Hello everyone! This is the first article directly from CES of my life. Yesterday it was the second press day before the big opening of the event, and the only big company explicitly talking about VR in its keynote was Sony that announced the XYN headset. Let me tell you about that announcement, and let me tell you about the hands-on I had… not directly with the XYN headset, but with its sibling model!
XYN announcement
Yesterday, Sony announced XYN, an ecosystem that lets creators bring real-world elements into immersive realities. This is the official announcement, that I recorded myself:
If you are a bit confused about what this means, you are not the only one. It is clear that there is an XYN headset, and it is clear that there is some framework that lets you record animations with Mocopi and bring them into XR or that lets you scan objects with your phone and put them into XR… but what exactly it is XYN is not fully clear. And I think this is made on purpose because when we “press” people started asking questions to Sony people on the show floor, they reiterated that this is still a work in progress, that the headset is still a prototype, and that even the XYN name is not a confirmed name for the device, but just a codename. Even the launch date of the headset and its specifications are currently undisclosed.
I can so summarize the announcement of XYN with “Sony will launch a headset and also facilities that help creators in bringing real world elements into XR, but it’s all still a big work in progress. The keyword for all of this is XYN“.
The XYN headset
If you follow the XR news, you may have noticed that the XYN headset in the video looks very familiar: it is almost identical to the B2B-oriented device that Sony and Qualcomm announced last year, the one powered by the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen2 chipset.
The thing is: this new headset is actually a variant of that previous one. But while the previous model was dedicated to industrial use cases, especially in collaboration with Siemens, the new one will actually be targeted at prosumers and creators. Be careful that XYN won’t be dedicated to gaming, that is more a prerogative of PSVR 2, but to creators, or entertainment in general. Considering it features the Snadpragon XR2+ Gen2 and a 4K micro OLED per eye, I guess it will be quite expensive (my guess is a price between $1000 and $2000). And that’s why it can’t be for gaming: it can’t compete with the cheap price of the Quest 3. As for the launch date, it has not been revealed, but we have been hinted it is not very distant in time (it is not in 3-5 years, but much closer to now).
Sony was very tightlipped about any specifications, so we only know about the chipset, the resolution, the fact that the display is flip-up, and that it supports mixed reality. We asked for other specifications, but we have been told that they can not be shared, also because the headset is still a work in progress. The only thing we have been hinted at is that the control scheme for this device will be different than the one of the industrial model (and I would say that it is a great piece of news, considering that the controllers of the industrial model are pretty bad as we’ll see in a while).
I have recorded a short video framing the headset from all sides, as much as I could. You can see it here:
Together with the above booth showcasing the headset (that no one could try), there was another booth showing the digitalization of a physical object into its 3D version, and then the third one of a guy wearing Mocopi and having its full-body movements translated to the 3D movements of a 3D avatar. This was to reiterate the concept of XYN being a solution for creators who want to work with immersive realities and bring physical elements into mixed reality.
Hands-on Sony industrial headset
There was a fourth booth that showcased the previous edition of the headset, the sibling of XYN, which is the industrial headset that Sony made for a collaboration with Siemens. And I have been able to go hands-on with it for the second time in my life after I had a first run with it at AWE US last year. This hands-on was not exactly what I was hoping for (I wanted to try XYN), but at least can give us some ideas about the pros and the cons of the device at this stage of development. Notice that I had just like 10 minutes with the device, so I can only report to you some quick first impressions and nothing more.
Comfort and design
Design-wise, the industrial headset by Sony is not the sexiest ever, but being a device dedicated to B2B, it has not to be, since it is just important that is functional. I hope that the XYN version, since it is targeted at creators, will be a bit more good-looking. The choice of the black color in XYN instead of the gray of the industrial version is a good step in this sense. These are a few pictures I’ve taken of a device, to give you an idea about its appearance from all sides:
The headset was pretty comfortable, and the halo-fitting band made it rest pretty well on my face and my head. What I didn’t like much was that if I rotated my head quickly, the headset wobbled a bit, as if it was not very firm on my face. This is ok for industrial use cases, that do not require quick movements, but if this headset has to be used for other use cases, it had better feel more stable on the head.
I enjoyed the flip-up display, which I think is very good when you have to take a break from XR to have a discussion with your colleagues around you.
Visuals
The visuals of this Sony industrial headset reflect all the pros and cons of the use of 4K micro OLED displays (one per eye). The huge pro is that the quality of the image is fantastic: the resolution, pixel density, and definition are simply amazing. Forget any screen door effect: the image is super crisp, and also with bright colors.
The huge con is that the FOV is limited: I can not make a comparison, but it was very noticeably inferior to the one of my Quest 3.
The headset was open on the sides, a la Quest Pro, so I guess its main use should be mixed reality: the OLED screens provide you great mixed reality, and the peripheral vision of the MR world is given by the eyes that can actually see the real world because the headset has no lateral blinders. But having the periphery of my vision visible while in VR was a bit immersion-breaking.
Controllers
The controller scheme of this headset is given by a ring to wear on your non-dominant hand (the left for me) and a controller to use with your dominant hand.
The ring is basically a clicker: you wear into on your index finger and you can click on it with the thumb of your same hand. It has no 6DOF tracking, so it relies on the hand tracking of the headset to know its position. The ring is functional for its job (to click), but it is very limited in what it can do (it can just click, plus it has a capacity area upon it). We asked if there are multiple sizes of the controller to cope with the different hand sizes, and we have weirdly been told that there are not. Tyriell Wood reports this ring reminds a lot the one of the Rayneo XR2.
The right controller, instead, has a very weird shape, on top of which you put your index finger. It is basically another clicker, but this time with 6DOF tracking, so you can actually point and grab objects with it. I don’t even know how to describe it, so let me publish some pictures about it to make you understand it better:
This controller has the worst shape I’ve ever found in a VR controller. It is absolutely anti-ergonomic and clicking with it requires stretching the index finger which is already stretched, and that is very uncomfortable.
This control scheme is very bad and I’m been very happy to hear that XYN is not going to use it.
Tracking and PCVR usage
The headset is a standalone one but was connected with a cable to a laptop for PCVR usage. There were clearly problems with the overall system: the demo we could try was super choppy and also every time I moved the right controller, I could see its virtual counterpart moving with a lag. Not a small lag, an “Internet Explorer”-like lag.
We have been told that much of this system is still a work in progress, so I’m not going to judge it... but this means I could also not evaluate many of the features of the headset, tracking quality included, because of the faulty software.
Final considerations
The announcement of the XYN headset has been a pretty vague one, but the fact that Sony is committed to launching a second headset of its own (after PSVR), targeted at creators, is a very good sign for the future of technology. The more companies commits to XR, the more the ecosystem will grow better and faster.
The headset also showed potential: if only they manage to find a good control scheme and add the right set of facilities with it, it may even find success in the niche it is targeting. Of course, considering the expected price, this is not something that may sell many millions of units, but it can be a first step that makes Sony more positive about the XR market.
[PS Big thanks to Tyriel Wood for having helped me recording the videos of this article! Subscribe to his Youtube channel because he’s amazing]
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