Tethered VR headsets need a $3,000 PC setup for better graphics, while standalone headsets cost $300-$400 and fit in a backpack. As the performance gap closes, standalone units enable practical uses like sending headsets to remote actors for rehearsals, and the future points toward ultra-thin wearable VR.
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A number of different ways exist to jump into your virtual worlds. If we step back in our time machine a few years, you needed a headset that looks something like this, that has a cable coming out of the back of it. That cable connects to a computer. The majority, if not all, of the processing for these types of headsets take place at the computer, which means you can have a beefy graphics card and processor. and this becomes more of a display unit. Now you take a headset like this, no cables means everything has to stand alone, meaning the processor and all of the guts and speakers and microphones and everything live completely with inside of the headset. What does that mean? Well, for certain applications, you have more power. If you use a headset like this, you can create worlds that are more photo-real. You can bring more people potentially into a world on your rendering side just because they can handle a little bit more. However, a headset like this breaks down so many barriers because the other aspect is a headset like this is going to cost you around $3,000 by the time you buy the headset and the computer that goes with it. If you already own the computer, yes, you can save a little bit of money. This one, $300 or $400, and you can begin the process. What are some of the benefits of a headset like this? Well, first of all, no wires. You can take it with you, throw it in your backpack, and head on the road. The other aspect, price. $300 or $400, you can get into virtual worlds. Now, do you give up a ton one over the other? The nice thing is they're getting closer and closer together, meaning that It's not like this is some low-poly, just barely can understand what's happening in a story, and this is so much better. Or you could say it's not as if this is a community theater of 5-year-olds doing Hamlet and this is Hamilton. No, they've grown a lot closer together. In fact, we're doing most of our work in headsets that are disconnected right now simply because we know it's easier to bring our whole community along to do so. For example, we wanted to do a show. We just sent every actor a headset. They didn't need a computer to connect it to. We also needed to bring in test audiences. We could send, for a few thousand dollars, we could actually build our test audience, which was cheaper than if they had to fly to a theater, get a hotel, and see the show. You can actually send them a headset. And now you don't do it once, you can do it multiple times. The future surrounds about making everything more and more accessible. When you think about phones, for those of you that are young, you probably don't know they used to be connected into the wall, and there was a little cable that ran from the phone, and if you walked too far, it would yank you back. Well, that's kind of what happens when you have these headsets. In fact, I've tripped over the cable, and I've done other things that— well, we'll show pictures of those later. So as we work into an environment, a headset like this someday will be so thin, hopefully, that it's like a contact lens or a pair of glasses. You won't even really notice that you're wearing it. That's when it becomes ubiquitous and we can run it forever.
