Acer’s Windows-ready VR Headsets are Ready For The Developers To Use
Microsoft made an announcement earlier this year, at the Games Developer Conference. They said Acer would be the first manufacturer to ship its Windows Mixed Reality dev kits to developers. Last week, the Taiwanese company held a live-streamed press event in New York. There Acer unveiled its latest products. The interesting VR headset was also briefly mentioned.
The Cameras.
Microsoft’s next wave of Windows 10 VR headsets is called Mixed Reality. These headsets have cameras built. The cameras handle all room sensing and motion tracking. No extra plug-in boxes will be required. So all you have to do is plug the headset into a computer and you are all set to go.
When you look a bit closer, you will notice a few very interesting elements. That includes two cameras on the front and a sharp design. The visor portion of the headset can also flip up. This way you can easily see what is happening in the real world without taking it off entirely.
Six Degrees of Freedom.
The headset’s cameras can track space without using external camera sensors. The “six degrees of freedom” motion sensors are evolved from Microsoft’s HoloLens, a far more expensive augmented-reality headset that can mix its virtual objects into the real world. Acer’s new headset is just VR. But theoretically, it can run the same apps that work in Hololens. That is only when the app developers update them for these new headsets.
Light & Comfortable.
The headset doesn’t feel heavy at all. It is light and pretty comfortable. The headset is like a smaller, lighter PlayStation VR. It will rest on your head and flip down over my eyes like a visor. Microsoft’s VR-slash-mixed-reality strategy is also designed to work across Windows 10. This is done so that you could work in one app and hop into another. All that with your headset on. However, this headset will use Microsoft’s app store as its pipeline for VR games and apps. It won’t be compatible with Oculus Rift or Vive software.
Available For The Developers.
The Acer headset is available now for developers. The final consumer-ready version will arrive by the holidays. The tracking kinks will also get worked out by then. By then other Microsoft-ready VR headsets from companies like Lenovo and HP should arrive as well. But as far as apps go, Microsoft will need to show more to prove that Windows Mixed Reality can be an experience worth leaving Oculus or Vive for.
Arriving Soon.
Acer’s little VR headset will be one of the first. Also, one of the cheapest. The headset is available now in a developer-ready version. It will arrive by the holidays for $300. It undercuts the price of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive These two have been the reigning Windows-connected VR headsets already on the market for over a year.
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joined in December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.