Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

shop.simulavr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 409 posts

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#361

Post by RajT88 »

georgewsinger wrote: post #318
RajT88 wrote: post #166

Price is too rich for my blood, but I will be watching with interest how it goes. I have tried working in VR a few times with my WMR headset and never found a setup which was effective. This looks pretty good! I would love to give it a try first of course.

Thanks for your interest. We're looking forward to review units shipping out in the next few months, which might help you get a sense for how the product performs by real testers. We also will be sending our weekly updates showcasing the progress of our headset development (you can subscribe here if you're interested: https://newsletter.simulavr.com/ ). RE pricing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30441454 Which…

Samsung Odyssey+. My main gripe was I could not find good virtual desktop software which was compatible with WMR which could get out of its own way.

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#362

Post by georgewsinger »

Chris2048 wrote: post #28
999900000999 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(Q4 '22/Q1 '23 target) We'll talk when it actually ships. You do understand 3k is a ton of money right ? The other issue is even if I did pre order , the second you miss a release date I'd file a charge back. Get too many charge backs and payment processors will stop accepting orders for you. To be honest it would make more sense to develop an ultra cheap option, anything 1k or less, and you'll find people ready to…

This would be my concern too. The special sauce is in the integration of camera, headset and custom distro (much like remarkable is great because of the polish/software, not the hardware), but it's hard to see how this works, or if the Simula is practical, until you get it and try. Is the experience seamless, does the display ever lag or cause nausea (I've had this before in VR envs) - does it get better/worse with l…

Appreciate the feedback, and totally understand why you would want to see reviews before making any deposits. We are targeting to have review units in a few months, which hopefully will provide some useful commentary on these issues from people besides us. For now:

RE cameras: we're pushing for high-resolution RGB cameras (a lot of existing headsets have pretty low quality/low fidelity cameras). If you aren't able to go for longish periods without taking the headset off (when needing to see your surroundings at least), then we are definitely doing something wrong. For latency considerations, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30445428

RE headset ergonomics & sweatiness: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30442745

Over the coming days/weeks, we're pushing out blog updates which discuss the technical details of these issues (leading up to review units). If you're interested, you can sign up at newsletter.simulavr.com.

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#363

Post by kanetw »

arilotter wrote: post #354

Are any of you dogfooding your prototypes full-time? If it's comfortable for you to use for full workdays in programming, I'd bite the bullet and get one. I've wanted something like this for years, but don't think I'd want it unless it can totally replace my laptop.

Not yet using the prototypes (there's basically literally two samples of the displays we're using and we need them for dev) but once we have more of them produced, yeah, definitely. George used a Vive Pro for early software dev a lot.

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#364

Post by nonplus »

slg wrote: post #214
kanetw wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the other co-founder. Yes, about as easy as opening a laptop. Unscrew some screws, lift a cover, install a new M.2 SSD or whatever. This is a picture of the "standard" assembly: https://i.kane.cx/NFIpf4 -- compute element slots into a connector, and there's the standard M.2 slot etc. Ours won't be too different, just a different form factor/connectors/additional features. We're committing to selling all custom pa…

That is great. This should be stated on your website and not deep in the comments of a HN thread.

Yeah I get the concern. Following the project for the past 3 months one knows this information; but unless you're following development on discord/matrix or GitHub there's no way to know upgradability is a cornerstone of this project. Seeing 0 upgradability from Apple makes you leery of everyone.

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#365

Post by georgewsinger »

vineyardmike wrote: post #345
georgewsinger wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted for the excellent feedback. 1. We'll do a better job defining the term "VR Computer" in our sales page. 2. We'll consider adding a keyboard/mouse as optional add-ons. We have thought about including a "keyboard apron" as an item add-on that is actually differentiated from other keyboards, and one that would be particularly useful for VR computing (with the added freedom of movement).[1] Would something like t…

First, congrats on all the progress you've made. I've been part of your mailing list and watching from the sidelines for a while. I really do hope you succeed, and i love the idea, i just don't have the spare cash to pre-order. > At a high level, SimulaOS is going to be NixOS + our VR window manager. I don't know all the technical details about Nix and the various VR development SDK/tools available, but when i see so…

Thanks for following our progress. I think this is a good question.

Before getting into "reasons for NixOS", I just want to note that our headset is still an open-source Linux flavored project, which means that if you don't like our choices, you are free to install whatever Linux distro you want on it. =] You'll probably want to use Simula's window manager, but even here there will be other choices as well (xrdesktop, Stardust's display server, and so forth).

NixOS is definitely an opinionated distro, at least in terms of how it allows developers to configure a system. However, as builders, we view it as our job to make informed, opinionated choices on what the defaults are. (To be clear, not saying we can never be wrong or learn from these choices). Here are some reasons we chose NixOS as the basis for our VR distro:

1. *NixOS allows us to provide the best support to our users.* Simula itself (https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula) is built over nix build tools, and we have the most experience and comfort with that ecosystem. This means we are able to solve other people's issues much easier using our own familarity with the system if things go wrong.

2. *NixOS allows for system rollbacks if something goes wrong.* If either we or a user accidentally torches a headset, NixOS makes it so that all they have to do to get things running again is rollback to the most recently working configuration in the boot benu, and the problem is solved. This is particularly important for a beta/early adopter product like ours, and makes it more manageable for us to support things if things go wrong.

3. *NixOS allows us to iterate faster/release headset updates more quickly.* Using NixOS allows us to push frequent (and non-breaking) system updates much more easily than other distros, which is important for an early/iterative product like ours.

4. *Using Nix[OS] allows our software components to work on other distros.* Building all of our software components over nix allows us to support as many Linux distros as possible. This is important so that we can support, e.g., our Tethered headsets when users connect them to different Linux hosts. It also makes it easier for us to support users who change their Linux distro, but still use some Simula components (e.g., our VR window manager).

5. *A disproportionate number of existing Simula users run NixOS.* Despite NixOS being a "niche" distro, we've noticed a shocking number of people (at least in our Discord) run NixOS already, which makes us more comfortable with the choice.

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#366

Post by nonplus »

nsb1 wrote: post #265
nonplus wrote: post #56

I see a lot of comments on the pricing of this hardware. It's going to be more expensive (for the end user) to build a headset (and FOSS window manager) than a product like the quest. Meta has a suite of products bringing in capitol by selling user PII. Valve has a distribution platform to offset costs. If you want to see a product that is open end to end and is not part of an ecosystem selling your information, then…

I don't have a problem with the price - I have a problem with being sure what I'd be getting for that money. If it was guaranteed to live up to the claims that are being made then it's in the ballpark of a good laptop, which I have no problem dropping all sorts of money on. This device has several potential problems though, that can render it completely unusable rather than a laptop that mostly works fine except for…

There was a pretty strong pivot in the first hour of this being posted from everyone saying "that's to much money!" to other concerns. I felt compelled to respond. I don't think the 1000 of these or so that are made are for everyone, and I have no doubt a v2 will be better.

I'm just ready to give my money to someone who wants to build on openXR, has a vr window manager in development, and the chops to build ambitious hardware (on Linux).

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#367

Post by freedomben »

zmmmmm wrote: post #339

I love how breathtakingly audacious this is, and I yearn to pre-order it. However, the same thing (the audacity) is what makes it nearly impossible to put down $3k on it before it really ships and real people really try it. Watch any of John Carmack's keynotes and see the just incredible level of detailed engineering refinement that has to go into solving even basic showstopper issues with VR headsets. That a small t…

This is the hardest problem to solve IMHO. I agree completely with you, but I also realize that people behaving like us could cause the product to fail, whereas otherwise it might succeeded if we'd got in and support it sooner.

After losing $500 on a bet on kickstarter though, I'm pretty weary. I don't want to get screwed again.

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#368

Post by ryukafalz »

georgewsinger wrote: post #365
vineyardmike wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, congrats on all the progress you've made. I've been part of your mailing list and watching from the sidelines for a while. I really do hope you succeed, and i love the idea, i just don't have the spare cash to pre-order. > At a high level, SimulaOS is going to be NixOS + our VR window manager. I don't know all the technical details about Nix and the various VR development SDK/tools available, but when i see so…

Thanks for following our progress. I think this is a good question. Before getting into "reasons for NixOS", I just want to note that our headset is still an open-source Linux flavored project, which means that if you don't like our choices, you are free to install whatever Linux distro you want on it. =] You'll probably want to use Simula's window manager, but even here there will be other choices as well (xrdesktop…

An underappreciated benefit of the functional distros (Nix/Guix) for specialized hardware like this is that reproducing the original image (potentially with some tweaks) is very straightforward. For Guix this is just a 'guix system image' with essentially the same 'operating-system' declaration you'd use to configure your system normally; I don't have much direct experience with Nix but I imagine it's fairy similar. Provided you distribute the system config (and I can't imagine you wouldn't), building a slightly customized version of the image should be easy.

By contrast, it is not clear how I'd build e.g. the customized version of Ubuntu that a laptop manufacturer might ship.

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#369

Post by georgewsinger »

Filligree wrote: post #158
georgewsinger wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted for the excellent feedback. 1. We'll do a better job defining the term "VR Computer" in our sales page. 2. We'll consider adding a keyboard/mouse as optional add-ons. We have thought about including a "keyboard apron" as an item add-on that is actually differentiated from other keyboards, and one that would be particularly useful for VR computing (with the added freedom of movement).[1] Would something like t…

> 2. We'll consider adding a keyboard/mouse as optional add-ons. We have thought about including a "keyboard apron" as an item add-on that is actually differentiated from other keyboards, and one that would be particularly useful for VR computing (with the added freedom of movement).[1] Would something like this interest you? Note that we'd use a more accessible keyboard than the 40% "Corne keyboard" one shown in the…

Our headset supports an "AR Mode", which which allows you to see keys on your keyboard when it's placed in front of you.[1][2] (This is the main reason why our headset has AR Mode: not every is 100% proficient at touch-typing, and being able to see your keyboard is key for productivity if you can't).

[1] Here's the snazzy demonstration of AR mode in our sales copy: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0558/4591/2646/files/Simul...

[2] Here's a more down to earth video of us testing AR mode last summer in our compositor: https://youtu.be/6H5-mdGpKZg Note this is just an early test with a single fish eye lens (grainy; distortion not corrected). Our actual AR mode is much higher quality than this. Expect discussion of the technical details in our upcoming blog posts/updates.

Re: Show HN: Simula One – Portable Linux VR Computer

#370

Post by lallysingh »

georgewsinger wrote: post #150
lallysingh wrote: post #124

This looks like a decent deal looking deeper into it. Things that weren't obvious on first pass: (1) The VR specs are much higher than consumer level. I suspect this is what makes it reasonable to read text on it. The comparison headset is this: https://varjo.com/products/aero/ (They named it, but didn't google it) (2) They said "VR Computer" but don't define the term. They mean that it's a full PC with a headset ins…

Upvoted for the excellent feedback. 1. We'll do a better job defining the term "VR Computer" in our sales page. 2. We'll consider adding a keyboard/mouse as optional add-ons. We have thought about including a "keyboard apron" as an item add-on that is actually differentiated from other keyboards, and one that would be particularly useful for VR computing (with the added freedom of movement).[1] Would something like t…

As for keyboard, I'd probably take an ultimate hacking keyboard or a Lenovo with integrated trackpoint. I have no desire to leave the home row.
Post reply on HN