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I found the detailed comparisons interesting and also came away worried for Simula.

The Quest Pro is available this week, has pancake lenses, better GPU, is a third to half the cost and has bet on Arm which is on its way to eat productivity PCs. Simula doesn’t even run Windows, which would be a nice consolation for being stuck on x86.

Quest’s integrated business partnerships are rudimentary but are going to be adopted much faster than Simula users can figure out and share their custom workflows.

Quest Pro 2 is probably going to come out before Simula finishes shipping its initial orders next year.

We need a Simula to exist, but I don’t think they are going to be able to iterate nearly fast enough to provide to this market. I hope I’m wrong, because it’s a really cool project and completely above board in respect to future ad revenue and metaverse ambitions.

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I came away feeling similarly.

Their dedication to developing a true VR computer and focusing on specs that really matter for that (PPD and raw processing grunt) are commendable, but seeing them champion the idea of strapping an X86 computer to your face in what is an increasingly arm-powered world is... concerning. "But it can run real Adobe Acrobat through WINE" is not something that gets me excited about a VR platform, but I'm likely not the target audience either.

That being said, having tried out some remote-desktop apps on a Quest 2 earlier this year, the screens are absolutely not acceptable for that purpose in terms of viewable resolution -- so if the Quest Pro really is only slightly better in that regard, I think it'll soil the experience.

If Simula can manage to tune their x86 specs to run well enough under power-limited circumstances, have at least comparable poor battery life to other VR headsets, develop a VR computing environment with usage paradigms that make sense, and do it in a headset that's somehow still comfortable to wear for extended sessions, then they may truly be ahead of the curve in a way that matters. That seems like a big ask for such a small company's first outing, but they also seem the most passionate about this category of use-case despite their scale.

I wish them the best. VR computers like the one they're working on would be a lot cooler than Meta's vision for the category.

I'm not fundamentally against ARM. But ARM in the VR world is Qualcomm, and they both didn't want to deal with us + their support for regular old Linux is (AFAIK) nonexistent.

Apart from that, x86 is IMO just easier to adopt. I wouldn't buy an ARM laptop right now (except for possibly a Macbook).

In a different tangent, I think the only way to get good ARM performance in a mobile format is to have custom-tailored silicon, like the Apple chips. Commercially available chips just don't compete with a i7-1265U or the Raptor Lake equiv.

Absolutely! The nascent state of ARM outside of iOS, Android, and now MacOS is definitely a roadblock for bringing it to projects from smaller companies like you folks.

In my eyes (uneducated, consumer-level perspective) X86 is a huge question-mark for HMD devices like this, since the heat and power usage are so counter-intuitive for small form factors -- and mitigating those concerns usually actively works against the "higher-performance" nature of the chips. (low-tdp allowances, throttling, etc.)

Like I mentioned above, I really do wish y'all the best of luck with it. I just don't envy having to be reliant on an old and power-hungry architecture just because the newer, better architectures don't lend themselves to this sort of project yet. I hope the Simula One sticks the balance!

I don't have an XR2 devkit so I can only guess, but TDP-wise they seem pretty comparable. Obviously that doesn't include boost power etc and there's stuff integrated into the XR2 that we need to do on an FPGA, but overall I've not felt like a modern x86 processor is overly disadvantaged.

I'm sure one could do a more rigorous comparison, but IMO with the recent Intel/AMD chips you get pretty good performance/power.

Yeah. I like the simula one concept and the VR "Desktop Environment" appeals to me, but I would much prefer to decouple the display from the compute, because the hardware is at different levels of maturity and because the heavy bits don't have to sit on your head - You can stick a lot more compute and battery in a backpack form factor, and even with my Vive I ended up strapping the cords to my back for cable management reasons.

If I had to buy a backpack laptop from them (And I would kinda love to have a backpack laptop + weird goggles, be kinda like the "Gargoyles" from Snow Crash) to get their display, happy to do so.

The compute pack is detachable, so you can decouple it and put it somewhere else.

I think it's a less elegant solution overall, but it's an option (eg for supine computing or to lessen the head weight).

Yea, I feel similarly.

I'm actually really excited for Lenovo's upcoming T1 wearable display. It's a monitor in glasses form, not VR, but I realized that the appeal of VR desktop environments for me is having a large screen, not the whole VR shtick.

Couple that display with output from my phone running JupyterLab, and I'll have a desktop-like development environment that fits in my pocket. Perfect for travel and long backpacking trips.

I came away feeling similarly for completely different reasons.

Obviously Simula wants to sell themselves and downplay meta for sales purposes, but a lot of their arguments in “ Philosophical Differences” section seemed to just miss the mark. Like, I think they have the wrong philosophy.

For example, simula critiqued the Quest Pro for relying on good wifi, noting you can’t use it at coffee shops. That’s a bad use case. They released a video of someone using simula at a coffee shop and everyone thought it was a joke. Productivity VR isn’t a laptop, it’s a better external monitor. You don’t take a monitor to a coffee shop (or other similar establishments). Maybe, maybe a plane is a good place. Probably hotel rooms, certainly offices and homes. Offices and homes can/will have good wifi.

They also mention window management and the (lack of) it on the Quest. Except no one (outside techies) knows what a windows manager is or has custom workflows. Instead, quest has screen management so you can have a virtual screen, and manager your own windows. I’m no Nostradamus but I doubt the future of technology rests in heavily customized window managers.

Simula also has a few points that are just wrong about the quest, such as the need for a laptop. A laptop helps, but it does have a native browser and Bluetooth keyboard support so you can totally spend your day in Gmail and Google docs and all that browser jazz without a second computer.

I do think an “untethered” future for VR is real though, like simula thinks. Quest is just also positioned to handle it through the real future apps platform (browsers) not a techie dream (Linux desktop).

For what it’s worth I think the real winner of VR productivity in the short term will end up looking a lot closer to NReal instead of either of these two. It’s cheap and comfortable, so it’s a lot easier to start using. It also entirely relies on your host computer so no one has to set up a new computer, IT doesn’t have to extend support of systems (ActiveDirectory etc) to new platforms, etc.

>I do think an “untethered” future for VR is real though, like simula thinks

I think we're at least a decade or two of battery, processor, and screen development away from making that happen though. IMHO, I'd much rather have a lighter and better headset with a cord than what these two are like.

Yea 100%. That’s why I think something like the NReal is a better short term future. If you can’t be comfortable as an all in one, then put nothing extraneous in the headpiece.

The Quest Pro looks pretty comfortable but it’s battery is like an hour so it’s not a stand-alone device that can exist untethered to a power cord.

NReal looks very interesting. Just ordered one.

They do look interesting. The reason I haven’t bought one (besides being sold out hampering my impulsiveness) is that the screens are pretty low-res compared to a regular monitor or iPhone screen. That and apple is likely to come il out with something and I don’t want more ejunk.

It's a niche usecase but it does speak to me - I struggle to be productive on a little laptop screen and would love to wear something like this not at a cafe but at a co-working space. The kind where you don't get a screen. If enough people do it it won't be embarrassing. I can also see the utility for digital nomads.

On the other hand, what I'm really looking for there is, my laptop in a virtual screen - and that's all I need. A wired/wireless headset as a peripheral for my laptop is what I need and these exist.

> They also mention window management and the (lack of) it on the Quest. Except no one (outside techies) knows what a windows manager is or has custom workflows. Instead, quest has screen management so you can have a virtual screen, and manager your own windows. I’m no Nostradamus but I doubt the future of technology rests in heavily customized window managers.

On the contrary. Using virtual screens is a paradigm that chains you to obsolete technology. Nice to interface with traditional computers but in a true VR computing interface free-floating application windows make a lot more sense than virtual screens with Windows inside them. It's just as much a stupid idea as the old Windows 32 Multiple Document Interface that office used to use (having windows within windows and causing frustration with multiple scrollbars etc)

They do this because it's something users know and because computer OSes are made with real displays in mind. But it doesn't take full advantage of what the technology has to offer. Once VR/AR productivity becomes a real thing, we will have to rethink this paradigm. Whether we call it a "Window Manager" or something more snazzy, the research has to happen and I'm really interested to see where Simula are taking this. Because they're the only ones really thinking outside the box so far.

It makes so much more sense to take a pdf document and put it somewhere in my workspace so I can glance at it, instead of having to take a whole virtual display there with perhaps other things in it or blank desktop space wasting my field of view. In a world where your entire environment (either virtual with VR or real with AR) can be overlayed with content, the concept of a "screen" is obsolete and only an artificial constraint and bother. In fact even the concept of a "Window" isn't a great fit. Why restrict yourself to 2D views in a 3D world? UI elements could actually stick out so you can reach out and touch them or the whole app could even take the shape of a 3D object. Of course apps will need to be rewritten but the same was necessary with smartphones. There's a ton of UI stuff like that to figure out.

Another comparison I can make is Windows CE. It was basically a desktop interface crammed into a smartphone. It was super awkward. Smartphones never really took off until a real UI rethink happened with the iPhone and Android. We need that here even more. So yes I think there'll be a lot of work done in this arena.

Ok, I'll agree it was a quite callous comment that I don't fully agree with either. You're absolutely right that the Quest-way of using virtual screens instead of windows is chaining you to obsolete technology. I guess my perspective is more that its a better way to bootstrap new tech through old tech. Like you said "its something users know". I think the next decade+ of (productivity) VR will be dominated by "shim" experiences like virtual desktops that just drop in a computer into a screen in a nice desk. Everyone understands what those IRL experiences are and how it works. VR is perfect for skeuomorphism, and I think it'll have a strong place for a while.

That said, while I do think the "screen" isn't the unit of graphics we'll end up with, I do think that we'll end up disappointed by how much of VR is still "boxes" of 2D content like computers and tablets and phones before it. Sure there'll be changes, but I suspect that we'll mostly see things like phone app widgets make their way out into the "virtual world". I suspect beyond UI elements, we'll (mostly) end up stuck with floating web-view pages that are still rectangular. I'd love to see a 3D world where I can flip through slack channels like a filing cabinet, but I doubt it'd be mainstream.

> In fact even the concept of a "Window" isn't a great fit. Why restrict yourself to 2D views in a 3D world? UI elements could actually stick out so you can reach out and touch them or the whole app could even take the shape of a 3D object. Of course apps will need to be rewritten but the same was necessary with smartphones. There's a ton of UI stuff like that to figure out.

I said it earlier, but this is where I think the disappointment will come. You mentioned smartphones... a huge chunk of the apps I use are basically web views, or could be (even settings apps are a half step away from a crud web app). Things were rewritten, but largely the only thing that experience wise changed was replacing a mouse with a finger and moving things to portrait.

I will also add that a truly immersive 3D "{content display/window} manager" could easily just create an overwhelming mess of info/text everywhere that wouldn't be very appealing. I think there's a real risk of "content overstimulation" that would need to be managed. The idea of PDFs here and documentation pages there and a browser yet somewhere else could be a mess of swinging your head around looking for content [1]. Today, most of the screens I consume (even at work) are with apps in "fullscreen mode" and the OS just lines it all up (or just browser tabs occupying a vill browser window). I can just tab between them and the OS handles it... and I do it looking straight ahead the whole time. Why would I want to look around a floating orb of windows to find my reference material?

Anyways, I hope I'm wrong, and I hope simula succeeds. I really do - I almost pre-ordered one, but its a little too expensive for me to buy without knowing I'll use the product. It is a full (high spec) computer after all. I really like VR and I really think there's a great future for VR Productivity, and I think it'll make work (and WFH) better. But I see photos like this [1] and I think "thats not it".

[1] https://twitter.com/SimulaVR/status/1557832672998789127/phot...

PS. I think my view on Simula is filled by that tweet. Someone said "i don't know if I want 1 window or a hundred (through VR)" and simula replied with a picture of a hundred and said "why not both". I want simula to show me an experience that looks like both.

> Simula doesn’t even run Windows, which would be a nice consolation for being stuck on x86.

I think the only issue with getting it to run Windows would be Windows lack of support for stereoscopic displays (for its OS GUI). If someone in the community really wants it and can figure that out, maybe Windows can still run in the unit.

This is assuming that there's support for installing whatever Linux distro one wants. If that's true, installing Windows should also be doable, I would think.

You can install any distro. Windows is doable in theory, we just don't focus on it.

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