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Comment by p1esk | Hacker News Reader

But who exactly would want to buy it? I make good money as a software developer, but there's no way I'd drop 3 grand on some unproven beta quality headset with modest specs just to see how well it could serve as a laptop + 4k monitor replacement. I could see myself potentially paying that much for a 2nd or 3rd generation Vision Pro, provided everyone raves about the experience, but even then, I'd double check the return policy.

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Right now all VR headset sales are about 7% of laptop sales in the US, about 20 million units a year vs 280 million. You're in the uninterested 93% which is quite normal, but you can see that there's some demand.

The size of the premium headset market is a big question mark, but we know Apple's conservative order for 2024 is 300-400k units and they are planning an inconvenient sales process to slow demand.

Linux is around 1% of desktop market share so perhaps 1% of that 400k would want a premium Linux headset: 4k for Simula to serve. Then we'll find out if headsets grow as a market or they fade out like a fad or transition product category.

VR headset sales are about 7% of laptop sales in the US, about 20 million units a year vs 280 million

There's no way 280M laptops are being sold in US every year. Where did you get that data?

You're right. Those are both global numbers, not US. Sorry about that. If the rest holds it means Simula is going to have to sell multinationally to be a going concern, which seems difficult although the broad trend for electronics to become more accessible is in their favor.

Most people would agree, but some people are early adopters and have different risk profiles. I'm typing this from a virtual desktop experience using a quest 2 looking at 2 giant VR 2k displays, 1ms latency connected to my laptop through a usb-c cable (if you have good wifi the latency is good enough for wireless, but my airbnb wifi is meh, and the wired doesn't bother me).

I worked like this for more than 12 hours yesterday, too.

I strongly considered their product and found it very tempting. Not a perfect fit for me, so I didn't go for it in the end, but you have to realize the world is not full of a bunch of clones of you.

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