Immersed says Visor will now have a standalone mode, and it increased the price to $950.
What Is Visor?
Visor was announced in August as an ultra-compact productivity headset with OLED microdisplays, inside-out tracking, HD color passthrough, hand tracking, and eye tracking set to release in 2024 with support for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Immersed says it has a tethered battery pack but can support support a wireless monitor streaming mode, and has integrated inside-out tracking.
Immersed currently offers a free app for Meta Quest, Vive Focus 3, and Pico 4 that shows your PC monitors in VR and lets you spawn entirely virtual extra monitors, for up to 5 monitors in total. Visor is meant to be a dedicated device with streamlined software designed around this use case rather than a generalized headset for an ecosystem of applications. Visor is described by Immersed as a "strategic collaboration" with Qualcomm for the device, Intel for the PC functionality, as well as an "undisclosed AR/VR tech giant" that will be revealed later this year.
Immersed claims the headset is built for "all day" comfort, is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and weighs less than a typical smartphone.
Concept of Visor's software experience.
In September Immersed opened "fully refundable deposits" for two models of Visor, one with 2.5K per eye OLED microdisplays (similar to Bigscreen Beyond) for $500 and another with 4K per eye OLED microdisplays (similar to Apple Vision Pro) for $750. Just two weeks later though, the startup canceled the 2.5K model, as it claimed 96% of people opted for the 4K model.
The New Changes & Price Increase
While Visor was originally pitched as a headset solely for viewing your laptop screen in XR and spawning extra virtual screens, Immersed now says it will have a standalone mode too so you can use it without a PC.
The standalone mode will have a built-in web browser, an "immersive home theater experience" that Immersed says will let you "stream movies and shows with friends", and the ability to sideload OpenXR Android apps.
Immersed also says that previously (though this was not disclosed in past press releases) the wireless screen streaming capability was an optional add-on, but that now Visor will come with built-in Wi-Fi and a 30-minute battery. Larger batteries with 2 or 4 hour capacity will be available as optional upgrades.
Finally, Immersed says it is increasing the number of cameras to six to improve tracking fidelity, and adding a capacitive touch sensor to the side of the headset to power a Smart Touch feature, which can trigger an AI assistant it calls Curator.
Given these changes, Immersed is raising the preorder price of Visor from $750 to $950 for all orders placed after Black Friday (November 24th). The startup claims all preorders remain "fully refundable" until shipped sometime next year.
Immersed draws comparisons to Bigscreen, another social VR startup with hardware ambitions that’s already shipping to customers. We reviewed Bigscreen Beyond and had a first-hand demo of a prototype long before it shipped. Visor, meanwhile, we have yet to see with our own eyes, and the frequency of changes to Immersed’s hardware plan doesn’t inspire confidence that it will be ready to mass produce and ship a product any time soon.
