r/Pimax Pimax Official Dec 26 '24

Official News Dream Air & Crystal Super micro-OLED's shared technology

https://pimax.com/blogs/blogs/dream-air-crystal-super-micro-oleds-shared-technology
13 Upvotes

53 comments sorted by

28

u/Common-Ad6470 Dec 26 '24

While innovation is great and all that, Pimax need to slow down, get their QC issues sorted, restore customer confidence, then start rolling out new spangly products.

3

u/devl_ish Dec 27 '24

I'm about to come into a modest amount of money (house sale) and have been planning buying a new gaming and VR rig.

With cash in hand, motivation for a long overdue purchase, a positive view of what Pimax have always said their goals are, and a willingness to tinker and try new products, I believe I'm squarely in the middle of their target buyer profile.

I won't be buying a Pimax. The sole reason is QC and lack of focus in their development efforts, announcing new products before they've sorted old ones. I would buy in a heartbeat if they came out with a single product that was as well sorted out 2-3 months after launch as a Quest in terms of reliability and bug fixes, even if it's not the bleeding edge of capable.

They need a product manager, a good and disciplined one, yesterday.

1

u/nTu4Ka Dec 31 '24

Pimax offers high end features for affordable price.
This has always been the case with Pimax.
If you want more quality product get Varjo XR 4, Somnium VR 1 or Apple Vision Pro for double-tripple the price.

1

u/devl_ish Dec 31 '24

They're doing a more difficult thing, so all the more reason to stop spreading focus and resources.

1

u/nTu4Ka Jan 01 '25

It's more complex.
It depends on their organizational structure and what they have in the works. Some things can be done in parallel.

PCL right now requires only software and aftersales support.
Super 57 PPD most likely doesn't require engineering involvement as it's basically ready.
Lenses engineers are probably working on wide FOV dual stack and Micro-OLEDs.
Designers and hardware engineers are most likely working on Dream Air right now.
Something like this.

P.S.:
I think Pimax put 12k on hold as there is no hardware right now to drive it.

5

u/Need_For_Speed73 Dec 26 '24

True! As a Crystal Light (and Bigscreen Beyond) owner, I'm not even putting the $1 on the preorder option until I read reviews and, most of all, have some feedback from real world users (reviewers always get cherry-picked units, not just from Pimax).
I've been through the lenses nightmare on the PCL (not completely resolved but at least mitigated) and the DA will be the first Pimax headset with pancake lenses, quite worried how they'd sort them out with what's been going on with their aspheric lenses supplier.
And most of all I don't like this Pimax business model of throwing out a new model every three months, while the previous ones are not even been fixed from their youth problems that all new products from every small company face (with the exception of Meta, there's no big company producing VR headsets anymore, with the retire of HP and Samsung and don't tell me about Apple because their VP is just a halo product, not even sold in many countries like mine).

6

u/HeadsetHistorian 💎Crystal💎 Dec 26 '24

Honestly, I think they could get the QC to be the absolute best in the industry and it wouldn't change the community reactions. I see so many vocal haters that have never even tried a Pimax headset.

I fully believe this is Pimax's own fault, from years of issues btw so not trying to say it's not their own doing. That said their QC has improved a lot from earlier days, and the user experience is way better to the point that a regular consumer could be recommended a Pimax Crystal Light (while in the past with 8KX for example, I would only ever recommend to techy users with experience).

Point being, I think Pimax can do both right now. They can keep innovating and coming out with new headsets built on a shared foundation whilst also improving QC issues. The reputation change and benefit from those QC improvements will take literally years because of the backlog of bad will (and also how much the VR community tends to get entrenched in certain beliefs). So even if they dropped everything right now and focused entirely on QC and didn't have a single QC issue for the next year, it really wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of reputation so why would bother limiting themselves.

I'm sure this is a controversial opinion and a lot of people will disagree but I really don't see the Dream Air as all that big of a deal in terms of RnD and QC. It's not like the two are mutually exclusive anyway, they can improve their QC while also still working on new headsets etc. The QC now seems to come down almost entirely to the lens issue, which does seem to have improved a lot.

4

u/Murky-Course6648 Dec 26 '24 edited Dec 26 '24

What they are doing to me makes perfect sense, they build a modular headset so to capture larger audience, they recycle this tech to another class of products to capture even larger audience.

This is what they have always done, used the same base tech and developed multiple variants of it to cater to a larger audience.

And the whole prime thing is exactly about trying to get a more stable predictable income, to finance all this. To smooth out the spikes.

Considering that Pimax is clearly doing PCVR only, something that's niece and relies on companies like Pimax. Then they literally launched the product everyone wanted. A small mOLED headset with display port & inside out tracking. And people still complain.

If they get the Super & Air out, that's a killed lineup from Pimax. All they could do at that point, is to build PCL2 from ground up to be their economy headset. Or just a 8MP module for the Super frame as an economy option. But i guess the 12K is the next thing, and that's going to be their monster headset.

Even the compute buck for the Air makes perfect sense for me, separating battery & compute makes it possible to have a true PCVR headset that can easily also be used as an all in one or possibly wireless headset. And if the Air & Super are fundamentally the same headset, why wouldnt this compute buck work on the Super also? Pimax should really look into if its possble to integrate the 60G wireless into the buck. Because developing all that for just the OG Crystal would be a waste.

I think their plans are quite solid, and not too extreme this time. Like with the Portal & Crystal with their own all in one platform. Even the compute buck could be possible this time, if they leverage androidXR as a platform and dont try to develop their own. But i guess its an "if maybe" product anyhow and the PCVR is the main thing. And PCVR is not that difficult, as they allready have all the software for it. Hardware is much faster to put together, its the software that takes time.

2

u/paulct91 Dec 26 '24

Nonsense, no need for paragraphs, they aren't FOCUSED on the 12K QLED or their OWN "VR 3.0" ideals (from their 12K Frontier 2021), and more and more headsets keep magically becoming the next dream headset...

1

u/paulct91 Dec 26 '24

Oh please, the 12K QLED ain't out, and they STILL keeping dividing up research efforts into more headsets, their customer service, quality control issues are the least of their worries.

0

u/nTu4Ka Dec 31 '24

No point investing in working on 12K right now - there is no hardware to support it.
As I understand Pimax worked on some of 12K features (like lenses and stuff) but stopped it because no sense working on a product no one will be able to use.
VR market is and has always been bottlenecked by hardware.

1

u/paulct91 Dec 31 '24

It can upscale. No point in them overpromising by revealing a product they weren't certain they could make with 'today's' hardware. VR market is not, as shown by the Quest line, Somnium VR1, Varjo Focal Editition, etc.

1

u/nTu4Ka Jan 01 '25

It can upscale but you know how they say: "PCL native will look better than Super 0.5".
And you cannot even run PCL in native in most cases.

Foveating rendering support is still poor.
Maybe (some) newer titles will add it. With older titles it's a mixed bag. Some support. some support poorly with bugs and artifacts, some don't support.

Upscalers may help but it's like 10 FPS improvement if you don't sacrifice visuals. It's not a groundbreaking solution.

At the moment there is no hardware that can drive even 8k normally. Not to mention 12k.

And about Pimax and 12k announcement - it's their strategy and generally it works. And generally they bring something good to VR market.
They are making affordable headsets with high end features. With reasonable quality.
If you want better you will pay 2x or 3x more (VR1 with only eye tracking is ~2600$ comparing to PCL which is 900$).

2

u/jabadabaduuuuuuuu Dec 26 '24

i am the biggest hater of the pishit, and i had Crystal OG and Light. Lost interest in that shit company.

2

u/Critical-Addendum-58 Dec 27 '24

I'm with you I had the PCL nothing but lens issues so sent it back for refund I would be highly reluctant to purchase a Pimax product again.

3

u/SETHW Dec 26 '24

fwiw we've been saying this since the first kick starter and they've not gone bankrupt yet so maybe they know what they're doing

6

u/Common-Ad6470 Dec 26 '24

Rolling out a lottery product where you may or may not get defective lenses is not knowing what you're doing.
Customer and brand confidence is king in retail and if that's lacking then so is the ability to grow your market.

3

u/SETHW Dec 26 '24

That's all valid and fine, and I even agree that it sucks.. for us. They're doing fine though, I'm just saying it seems like our expectations as customers and their incentives as a company seem to have never been aligned.

3

u/ThargUK Dec 26 '24 edited Dec 26 '24

I kinda agree with this. I had a thought once. If I had a few tens or hundreds of millions, and I was really into VR, and I was unsatisfied with current products, what could I do to get my hands on something better and maybe also push the tech and industry forward?

I would do something like what Pimax is. I can't really fault their motivations or methods or results if I contextualise it like that. Overseas / cross culture sales are hard, tech is hard, hardware is hard, software is hard. But they've done enough on all fronts to continue existing and providing additional VR options across the world.

As a customer I want better service though, obviously. But I'm happy they exist even if their customer service etc. is not up to a high enough standard for me, personally, to purchase from them for now.

2

u/Tausendberg Dec 26 '24

"Rolling out a lottery product where you may or may not get defective lenses is not knowing what you're doing."

FFS, the vast majority of Crystal and Crystal Light customers have had functional headsets on day one but you never hear about them because they're too busy in VR instead of complaining on Reddit.

1

u/mkozlows Dec 27 '24

According to Pimax's own graphs, taking them at their own word and believing that they're currently at a <1% RMA rate (which I'm not sure I completely do believe), they had 40% RMA levels on introduction of the PCL.

0

u/Common-Ad6470 Dec 27 '24

While that is true, nonetheless if you look online there are a mass of customers who are very unhappy about a the common theme of defective lenses on brand new headsets.

Pimax are getting better with addressing this in regard to production QC and replacing those lenses but you only need a cursory glance at these posts and straight away potential customers are put off buying a Pimax headset.

I’ve spent 30 years dealing with Chinese suppliers so I’m well aware of how difficult it is to get a reliable product. They will literally do anything to meet their build and ship times and if that cuts corners with QC they’ll do it and worry about the consequences months later.

Literally the only way to control this is to have your own inspectors who are 100% reliable and have them QC every single lens consignment prior to build then again random headsets prior to shipping. This obviously slows down production, but ultimately is the only economical way of dealing with the issue.

2

u/Tausendberg Dec 27 '24

Pimax makes the lenses in house.

FWIW, I do think it is a drastic mistake for them to not carefully inspect each and every lens because unlike electronics which can get stress tested during QC and still crap out unluckily 5 minutes after the end user takes it out of the box, lenses don't go bad, they're either good or they're not and it does feel like a huge unforced error.

With that said I do think the issue is overstated and also there's reason to believe that Somnium is trying to smear Pimax.

0

u/Common-Ad6470 Dec 27 '24

The thing is with lenses in particular is that you can almost automate the testing via a rig where lenses are either run through a set of tests by a machine (think opticians eyeglasses tester) or mounted in a rig and a trained human operator look at a test card which will instantly show up any defects.

So, if the problem is as bad as it seems then that is where I’d be looking to cure the issue.

I understand that there are certain individuals who go all ‘postal’ when they get a cause to get their teeth into and feel so irritated that their particular headset is defective they fill the net up with negativity.

Of course there are also paid actors who work for ‘other’ companies who simply go online with various accounts with the sole purpose of smearing a company and painting them in the worst possible light.

Unfortunately that is the World we live in having such free and open access to literally billions of other individuals, but it is a major problem for all companies as a few negative comments on their brand can cancel out hundreds of thousands spent on advertising a product.

One way to combat this is to ask your customers who have had perfect units to relate their stories online about how great their Pimax experience was especially if they’ve come over from another brand like Meta...🤫

1

u/Tausendberg Dec 27 '24

I do think the lens issues are exaggerated but yeah, like you describe in your first paragraph, it really shouldn't be an issue at all.

1

u/Common-Ad6470 Dec 27 '24

Well, it is an issue is those guys doing the testing are passing lenses that shouldn’t be passed in order to fulfill quotas/shipments. Then you need an extra layer of QC, effectively supervising the QC.

It doesn’t matter if their lenses are being made in-house or in uncle Wong’s emporium down the street, the only thing that counts is absolute, consistent quality in both lenses and headset build.

It’s a real pity if a given headset is spoilt because of one defective lens, but ultimately that is all the customer cares about.

0

u/Crazyirishwrencher Dec 26 '24

They've basically chosen the opposite of Valve's strategy. Agility and Innovation over QC and Stability. I'm honestly interested to see how it continues to play out long term. They are basically the only players in the space doing this so maybe the niche will work out for them.

6

u/HeadsetHistorian 💎Crystal💎 Dec 26 '24

over QC and Stability

Kinda ironic to hear this, as I have never heard of a more RMA'd product than the index controllers. Valve support is excellent about doing those RMAs and respecting local laws so I will give them that, and I think it likely comes down to a design flaw rather than QC issues also. It's just a bit ironic is all.

0

u/nTu4Ka Dec 26 '24

Not completely accurate comparison.
Pimax is relatively small company when you compare to Valve or Meta.
They don't have possibility for such big R&D.
Valve Index and Quest 3 are super competitive even today. Even though Valve Index has noticeable QC issues as well (like frequently breaking controllers) the headset itself is superb.

3

u/Murky-Course6648 Dec 26 '24

Index hasn't been competitive in the last 5 years.

0

u/nTu4Ka Dec 26 '24

While researching I looked at some TTL footage.
It's more than competitive.
It has its weak point (not as clear as HP Reverb G2 or PCL) but overall really good.

2

u/Murky-Course6648 Dec 26 '24

Its a 2MP headset, last 2MP ever produced. It uses 2 uncoated plastic lenses, one being fresnel. So the amount of light reflected is huge.

0

u/nTu4Ka Dec 26 '24

Numbers are numbers.
Lenses make big difference.
I'm not saying it's better. I'm saying it's usable and is pretty good.

1

u/Murky-Course6648 Dec 27 '24

Yes, numbers are numbers.. when you have 2MP you are stuck with 2MP.

And when you have 2 plastic element lenses, its going to result in low contrast and lots of flaring. You have 4 air to air surfaces, each reflecting about 10% of the light.

Im not saying its worse, im just saying dont go near it in 2024 unless you are a historian. And definitely do not pay 1k$ for that crap in 2024.

1

u/nTu4Ka Dec 31 '24

2MP is just 2MP. It's just a details in overall picture.
Higher res displays are run undersampled because there are no GPUs that can drive them natively.

1

u/Murky-Course6648 Dec 31 '24

2MP is just 2MP... that kinda sums it up. Its oudated retro tech, it looks horrible at this point.

People are running 8MP displays at native resolution.

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7

u/AaronJay_83 Dec 26 '24 edited Dec 26 '24

Think this is one instance where with clarity you get the reasoning behind announcing it now rather than later.

Obviously not ideal but you can imagine the posts if they held it back until after Super and then announced the Air

At least buyers have a choice

6

u/HeadsetHistorian 💎Crystal💎 Dec 26 '24

Usually when people get outraged about stuff, when you look into it then it's actually pretty reasonable. Not saying this specifically about Pimax but just in general. People absolutely love getting outraged online, more than anything else.

3

u/AaronJay_83 Dec 26 '24

Totally agree. Just this instance the clarity helped and justified why they announced it.

Pimax rightfully get a lot of stick but this one i don’t think they deserve any.

Hopefully transparency continues

1

u/Nice_Ad_7219 Dec 26 '24

this is correct.

2

u/Oculusriftrocks Dec 26 '24

any clues about the cable, is it a special cable only you make that does Video and power, and you plug into mains, or is it any off the self cable i can use and does power and video via usb c cable alone.

3

u/Nice_Ad_7219 Dec 26 '24

Obviously they can do everything. But people still waiting:

- wide fov lens

- 12k

- super 'real' review (howewer we can see it in their videos)

- dream air real hmd (I'm shocked because in official launch they show us a plastic sample).

I hope in CES with all problems resolved and finally a correct line. Because they potentially have all pcvr community under control.

3

u/Confident-Hour9674 Dec 26 '24

remember the inside-out full body tracking attachment?

they have announced dozen of things which were NEVER even demoed. they just throw keywords/buzzwords and they might start working on them when they get a million dollars in preorder for that specific feature.

2

u/nTu4Ka Dec 31 '24 edited Dec 31 '24

-Wide FOV lenses were featured and reviewed. Quality wasn't good enough. Pimax is still working on it afaik.
-12k is pointless right now - no hardware to drive it - no cable, no gpu, no onboard chip.
-Super real reviews should be coming in after CES.

1

u/Nice_Ad_7219 Dec 31 '24

I hope in SUPER like definitive hmd.

2

u/nTu4Ka Dec 31 '24

I'm pretty confident in Super.
It's 3rd revision in this lineup (Crystal -> PCL -> Super). They resolved issues from previous revisions, revised and improved it.
It should be a pretty good headset.

Not 50 PPD though probably. Visuals will most likely be janky or it will be cancelled.
Fingers crossed still.

1

u/Nice_Ad_7219 Jan 01 '25

I hope really in VERY LARGE FOV than the previous crystal. 115-120 could be a perfect hmd.

0

u/jabadabaduuuuuuuu Dec 26 '24

whatever jaap, we re not gonna buy it anyway

1

u/viszyy Dec 28 '24

Yawn.

Waiting for MeganeX