualizing sensible 3D fashions and environments, in addition to for coaching duties resembling flight simulators.
Whereas it is not wi-fi, Varjo XR-4 makes use of a fiber-optic cable the corporate tells me is by itself costlier than a Meta Quest 3. Not solely does this make it thinner and lighter than the cable you’d discover hooked up to headsets like Valve Index, PlayStation VR2 and Bigscreen Past, it additionally means it may well theoretically be prolonged to very lengthy distances with out the necessity for the clunk of lively repeaters.
Lenses, Shows, And VR High quality
Not like its predecessors, Varjo XR-4 has one 4K LCD show per eye, with out separate micro-OLED focal shows, but it nonetheless guarantees near-retinal show decision within the middle of your area of view. How? As a result of it makes use of giant aspheric lenses with a extremely variable magnification to prioritize pixel density within the center whereas stretching out comparatively fewer pixels throughout the periphery.
| Varjo XR-3 | Varjo XR-4 Collection | |
| Shows (per eye) | 1920×1920 for central 27°×27° (70PPD) + 2880×2880 background (30PPD peak) | 3840×3744 (51PPD peak) |
| Refresh Fee | 90Hz | 90Hz |
| Subject of View | 115°×78° | 120°×105° |
| Native Dimming | ❌ | ✅ |
| Brightness | 100 nits | 200 nits |
| Colour Gamut | 93% DCI-P3 | 96% DCI-P3 |
I say “close to” retinal right here as a result of Varjo XR-4’s show system achieves 51 pixels per diploma (PPD), barely shy of the 60 PPD threshold usually accepted to be what the human eye can discern. It is also barely lower than the 55 PPD of Meta’s Butterscotch prototype which I attempted final yr.
These minor caveats apart, 51 PPD continues to be far past some other headset you should buy – for any amount of cash. Mixed with a practical digital scene rendered by the facility of a high-end PC, the result’s visible high quality nothing wanting beautiful. In a digital automotive for instance I might make out the smallest particulars within the dashboard on the identical distance I might in actuality.
And it is not simply the decision that is spectacular right here. Like Somnium VR1, Varjo XR-4 offers round 200 nits to the attention, round double what Quest 3 and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional can do. And since people understand brightness logarithmically, this feels greater than twice as shiny. This makes the solar and sky of a digital world really feel far more like actually being outside. And mixed with native dimming, the distinction and black ranges really feel significantly better than common LCD, although nonetheless not fairly at OLED stage.
The one disappointing facet of Varjo XR-4’s VR picture is the sensible area of view. On paper it is 120°×105° sure, wider and taller than most headsets in the marketplace. However in actuality I noticed each distortion and brightness inconsistencies within the periphery. To keep away from these distractions, I adjusted the attention aid to scale back the sector of view, to the purpose it was roughly on par with a Quest 2.
Passthrough Combined Actuality
In each Meta Quest 3 and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional it is jarring to see how a lot decrease high quality the real-world passthrough view is than digital objects. Whereas interfaces and enemies are sharp and crisp, the passthrough is usually grainy, blurry, and decrease distinction.
Varjo XR-4 was alleged to buck this development because of 20-megapixel passthrough cameras, in comparison with 4MP on Quest 3 and 6.5MP on Imaginative and prescient Professional. The Focal Version I attempted even has autofocus guided by eye monitoring. When asserting the headset Varjo claimed this could give it passthrough high quality “virtually indistinguishable from pure sight”.
In apply, this isn’t what I noticed in any respect. Actually, Varjo XR-4’s passthrough high quality, regardless of its on-paper specs, felt total worse than Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
To begin, the depth and scale had been very off within the near-field, to the purpose I might really feel sick if I used to be strolling round in passthrough as a result of total geometric distortion. Not like Meta and Apple, Varjo does not appear to be doing any type of correction for depth in any respect.
As I discussed earlier although, it is a headset designed primarily for sitting. However even ignoring the depth scale, the element and readability simply wasn’t spectacular, even within the autofocus area that provides $6000 to the fee (the bottom mannequin, with out autofocus, is priced at $3990).
I ought to notice that the lighting circumstances in my demo room had been removed from supreme. I would not name it dim, but it surely wasn’t shiny both. Nonetheless, the lighting was not less than nearly as good, if not higher, than it was at my Somnium VR1 demo, and I discovered VR1’s passthrough to be higher than Varjo XR-4 Focal Version, regardless of being round 1 / 4 of the worth.
In terms of occlusion, Varjo XR-4 makes use of its LiDAR for dynamic occlusion, and builders can simply combine this with just a few clicks. It really works effectively and offers an occlusion high quality barely higher than Quest 3 – with one exception. The headset’s LiDAR cannot see black objects, as a result of they absolutely take up the sunshine. To unravel this, Varjo would wish to make use of laptop imaginative and prescient as an alternative.
The Problem Of Passthrough
It’s possible you’ll be questioning how I could be saying all this a couple of headset with 20 megapixel cameras. On paper, it needs to be trouncing its opponents. However there are two causes it does not.
First, decision is just one metric of a digital camera. What arguably issues extra is the aperture and sensor dimension, which decide how a lot gentle comes into and is captured by the digital camera. Somnium VR1’s trick is to make use of a bigger aperture and sensor dimension, and regardless of its value, Varjo XR-4’s cameras are nonetheless fairly small.
However the greater drawback is bandwidth, the important thing limiting issue on all passthrough combined actuality techniques at this time. Transmitting hundreds of thousands of pixels at a excessive body price is a problem for even the most recent USB normal, and processing them is even tougher. Twin 20-megapixel cameras, for instance, is equal to 5 4K video streams. And that is why Varjo does not even strive. In actuality, what you see is quite a bit decrease decision.
Vrgineers, the corporate behind XTAL headsets, is engaged on an answer for this drawback that includes a customized chip within the headset mixed with a customized PCI-E card that slots right into a PC. The headset and card are more likely to value much more than Varjo XR-4, although, however this can be what it takes to truly ship on the type of passthrough Varjo promised.
Conclusion
All issues thought-about, Varjo XR-4 supplied the best high quality VR picture I’ve ever seen, approaching full realism in digital particulars. Nevertheless it does not push ahead area of view, not less than not with out unacceptable tradeoffs. And its passthrough is nothing higher than what you’d get on a Quest 3 or Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, and in some methods markedly worse.
Varjo plans to promote XR-4 to rich customers beginning later this yr. However the gulf between the VR high quality and passthrough is so nice that I believe Varjo ought to promote a “VR-4” with out passthrough, specializing in the headset’s energy as a VR headset with out including value to assist its weak spot as a combined actuality machine
