Sony and Siemens have teamed-up for an XR headset, but you shouldn’t get too excited

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Sony and Siemens have teamed-up for an XR headset, but you shouldn’t get too excited
TL;DR:

  • Sony has announced that it has a new enterprise-oriented headset in the works.
  • Despite the fact that it probably won't be commercially available, it still has some neat features that everyone can appreciate.
  • This probably doesn't mean that Sony will make a more generalized VR headset in the near future, since the PSVR already exists.

Alright, alright. You’ve probably heard, but the Vision Pro is set to launch soon — really soon! Soon as February 2, 2024 in fact. But we’ve still got some time before we can say if it joins the ranks of the best VR headsets. So, then, how about a headset from Sony?

“Hold on!”, I hear you say, “Sony already has a VR headset and it’s called the PlayStation VR.”. And yes, you are totally right. But that headset is tied to the PlayStation series of consoles themselves, meaning that I can’t just buy one and take it home, and use it for general headset shenanigans, right?

And just in case I’m rightfully sensing a tingle of excitement within you: that’s actually your spider sense tingling, because — while I’d absolutely love for Sony to make a commercially available XR headset — the behemoth has teamed up with Siemens for something a bit more enterprise.



Wah, wah! Isn’t that just the case every single time? You get excited about a new product from a brand you love, but it turns out that it’s reserved for high-end professionals only. Well, yes, but consider it like this: these tech giants make a lot of stuff, and this helps them realize said stuff into products.

After all, you’d want your favorite tech players to keep being your favorites, right?

Plus, the fact that you — probably — won’t be taking this new headset home (partially because it’s still in development) doesn’t mean that we can’t take a look at what Sony’s promised and have a bit of fun. So here comes the list:

  • OLED displays with 4K resolutions
  • Support for DCI-P3 RGB, meaning that colors can look extra-realistic
  • Runs on the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2
  • Features a total of six cameras and sensors
  • A visor that you can lift up via a hinge, so that you can see your screen (I kind of love this one)
  • The headset is controlled via a ring and stylus, with no controllers being featured




So, even if you haven’t seen the trailer (which you'll have to do through the link, since the video is limited), it becomes rather obvious who this headset is for: engineers and design workers, who need to be able to take a look at their work in a more in-depth and detailed manner. Which is great: a lot of the things we love are reliant on these folk, so they should get the best there is!

The specs — or rather, the ones that we know of for now — look about right for early 2024, but the one key feature that I’d want to bring up is actually the visor’s design.


 

Right now, with most commercially available headsets, if you want to check out something in the real world, you’d have to lift up your entire headset. Then the headset’s lenses would get all nasty from touching your skin and hair, so sometimes you’d even have to take it off completely and give it a quick clean, before you can strap it back on.

Sure, there’s passthrough, but it’s not as good on most headsets yet and even when it is, you still don’t see things like screens right, especially if you’re looking to get finer details. As such, this style of visor makes total sense for an enterprise environment.

Moreover, I’d love for other manufacturers to give it a gander and consider implementing it into their own products. If there is a way to get a hinge, via which I can lift up the visor to take a look at the real world, without excessive light leaking being an issue, I’d sign up almost instantly.

So, there. Do you see? There’s something cool to appreciate, even in pieces of tech that aren’t exactly meant for you. Jokes aside, given that the PSVR exists as a consumer-grade product and that Sony isn’t all that happy with its performance, getting a more generalized alternative doesn’t sound too plausible.

But who knows? Sony might surprise us. After all, 2024 is looking to be a banger of a year for VR.
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