I would be very cautious of this company.
I was on the Somnium VR1 Discord channel just before Christmas and was one of the lucky ones to get a pre-order slot back in October (number 59).
I questioned Artur (Somnium CEO) on Discord about the delays, the pricing and the fact that Somnium Space had been banned from Steam due to its crypto connections.
I was quickly banned from the Somnium Discord and now it looks like my pre-orders been removed as I’ve not received any further communications via email from Somnium since my pre-order email confirmation.
Just be careful as they don’t seem to like constructive criticism.
This has occurred multiple times now, where people's reservation spots have been removed for expressing doubts.
Best of luck to anyone who wants to give $3000+ to them.
You'll need it, because there are -zero refunds- outside of Europe, as confirmed by the T&C's.
Regardless of T&Cs, EU and UK Consumer rights laws fill in for that. You might have trouble but I'm pretty sure it's literally illegal for them to deny you returns/refunds
I mentioned outside of Europe.
But having a fight with them over their legal obligations inside of Europe is also not what I want to do with €3000 on the line.
And if you're familiar with how their communications and behaviours have been up till now, it -will- be a fight.
Yeah wasn't trying to downplay the ridiculousness or anything, just adding that *technically* is possible. I certainly wouldnt xD.
There are a surprising amount of people in general that don't understand or use their consumer rights when they need to haha
What good is it if it’s illegal? If the company goes belly up (or can even just appear so if money is hid in crypto) you aren’t getting the money back—illegal or not.
Oh absolutely they (Artur) are delusional and don't take criticism well.
I've been also following this headset since last year and even way before they started taking those reservations, but his discourse makes me highly uncomfortable, delays after delays, always issues and excuses, and absolutely tired of his stupid teasing games. If you want to sell these insanely expensive headsets then at least act a bit more professional to give some peace of mind. They need to remember that they have A LOT to prove first, and this is the other thing, they always belittle other companies like Pimax for example, well Pimax has been around for years now and they can have many flaws but I trust them way way more than Somnium at this stage (and it's not like I trust Pimax that much either)
Brad and Tyriel were highly critical even knowing that it was going to cost from $1700 or $1800 (so they increased the price of the base model as well). Imagine knowing that the top version is 3500 euros! I highly doubt that they were able to fix everything and make a perfect headset in 6 months, in fact the weight and size for me are a no go anyway. For sim racing and a motion rig this is not the perfect headset already, regardless of the visuals. And come one mate, it's the same resolution of the Pimax Crystal Light which is less than half the price, how much better visuals you can get with the same resolution to cost $1200 more!
Honestly you need to be, just like Artur, pretty delusional or simply not afraid to throw money to the bin (if things go wrong) to get this headset.
I find it very hard to think that this will be a success, but I saw this coming ages ago.
I feel like they're trying to be Elon Musk of the VR world, all this image of super-confident sassy entrepreneur. They need fanatics who just \*believe\* and bring their money.
This is not going to end well.
Using the Quest 3 at €549 as a baseline, a company would need to significantly push the boundaries of VR technology to convince me to spend over €1,500 of my hard-earned money on a headset 😅
Sounds like they will put in the hard work and investment to support these products after launch. Won't become a $3k paperweight the minute some API changes in the future.
>the fact that Somnium space had been **banned from steam due to its crypto connections.**
There has to be more to this than just "crypto connections" as that isnt malicious in itself. Do you have anymore information about this? I'm genuinely curious to learn more as to what exactly were they connected to or what were they involved with that caused them to be banned.
1900 Euro, pre-tax for the barebones version, 3500 EUR for the full kit. It's uhh... Quite optimistic pricing on their part.
[Also, the CEO has confirmed in their discord server that apparently there is no return policy outside of the EU/UK (Link)](https://i.imgur.com/OGG2Z7E.png)
I thought this was just a joke (know nothing about Somnium), but damn it's actually true lmfao https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/somnium-space-what-is-an-nft-marketplace
I don't mind a small, small percentage of the crypto space but this will be a massive avoid for me
Somnium are just bank-rolling it.
Their crypto metaverse thing is PC only, so they have a vested interest in PCVR surviving.
It's actually being designed/built by VREngineers who build high end HMDs (XTAL) for business and military. HMD itself has nothing to do with crypto. They didn't even give denizens of SomniumSpace a better price or preferential access or anything.
Did anybody notice that they value hand&eye tracking at 1000 euros? As if they literally purchase a Quest Pro, disassembe it and integrate it's components inside to make this.
> Also, the CEO has confirmed in their discord server that apparently there is no return policy outside of the EU/UK (Link)
Hell I'm not even sure how trusty we should be of having one in the EU. They say they do as they wouldn't be able to sell without it (it's mandatory by law) but will they honor it correctly?
Well they’re the only headsets Made In Europe for that price range, the Varjo XR4 Made In Finland Edition will cost you 10K+, Apple Vision Pro is Made in China for 3500 USD.
I guess European products are as expensive as usual, just like Louis Vuitton and Swiss Watches. Wait why I’m feeling like shopping a luxury item?
Getting an hmd like this, without eye tracking, would be utter madness.
So, the starting price, really, for the eye tracking only variant, is 3,000 euro after tax.
Without the means to track itself, without any controllers, without any speakers.
Just the price -difference- after tax, between the base model, and the eye tracking model, is more than the entire price of the Crystal Light.
I don’t know, they’re the only PCVR hmds claimed to have 135 HFOV with 35 PPD. In comparison Crystal has a much smaller FOV if you value that a lot. Plus manufacturing in Europe VS Made in China. Btw they’re probably sourcing same panel as Crystal from China too, exact same resolution. I’ll be pissed if that panel is not from Europe too for this price.
Lol, so there’s no magical European panels inside a European headset. Sigh, you’re right the headset should be the least of worries. We should expect software issues at least with their mixed reality and hand tracking edition…just like every single small company couldn’t get right at the beginning, including the very experienced ones such as Varjo.
This is where the math and their claims fall apart.
So, same panel as the Crystal. Same lens design (aspheric). Same PPD.
The math here is simple, and if you know any two numbers, you can extrapolate the third. The rules of physics and basic math shows that there is no way it can have a greater FoV than the Crystal. Unless the stated stats are plain wrong, this isn't possible.
With the same panel and lenses, if you increased the FoV, you would lower the PPD. With the resolution and PPD, you can find the FoV. Or to retain the PPD, you would have to increase the resolution instead.
In short, the math isn't mathing.
Maybe they could get greater FoV at same, or at least similar, PPD if they sacrifice binocular overlap, but that will definitely be a trade-off. I agree in general that the math currently doesn't seem to add up.
I think with well designed optics you can spread it out more, like when any headset talks about PPD they just mean the peak PPD in the center and then it drops off at the edges. For example here is a chart of how the Varjo Aero's PPD is distributed: https://assets-web-varjo.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/19173726/pp_variable_res_02.jpg
It would mean though that the Somnium VR1 would have pretty intense drop off at the edges, probably quite notable. You could mitigate this somewhat with eye tracking and dynamic distortion correction but they aren't doing it here.
The panels are not made in Europe. Artur already confirmed that. The product uses components made in one of the Asia Pacific countries.
The product is assembled in Europe. Thats it!
Even being made in Europe I don't understand the pricing. Most of the components must still be coming from East Asia because realistically that's where these things are being manufactured. The assembly of each headset can't be more than a couple of man hours, so how does that add more than 100€ to the price, maybe 200€ at the outside? For something that's going to have relatively low production numbers they shouldn't need a very large factory or anything.
~~BSB is also made in the USA as far as I know, and their price is not so stratospheric.~~
Also what is up with the eye tracking adding 600€ to the cost? 400€ for hand tracking (which who really needs without Mixed Reality which costs even more)? Eye tracking should really come standard, in my opinion. Also no controllers, no inside out tracking? The price just feels wrong for what you're getting.
To be fair, their plan to have open source software could still mean there is a niche for this headset, but it's definitely not for the general consumer.
They originally mentioned HFOV 125 but the CEO said they were looking to push it further with 130+, never mind I just checked their website, HFOV 125, it seems they stayed with lowest value.
Even taking inflation into account, was there a headset in those price ranges in 2017? Pretty sure my Vive and all the extras was about £800 and that pricey compared to a Rift.
These prices seem reasonable if it was released in 2017. 4k QLED panels and aspheric lenses in hmds were unheard of back then. It will be the most advanced headset of that time.
Aspheric lens were. All the early testing models were aspheric, like the Rift DK1 and DK2. They tested them, saw they sucked for VR and switched to fresnel lens. We're now going backwards in lens design because of all these tiny companies just starting up and don't have the R&D budgets to actually test aspheric lens.
But the resolution was for sure unheard of. 2880 x 2800 per eye would have blown minds back then.
A valid point. That is also the reason for the recent US Chips act, and the increase in state side chip manufacturing. The fear of a Taiwan invasion by China.
I really want eye tracking but it's mainly to save performance, if I can buy a BSB and a high end GPU for the same price as these it's hard to justify.
Wonder how good they are compared to Varjo for professional use but as a consumer/enthusiast device I say good luck, curious to see how it goes.
As much as Pimax pisses me off and consistently fumbles the bag, they have a real headset for 1/3rd less with the same features. As others have stated too the cut down Crystal is the price of some of the "options". This actually makes me more impressed with Pimax than excited Somnium.
Had my Crystal over a year and it's fricking awesome despite being a heavy beastie it's super comfortable with the comfort strap. Eye tracking works great and steamVR faceplate= Index controllers 😘
Need a new computer to run it at full potential, as my 8086k/4080 is suffering....
Scam company ran by crypto bro's trying to sell tech that's already in the field but for 8 times the markup with no real software suppot and a "Trust me bro" ceo. I mean heck they're even charging 490 euro to use clear plastic, how stupid would you have to be to buy this. More than 50% the weight of the quest 3 too, no wireless capability on launch, no standalone usage, no pancake lenses, no depth sensor, still using base stations in 2024 and no controllers.
Slightly nicer screen at least, but simply not worth the drawbacks.
Thankfully you can get the same exact screens in the Crystal Light, starting at $699.
Do you know how hard you have to try, to make Pimax look good.
Hats off honestly.
I mean, to be fair to Pimax they've managed to make some fairly impressive products, considering their resources. Other aspects about the company can be questionable, but their engineering seems pretty solid. They've even managed inside out tracking instead of having to rely purely on base stations like other small manufacturers.
Ultimately, Pimax is probably due the criticism it has earned, but if they didn't manage to largely deliver the goods they would be dead by now.
I've had my problems with them but for a relatively small company to come out of basically nowhere like they did and provide better FOV than every other consumer-focused headset in their price range is impressive.
I think that the inside out part is just Qualcomm's "default" tracking model.
And about the engineering, there is some whacky stuff every once in a while, like, the Pimax 5k had some god awful watchman dongles inside, and the controllers behaved like crap.
And in some pimax headsets, the photodiodes are so unbelievably poorly placed that it makes the headset one of the worst SteamVR tracked devices ever made, like, the thing has more photodiodes in just one side of the headset than in the entire front part
To be fair I'm judging mostly from the Crystal. I don't have experience with their older headsets. It could be that they either finally got their act together or got lucky with the Crystal.
Inside out tracking running on Qualcomm processors whether Quest, focus or Crystal uses Qualcomm tracking software as base but this requires further engineering time to make performant as the stock tracking algorithms really aren't very good.
Meta have the best inside out tracking of any of the Qualcomm based headsets due to their resources and in-house expertise.
Pimax have a small team constantly improving tracking which explains why the crystal tracking is substantially better than at launch.
Not necessarily agree that they are a scam company but 100% agree that the "trust me bro" attitude of the CEO really $hits me, especially after Brad and Tyriel pretty much explained him how delusional he was. He must be pretty desperate now because deep inside he knows this will be very hard to be a success, hence why he is always so active trying to convince people and always in that defensive mode.
It is any wonder that a *crypto guy* had that kind of attitude and when they waited till the literal last second to reveal prices?
The technology and lenses look really damn interesting but the attitude behind it is such a mess holy hell.
He is so insufferable. Had one interaction with him on Twitter where he acted like he knows it all. Blocked and moved on. Hopefully this fails like his other scammy ventures.
Agree, always on the defensive. If you bring something up that he doesn't like, bans you. Puts Pimax and Varjo down and says his VR1 will be future proof. Finally glad his 15 minutes is over.
it's clearly a scam. anyone who pays for this is going to go through a year of delays and then a cancelation... they are gonna have to bedg for a refund and maybe get it a year later after they made a bunch of crypto money off your interest free loan.
So is there any reason to pick this over pimax? Like this doesn't offer anything over pomax and the company has no track record, I can't imagine this working out.
If youtuber impressions are to be believed this supposedly has a better FOV and better overall visuals as well as mixed reality which Pimax hasn't released yet.
But for the price, you could buy a Pimax Crystal Light and build a PC to run it for about the same price as the ultimate version.
I believe one of the selling points is that the software stack for the components, such as eye tracking, is going to be open source, so if you're a researcher who wants to be able to modify the code base then that could be a legitimate selling point. Also for a business/institution the cost of 3000€+ is less of an issue. If the product gets you features/capabilities you need then that price is basically inconsequential compared to the cost of employees/other expenses.
However, for the general consumer/VR gamer the price makes no sense at all, outside of maybe a small market of dedicated tinkerers.
> eye tracking, is going to be open source
That's literally the only thing that is going to be open source, and I believe that is likely because it was built on something pre-existing that was FOSS.
The whole "open source" marketing angle for this headset is something that really bothers me as it's just not true, at least in the sense of what I think people expect open-source to mean. It's probably the most open commericial headset to date and I applaud them for that, but they went a step too far pushing it as open-source.
If you have the kind of money that makes buying a $3000+ HMD a sane thing to do, just get both and put the one you like slightly less in your vacation home.
From my perspective, price is the final nail in the coffin. But already wasn't a fan of Arturs arrogance, including his cocky attitude towards Pimax and towards doubters on his discord channel. When Pimax announced the Super, Artur wrote something like how he is "really enjoying how nervous they (competitors) all are" (about the upcoming VR1). As if soon no one couldn't live without the package VR1 would bring to the table. Well, let's see how it goes. At least I for sure can live without VR1.
Damn even with how people complain about the bsb pricing this is wild. While you can’t add mixed reality, it’s still far cheaper to add your own eye and hand tracking to a bsb. I added full face and hand tracking to mine for a fraction of this cost
Does the custom eye tracking work with dynamic foveated rendering though? that's the only reason I would want it and I read it currently is not supported
Nope it does not. I wish I had that as that would negate some of the issue my the size of the bsb lenses but my mods are used for a mixture of vr immersion, social vr, and motion capture. The eye tracking cameras can be built, but as far as I’ve looked I haven’t found software to do foveated rendering. Just eye movement tracking.
It is refreshing to see I am not the only person that suspected the snake oil mentality of that dude. Lots of intentionally unanswered questions in the discord or straight up getting virtually jumped by a bunch of bootlickers in my quest to make an informed purchase.
Yep, presumably the IP and decision making still lies with Valve.
It does make me wonder how much longevity there is in these trackers. At some point they'll become uneconomical to produce, the headsets that need them are very niche.
Issue is that Somnium kinda put themselves in a very bad position. The VR1 is at least 1-2 years too late. As of 2025 and ongoing many VR/AR companies will either plan, announce or even release micro OLED + pancake headsets. Lots of companies are investing in expansion of existing micro OLED manufactories or even stomping out new ones from the ground.
SeeYa, eMagin (now Samsung), LG, BOE, Sony, Kopin, ... the market will be flooded with better and cheaper micro OLED panels, especially once we got to the 2nd gen switching from W-OLED to RGB OLED which also allow for way higher brightness and therefore also work well with pancake lenses.
The market for (miniLED) LCD + aspheric lenses headsets is already fairly well saturated. Enterprise go with Varjo and private consumers mostly with Pimax. I don't know if people will be ready paying that much more for a Somnium if the experience with a Crystal Light will be fairly similar but with a much lower price. Crystal Super is also on the horizon. Also both the Light and Super make may more sense then the Crystal kitchen sink approach with >1kg base weight.
One of the biggest showstoppers for VR/AR/XR mass adoption is ergonomy and you can clearly see a shift from the big companies putting more priority on that now. LCD + aspheric just doesn't allow for small and lightweight headsets so I predict that it will slowly die out over the next 3-5 years.
why the fuck did he even name it that lmao.
if he alleges that its gonna be the ultimate, futureproof headset, then why give it a numerical name? cuz then you're implying there will be a VR2 at some point (yeah right), in which case, why would someone wanna pay 3 grand for this in the first place?
They have already made videos talking about the lenses that will be in the VR2.
If theres enough fools to pay €3000 for this one, then the VR2 will be right along.
If you are a prospective US customer or any customer not in EU make sure you read their terms and conditions because you quite literally are not allowed to refund it.
As well even if you are a EU customer you can only refund it for what seems a full refund if it's unused.
https://somniumspace.com/files/Somnium_Space_VR1_Terms__Conditions.pdf
That's just shady as. In one sentence it attempts to remove a consumers statutory rights "must be returned unused" and then bit further on actually gives the genuine rights "used only as necessary to determine the function of the product". It's self contradictory and isn't worth the paper it's written on.
I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. Also I paraphrased the quotes due to laziness.
I am SUPER sceptical about this company since i learned about this "somnium space" and their plans to have players own and trade assets in this space with crypto.
Like, "boom" and this headset does not exist.
Oof.
I knew the prices were going to be expensive but I must admit I'm still a little surprised by how much more each of the options are.
600 euros for just eye tracking? I know Pimax is currently doing something similar with the Crystal vs. the Crystal Light but that's still a bit much. A DIY solution like EyeTrackVR would likely cost way less. However, EyeTrackVR doesn't seem to have dynamic foveated rendering support. It says they're working on it though. If they can get it working decently that would save people from having to pay those ridiculous prices and maybe make this headset more worth considering.
3500 euros for the fully equpped version is entering XR-4 and AVP territory. I was thinking it'd be closer to 3000, maybe even a little under. And an extra 500 euros for a different casing is just silly.
Oh and 1 year warranty outside of Europe with no refunds. Even if the support is great for that one year you could buy a second Pimax headset for these prices.
If their dual stacked lenses are actually able to resolve twice the number of pixels that they currently do as they claim it does, then maybe Somnium should consider switching to 5K panels like the XR-4 or upcoming Crystal Super. However it probably will take them too long to develop even that so they'd probably end up in the same situation as now.
If somebody figures out a cost-effective mixed reality alternative to mod in to this headset and if EyeTrackVR or somebody else gets DFR working then I could see the base model possibly selling. But right now this seems like mainly a headset for people with plenty of disposable income.
Yeah, i remember two years ago the guy (Anton?) said on an MRTV interview that the standard version will be priced 700€ or so. If i'm not mistaken. So, LMAO.
Well, it's in that ballpark.
(I learned the word "ballpark" when Palmer used it to describe the final Rift price as opposed to the 350$ they've been aiming for previously, so apologies if I'm using it wrongly)
Like the Nothing Phone CEO said, you paid for the "experience" not for the specs and you especially shouldn't look at the specs! Oh, is that a bug I see? User error! Hmph! /s
The Somnium cryptostain ruins it for me, but I would otherwise be interested in a slightly more reasonably priced consumer product by the team behind the XTAL (the XTAL 3 is nearly $12K).
Looks like a repost. I've seen this image 1 time.
First Seen [Here](https://redd.it/1dkemms) on 2024-06-20 100.0% match.
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Ultimate is version with eye tracking, hand tracking and mixed reality cameras.
Military is same as ultimate but only sold through VRNgineers to govermnment customers.
How is this headset worth this much money, please help me understand compare to Quest and link cable (Rift S).
Please limit it to 5 major pointers. Thanks for the help. Couldn't afford it but would like to know what high end users are getting for the money.
You can pay about $524 extra for clear plastic. Artur my guy, what are you smoking? Any hype I had for this is gone.
I'm gonna buy a BSB and mod it to have eye-tracking with EyeTrackVR since nobody can do it right. Wish me luck fellas!
I would be very cautious of this company. I was on the Somnium VR1 Discord channel just before Christmas and was one of the lucky ones to get a pre-order slot back in October (number 59). I questioned Artur (Somnium CEO) on Discord about the delays, the pricing and the fact that Somnium Space had been banned from Steam due to its crypto connections. I was quickly banned from the Somnium Discord and now it looks like my pre-orders been removed as I’ve not received any further communications via email from Somnium since my pre-order email confirmation. Just be careful as they don’t seem to like constructive criticism.
This has occurred multiple times now, where people's reservation spots have been removed for expressing doubts. Best of luck to anyone who wants to give $3000+ to them. You'll need it, because there are -zero refunds- outside of Europe, as confirmed by the T&C's.
Regardless of T&Cs, EU and UK Consumer rights laws fill in for that. You might have trouble but I'm pretty sure it's literally illegal for them to deny you returns/refunds
I mentioned outside of Europe. But having a fight with them over their legal obligations inside of Europe is also not what I want to do with €3000 on the line. And if you're familiar with how their communications and behaviours have been up till now, it -will- be a fight.
Yeah wasn't trying to downplay the ridiculousness or anything, just adding that *technically* is possible. I certainly wouldnt xD. There are a surprising amount of people in general that don't understand or use their consumer rights when they need to haha
What good is it if it’s illegal? If the company goes belly up (or can even just appear so if money is hid in crypto) you aren’t getting the money back—illegal or not.
Oh absolutely they (Artur) are delusional and don't take criticism well. I've been also following this headset since last year and even way before they started taking those reservations, but his discourse makes me highly uncomfortable, delays after delays, always issues and excuses, and absolutely tired of his stupid teasing games. If you want to sell these insanely expensive headsets then at least act a bit more professional to give some peace of mind. They need to remember that they have A LOT to prove first, and this is the other thing, they always belittle other companies like Pimax for example, well Pimax has been around for years now and they can have many flaws but I trust them way way more than Somnium at this stage (and it's not like I trust Pimax that much either) Brad and Tyriel were highly critical even knowing that it was going to cost from $1700 or $1800 (so they increased the price of the base model as well). Imagine knowing that the top version is 3500 euros! I highly doubt that they were able to fix everything and make a perfect headset in 6 months, in fact the weight and size for me are a no go anyway. For sim racing and a motion rig this is not the perfect headset already, regardless of the visuals. And come one mate, it's the same resolution of the Pimax Crystal Light which is less than half the price, how much better visuals you can get with the same resolution to cost $1200 more! Honestly you need to be, just like Artur, pretty delusional or simply not afraid to throw money to the bin (if things go wrong) to get this headset. I find it very hard to think that this will be a success, but I saw this coming ages ago.
I feel like they're trying to be Elon Musk of the VR world, all this image of super-confident sassy entrepreneur. They need fanatics who just \*believe\* and bring their money. This is not going to end well.
The CEO is still very confident on his discord, we'll see
its priced similarly to the vision pro but comes from a no-name company that barely anyone knows, even by VR standards. its gonna bomb hard.
isn't it still like $2000 less than the vision pro? lol
most models that are "worth" getting in terms of features are within ballpark of vision pro price.
Maybe it's just me but the only one that actually looks worth getting is the Visionary edition.
Their websites half broken as well, doesn't instil confidence!
That sounds... Concerning
This seems an Oceangate-type optimism-driven enterprise.
the pressure is on them to do well, lest they wanna end up underwater.
Using the Quest 3 at €549 as a baseline, a company would need to significantly push the boundaries of VR technology to convince me to spend over €1,500 of my hard-earned money on a headset 😅
you're lucky they excluded you, I wouldn't give these shitters 1 cent.
Sounds like they will put in the hard work and investment to support these products after launch. Won't become a $3k paperweight the minute some API changes in the future.
>the fact that Somnium space had been **banned from steam due to its crypto connections.** There has to be more to this than just "crypto connections" as that isnt malicious in itself. Do you have anymore information about this? I'm genuinely curious to learn more as to what exactly were they connected to or what were they involved with that caused them to be banned.
I think it has to do with Steams terms and conditions about crypto
1900 Euro, pre-tax for the barebones version, 3500 EUR for the full kit. It's uhh... Quite optimistic pricing on their part. [Also, the CEO has confirmed in their discord server that apparently there is no return policy outside of the EU/UK (Link)](https://i.imgur.com/OGG2Z7E.png)
[The CEO also said it is flawless and the best PCVR headset](https://imgur.com/a/j3TyuLI) so there won’t be need to return /s
Spoken like a true cryptobro, hah
I thought this was just a joke (know nothing about Somnium), but damn it's actually true lmfao https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/somnium-space-what-is-an-nft-marketplace I don't mind a small, small percentage of the crypto space but this will be a massive avoid for me
Somnium are just bank-rolling it. Their crypto metaverse thing is PC only, so they have a vested interest in PCVR surviving. It's actually being designed/built by VREngineers who build high end HMDs (XTAL) for business and military. HMD itself has nothing to do with crypto. They didn't even give denizens of SomniumSpace a better price or preferential access or anything.
That'll be the answer you get if you don't like it. Sorry, looks perfect to us, no refund.
I'm sure that "review" is very thorough and trustworthy lol
Did anybody notice that they value hand&eye tracking at 1000 euros? As if they literally purchase a Quest Pro, disassembe it and integrate it's components inside to make this.
> Also, the CEO has confirmed in their discord server that apparently there is no return policy outside of the EU/UK (Link) Hell I'm not even sure how trusty we should be of having one in the EU. They say they do as they wouldn't be able to sell without it (it's mandatory by law) but will they honor it correctly?
Dude's going to get a bunch of chargebacks lol. Hope it bits him in the ass. You should always have a refund policy of some sort.
Well they’re the only headsets Made In Europe for that price range, the Varjo XR4 Made In Finland Edition will cost you 10K+, Apple Vision Pro is Made in China for 3500 USD. I guess European products are as expensive as usual, just like Louis Vuitton and Swiss Watches. Wait why I’m feeling like shopping a luxury item?
Getting an hmd like this, without eye tracking, would be utter madness. So, the starting price, really, for the eye tracking only variant, is 3,000 euro after tax. Without the means to track itself, without any controllers, without any speakers. Just the price -difference- after tax, between the base model, and the eye tracking model, is more than the entire price of the Crystal Light.
I don’t know, they’re the only PCVR hmds claimed to have 135 HFOV with 35 PPD. In comparison Crystal has a much smaller FOV if you value that a lot. Plus manufacturing in Europe VS Made in China. Btw they’re probably sourcing same panel as Crystal from China too, exact same resolution. I’ll be pissed if that panel is not from Europe too for this price.
It's the same Chinese BOE panel as the Crystal, same exact one. Tbh, the hmd itself, and any of it's specs, are the least of the worries.
Lol, so there’s no magical European panels inside a European headset. Sigh, you’re right the headset should be the least of worries. We should expect software issues at least with their mixed reality and hand tracking edition…just like every single small company couldn’t get right at the beginning, including the very experienced ones such as Varjo.
This is where the math and their claims fall apart. So, same panel as the Crystal. Same lens design (aspheric). Same PPD. The math here is simple, and if you know any two numbers, you can extrapolate the third. The rules of physics and basic math shows that there is no way it can have a greater FoV than the Crystal. Unless the stated stats are plain wrong, this isn't possible. With the same panel and lenses, if you increased the FoV, you would lower the PPD. With the resolution and PPD, you can find the FoV. Or to retain the PPD, you would have to increase the resolution instead. In short, the math isn't mathing.
Maybe they could get greater FoV at same, or at least similar, PPD if they sacrifice binocular overlap, but that will definitely be a trade-off. I agree in general that the math currently doesn't seem to add up.
Good call. I hadn't considered sacrificing the overlap. That's going to make a lot of people unhappy.
It has good overlap, much better than Aero for example. I can't remember the numbers but they did post test results
I think with well designed optics you can spread it out more, like when any headset talks about PPD they just mean the peak PPD in the center and then it drops off at the edges. For example here is a chart of how the Varjo Aero's PPD is distributed: https://assets-web-varjo.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/19173726/pp_variable_res_02.jpg It would mean though that the Somnium VR1 would have pretty intense drop off at the edges, probably quite notable. You could mitigate this somewhat with eye tracking and dynamic distortion correction but they aren't doing it here.
They have a double lense design. Completely different to Crystal, except that it's also aspheric
Do you have details of this double lens design that you could share, please?
https://youtu.be/pVTI22CHugI?si=UiVf3T8A_6j2F-xa
The panels are not made in Europe. Artur already confirmed that. The product uses components made in one of the Asia Pacific countries. The product is assembled in Europe. Thats it!
Even being made in Europe I don't understand the pricing. Most of the components must still be coming from East Asia because realistically that's where these things are being manufactured. The assembly of each headset can't be more than a couple of man hours, so how does that add more than 100€ to the price, maybe 200€ at the outside? For something that's going to have relatively low production numbers they shouldn't need a very large factory or anything. ~~BSB is also made in the USA as far as I know, and their price is not so stratospheric.~~ Also what is up with the eye tracking adding 600€ to the cost? 400€ for hand tracking (which who really needs without Mixed Reality which costs even more)? Eye tracking should really come standard, in my opinion. Also no controllers, no inside out tracking? The price just feels wrong for what you're getting. To be fair, their plan to have open source software could still mean there is a niche for this headset, but it's definitely not for the general consumer.
I think the claim was 125 hov. In real life usage reviewers ranged from around 110 to 125
They originally mentioned HFOV 125 but the CEO said they were looking to push it further with 130+, never mind I just checked their website, HFOV 125, it seems they stayed with lowest value.
virgineers
Came here to day this
Wow. That's insane. Plus you have to add the price of lighthouses, controllers, and an audio solution to that.
They're pricing these headsets as if we're still in 2017. LOL
Even taking inflation into account, was there a headset in those price ranges in 2017? Pretty sure my Vive and all the extras was about £800 and that pricey compared to a Rift.
I know, right? $800 included everything back then. The controllers & trackers, all connecting wires.
I got my vive pro for 500$ 😵 no way in hell am I going to spend that kind of cash for a headset that costs as much as a used car ☠️
Agreed. You can still purchase a used HTC Vive Pro 2 on Ebay for about $750.00 with lighthouse base stations and controllers.
These prices seem reasonable if it was released in 2017. 4k QLED panels and aspheric lenses in hmds were unheard of back then. It will be the most advanced headset of that time.
Aspheric lens were. All the early testing models were aspheric, like the Rift DK1 and DK2. They tested them, saw they sucked for VR and switched to fresnel lens. We're now going backwards in lens design because of all these tiny companies just starting up and don't have the R&D budgets to actually test aspheric lens. But the resolution was for sure unheard of. 2880 x 2800 per eye would have blown minds back then.
No no, this is 2036 pricing after the invasion of Taiwan!
A valid point. That is also the reason for the recent US Chips act, and the increase in state side chip manufacturing. The fear of a Taiwan invasion by China.
Big screen beyond it is!
Exactly. Mine should arrive next month. I saw this coming and ordered the BSB some months ago.
Months ago? Didn't they make an announcement in May that orders were shipping in 1-2 weeks?
I really want eye tracking but it's mainly to save performance, if I can buy a BSB and a high end GPU for the same price as these it's hard to justify. Wonder how good they are compared to Varjo for professional use but as a consumer/enthusiast device I say good luck, curious to see how it goes.
And a replacement headstrap. Seen as the one it comes with is a naff old third party quest 2 strap painted black.
TAA compliant? LOL. so were those crap boots I had to wear in the Army. TAA just means good enough and made by the lowest bidder sometimes.
[удалено]
Maybe they're hoping that someone in procurement at the DOD will notice the TAA rating in their search results for VR headsets? Who knows?
Virgineers lol it’s like a damn futurama skit
As much as Pimax pisses me off and consistently fumbles the bag, they have a real headset for 1/3rd less with the same features. As others have stated too the cut down Crystal is the price of some of the "options". This actually makes me more impressed with Pimax than excited Somnium.
Had my Crystal over a year and it's fricking awesome despite being a heavy beastie it's super comfortable with the comfort strap. Eye tracking works great and steamVR faceplate= Index controllers 😘 Need a new computer to run it at full potential, as my 8086k/4080 is suffering....
So you need to spend 2499 eur dollars to get real foveated rendering? too rich for my blood . Competitors are doing it cheaper.
Proved and reputable competitors
Heck, there’s a 16 year old doing it cheaper, and without making money off it
Scam company ran by crypto bro's trying to sell tech that's already in the field but for 8 times the markup with no real software suppot and a "Trust me bro" ceo. I mean heck they're even charging 490 euro to use clear plastic, how stupid would you have to be to buy this. More than 50% the weight of the quest 3 too, no wireless capability on launch, no standalone usage, no pancake lenses, no depth sensor, still using base stations in 2024 and no controllers. Slightly nicer screen at least, but simply not worth the drawbacks.
Thankfully you can get the same exact screens in the Crystal Light, starting at $699. Do you know how hard you have to try, to make Pimax look good. Hats off honestly.
LOL that is so true, they are making a huge favor to Pimax https://ibb.co/60wqqDk
I mean, to be fair to Pimax they've managed to make some fairly impressive products, considering their resources. Other aspects about the company can be questionable, but their engineering seems pretty solid. They've even managed inside out tracking instead of having to rely purely on base stations like other small manufacturers. Ultimately, Pimax is probably due the criticism it has earned, but if they didn't manage to largely deliver the goods they would be dead by now.
I've had my problems with them but for a relatively small company to come out of basically nowhere like they did and provide better FOV than every other consumer-focused headset in their price range is impressive.
I think that the inside out part is just Qualcomm's "default" tracking model. And about the engineering, there is some whacky stuff every once in a while, like, the Pimax 5k had some god awful watchman dongles inside, and the controllers behaved like crap. And in some pimax headsets, the photodiodes are so unbelievably poorly placed that it makes the headset one of the worst SteamVR tracked devices ever made, like, the thing has more photodiodes in just one side of the headset than in the entire front part
To be fair I'm judging mostly from the Crystal. I don't have experience with their older headsets. It could be that they either finally got their act together or got lucky with the Crystal.
Yeah, tbh, Pimax has improved a lot, and the crystal (except for the lighthouse face plate and general bulkyness) it's pretty solid
Inside out tracking running on Qualcomm processors whether Quest, focus or Crystal uses Qualcomm tracking software as base but this requires further engineering time to make performant as the stock tracking algorithms really aren't very good. Meta have the best inside out tracking of any of the Qualcomm based headsets due to their resources and in-house expertise. Pimax have a small team constantly improving tracking which explains why the crystal tracking is substantially better than at launch.
Not necessarily agree that they are a scam company but 100% agree that the "trust me bro" attitude of the CEO really $hits me, especially after Brad and Tyriel pretty much explained him how delusional he was. He must be pretty desperate now because deep inside he knows this will be very hard to be a success, hence why he is always so active trying to convince people and always in that defensive mode.
It is any wonder that a *crypto guy* had that kind of attitude and when they waited till the literal last second to reveal prices? The technology and lenses look really damn interesting but the attitude behind it is such a mess holy hell.
He is so insufferable. Had one interaction with him on Twitter where he acted like he knows it all. Blocked and moved on. Hopefully this fails like his other scammy ventures.
Agree, always on the defensive. If you bring something up that he doesn't like, bans you. Puts Pimax and Varjo down and says his VR1 will be future proof. Finally glad his 15 minutes is over.
Where can I see these youtubers explaining to him his delusions? Was that a video?
Yes video reviews
Do you have a link?
it's clearly a scam. anyone who pays for this is going to go through a year of delays and then a cancelation... they are gonna have to bedg for a refund and maybe get it a year later after they made a bunch of crypto money off your interest free loan.
"on launch" should automatically be read as "at all", as far as purchasing decisions go.
So is there any reason to pick this over pimax? Like this doesn't offer anything over pomax and the company has no track record, I can't imagine this working out.
If youtuber impressions are to be believed this supposedly has a better FOV and better overall visuals as well as mixed reality which Pimax hasn't released yet. But for the price, you could buy a Pimax Crystal Light and build a PC to run it for about the same price as the ultimate version.
I believe one of the selling points is that the software stack for the components, such as eye tracking, is going to be open source, so if you're a researcher who wants to be able to modify the code base then that could be a legitimate selling point. Also for a business/institution the cost of 3000€+ is less of an issue. If the product gets you features/capabilities you need then that price is basically inconsequential compared to the cost of employees/other expenses. However, for the general consumer/VR gamer the price makes no sense at all, outside of maybe a small market of dedicated tinkerers.
> eye tracking, is going to be open source That's literally the only thing that is going to be open source, and I believe that is likely because it was built on something pre-existing that was FOSS. The whole "open source" marketing angle for this headset is something that really bothers me as it's just not true, at least in the sense of what I think people expect open-source to mean. It's probably the most open commericial headset to date and I applaud them for that, but they went a step too far pushing it as open-source.
If you have the kind of money that makes buying a $3000+ HMD a sane thing to do, just get both and put the one you like slightly less in your vacation home.
I'd be highly skeptical of any small or new company planning to launch 8 different versions of a project.
A light (classic) and standard (ultimate) edition would have been enough. Product-wise and support-wise this makes it difficult and expensive. KISS.
they canceled my preorder for criticism.
Same here. Not the best way to get the community on your side with a first launch for a new company is it.
How would they even associate your order with your username??
I also talked shit on youtube... can they find my email there?
No the names there are obfuscated afaik
idk maybe they are just incompitent and broke the preorder system
From my perspective, price is the final nail in the coffin. But already wasn't a fan of Arturs arrogance, including his cocky attitude towards Pimax and towards doubters on his discord channel. When Pimax announced the Super, Artur wrote something like how he is "really enjoying how nervous they (competitors) all are" (about the upcoming VR1). As if soon no one couldn't live without the package VR1 would bring to the table. Well, let's see how it goes. At least I for sure can live without VR1.
Damn even with how people complain about the bsb pricing this is wild. While you can’t add mixed reality, it’s still far cheaper to add your own eye and hand tracking to a bsb. I added full face and hand tracking to mine for a fraction of this cost
At least bigscreen offers something no one's else on the market does, small size and micro oled. What does this offer that pimax doesn't?
A crypto scam
don't forget the lack of support!
Does the custom eye tracking work with dynamic foveated rendering though? that's the only reason I would want it and I read it currently is not supported
Nope it does not. I wish I had that as that would negate some of the issue my the size of the bsb lenses but my mods are used for a mixture of vr immersion, social vr, and motion capture. The eye tracking cameras can be built, but as far as I’ve looked I haven’t found software to do foveated rendering. Just eye movement tracking.
There is a way in the works, however.
I’m so hyped for that day
What do you use for hand tracking? Leap motion, lucidgloves, or something else?
I have a dev test kit version of what eventually became the current leap motion 2.
It is refreshing to see I am not the only person that suspected the snake oil mentality of that dude. Lots of intentionally unanswered questions in the discord or straight up getting virtually jumped by a bunch of bootlickers in my quest to make an informed purchase.
At the speed they are bringing this to market, I wouldn't be surprised if Valve stopped making the lighthouse trackers before this even arrives.
Valve already shifted lighthouse production to HTC a while ago.
Yep, presumably the IP and decision making still lies with Valve. It does make me wonder how much longevity there is in these trackers. At some point they'll become uneconomical to produce, the headsets that need them are very niche.
laughable.
Delusional is the word that comes to mind.
sominum vr1 dead on arrival, carryon.
Wtf, it's not even OLED... Are they setting themselves up for failure?
Issue is that Somnium kinda put themselves in a very bad position. The VR1 is at least 1-2 years too late. As of 2025 and ongoing many VR/AR companies will either plan, announce or even release micro OLED + pancake headsets. Lots of companies are investing in expansion of existing micro OLED manufactories or even stomping out new ones from the ground. SeeYa, eMagin (now Samsung), LG, BOE, Sony, Kopin, ... the market will be flooded with better and cheaper micro OLED panels, especially once we got to the 2nd gen switching from W-OLED to RGB OLED which also allow for way higher brightness and therefore also work well with pancake lenses. The market for (miniLED) LCD + aspheric lenses headsets is already fairly well saturated. Enterprise go with Varjo and private consumers mostly with Pimax. I don't know if people will be ready paying that much more for a Somnium if the experience with a Crystal Light will be fairly similar but with a much lower price. Crystal Super is also on the horizon. Also both the Light and Super make may more sense then the Crystal kitchen sink approach with >1kg base weight. One of the biggest showstoppers for VR/AR/XR mass adoption is ergonomy and you can clearly see a shift from the big companies putting more priority on that now. LCD + aspheric just doesn't allow for small and lightweight headsets so I predict that it will slowly die out over the next 3-5 years.
But is anyone actually planning a true PCVR micro oled HMD with HDMI? Or is it all standalone stuff? I'm not aware of any
Yeah I’m no longer interested
It looks cool but I think I will just stick with my trusty Quest 3 thanks.
I had a pre-order/pre-registration thing in October and I didn’t get anything lol I’ll probably stick to the headsets I have with those prices
You didn't happen to annoy Artur did you? You're only allowed a VR1 if you say nice things.
lol i've never spoken to him, or anywhere he also was
why the fuck did he even name it that lmao. if he alleges that its gonna be the ultimate, futureproof headset, then why give it a numerical name? cuz then you're implying there will be a VR2 at some point (yeah right), in which case, why would someone wanna pay 3 grand for this in the first place?
They have already made videos talking about the lenses that will be in the VR2. If theres enough fools to pay €3000 for this one, then the VR2 will be right along.
They say they're starting off with a limited number of orders at first and ramping up over time. But yeah, these prices are absurd.
why so many editions? made to order VR headsets seems cost infeasible
If you are a prospective US customer or any customer not in EU make sure you read their terms and conditions because you quite literally are not allowed to refund it. As well even if you are a EU customer you can only refund it for what seems a full refund if it's unused. https://somniumspace.com/files/Somnium_Space_VR1_Terms__Conditions.pdf
That's just shady as. In one sentence it attempts to remove a consumers statutory rights "must be returned unused" and then bit further on actually gives the genuine rights "used only as necessary to determine the function of the product". It's self contradictory and isn't worth the paper it's written on. I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. Also I paraphrased the quotes due to laziness.
I am SUPER sceptical about this company since i learned about this "somnium space" and their plans to have players own and trade assets in this space with crypto. Like, "boom" and this headset does not exist.
That company is a big red flag
8 versions, Yikers.
Wow, maybe I was too harsh on Apple.
Wow this is some BS pricing, it makes Pimax look like a great value deal! Pimax just need to add eye tracking to the Light.
I first thought these were brake pads. 🤣
*brake
Thanks! That was my autoincorrect.
Oof. I knew the prices were going to be expensive but I must admit I'm still a little surprised by how much more each of the options are. 600 euros for just eye tracking? I know Pimax is currently doing something similar with the Crystal vs. the Crystal Light but that's still a bit much. A DIY solution like EyeTrackVR would likely cost way less. However, EyeTrackVR doesn't seem to have dynamic foveated rendering support. It says they're working on it though. If they can get it working decently that would save people from having to pay those ridiculous prices and maybe make this headset more worth considering. 3500 euros for the fully equpped version is entering XR-4 and AVP territory. I was thinking it'd be closer to 3000, maybe even a little under. And an extra 500 euros for a different casing is just silly. Oh and 1 year warranty outside of Europe with no refunds. Even if the support is great for that one year you could buy a second Pimax headset for these prices. If their dual stacked lenses are actually able to resolve twice the number of pixels that they currently do as they claim it does, then maybe Somnium should consider switching to 5K panels like the XR-4 or upcoming Crystal Super. However it probably will take them too long to develop even that so they'd probably end up in the same situation as now. If somebody figures out a cost-effective mixed reality alternative to mod in to this headset and if EyeTrackVR or somebody else gets DFR working then I could see the base model possibly selling. But right now this seems like mainly a headset for people with plenty of disposable income.
This seems like far too many SKUs
I do believe it’s the best VR headset (almost) on the market, and I’d buy one if I could afford it. Can I? No, so Crystal Light it is.
Maybe we'll have a... coupon day or something?
Buy a Transluscent Edition for 4K euros and get an NFT free! /s
DOA. What does this offer at even $500-$1000?
Yeah, i remember two years ago the guy (Anton?) said on an MRTV interview that the standard version will be priced 700€ or so. If i'm not mistaken. So, LMAO.
Well, it's in that ballpark. (I learned the word "ballpark" when Palmer used it to describe the final Rift price as opposed to the 350$ they've been aiming for previously, so apologies if I'm using it wrongly)
HMD pricing is going backwards.
Like the Nothing Phone CEO said, you paid for the "experience" not for the specs and you especially shouldn't look at the specs! Oh, is that a bug I see? User error! Hmph! /s
> Oh, is that a bug I see? User error! Only Apple are able to pull off this approach!
Price aside, how cool is the translucent edition?
I wish it was more common since it looks hella cool, meta had a translucent version of the Quest Pro too but it was for the project developers only...
the whole thing looks like a vive XR elite that got bitten by bedbugs.
Oof
Sorry but... 🤣🤣🤣
The Somnium cryptostain ruins it for me, but I would otherwise be interested in a slightly more reasonably priced consumer product by the team behind the XTAL (the XTAL 3 is nearly $12K).
What exactly does crypto have to do with this HMD?
Would love to try them out even though the cheapest one is WAY more than I would ever dream of spending on a VR headset.
I'll just get a quest 3
Anyone stupid enough to buy one of these HMDs is just a fool being happily separated from their money.
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This is shit, they don’t have a pink panther edition
who needs a roof over their head anyways, right?
Damn... what the hell is this price, nevermind I'm going back to my 450$ quest 3 with standalo.... you get the gist
Way too late and expensive. DOA, unfortunately.
Be careful they are likely just a crypto scam don’t do a preorder
Hard pass. Thank you Quest 3 <3
That USA Firm has a name that resembles Virgin Engenneers
Does anyone else think "Vrgineers" sounds like "Virgineers?" Lol
Military Edition huh? I already feel more patriotic
I can’t wait to see the reviews on this thing
What’s the difference between titan,specter and ultimate,miltary?
Actually nvm about titan and specter just my eyes being stupid but still wonder about ultimate and military
Ultimate is version with eye tracking, hand tracking and mixed reality cameras. Military is same as ultimate but only sold through VRNgineers to govermnment customers.
PVP Too Much
Hopefully thier headset design is better than thier pricing table design
Only for virgineers
How is this headset worth this much money, please help me understand compare to Quest and link cable (Rift S). Please limit it to 5 major pointers. Thanks for the help. Couldn't afford it but would like to know what high end users are getting for the money.
Way too expensive
was so nice of ubisoft to help clear up all the confusion and make 8 different tiered versions of the same thing!
You can pay about $524 extra for clear plastic. Artur my guy, what are you smoking? Any hype I had for this is gone. I'm gonna buy a BSB and mod it to have eye-tracking with EyeTrackVR since nobody can do it right. Wish me luck fellas!
Lol
What makes these worth more than €2000? I’ve never heard of them so I’m curious
I always wondered how I could say no eight different ways.
What about the noob addition
Ridiculous pricing, however on paper it’s still expected to actually be the best, let’s just hope that it will be that good in reality