A mobile case has come to light that will hit Kickstarter with an FOV of 150º. Is this possible? It seems so, and that is likely to be the way to go in the next generation of HMDs.
On the 26th we came across this tweet from Brian Hart, who works at Jaunt VR and writes occasionally for the Road to VR website. In it, he states that a Kickstarter campaign related to virtual reality with a 150º FOV will be launched on April 6. Such a campaign would be launched by people related to Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of aircraft such as the SR-71 Blackbird or the F-16 Falcon.
A company spinning out of Lockheed Martin will be announcing a VR Kickstarter April 6. 150 FOV. Details to come.
– BHart (@VR_BHart) March 27, 2015
Pulling the thread, we have reached Wearality, which announces something very similar: a Kickstarter campaign for the month of April for a device with a 170º FOV. It seems that just in 7 days many of the questions raised will be cleared up, but it is clear that, indeed, this technology exists, although not all are advantages. And it is that an FOV higher than 150º with current screens means that the size of the pixels is going to be… huge, so this technology could make more sense in a couple of years, and we are sure that the big manufacturers will already have their sights set on this technology for the next generations of HMDs.
As seen in this image that comes from eleVR, it seems that once again Fresnel lenses are the solution. As they comment on the prototype they have tested, the exit pupil or exit pupil is very wide, so it is not necessary that our eyes are perfectly aligned with the center of the lens, as it happens with the current HMDs type Oculus Rift DK2. This is a huge advantage and could avoid the need to move the lenses sideways to accommodate users with very disparate interpupillary distances. Tod points out that this Kickstarter campaign is going to be a real bombshell, despite the resolution of current mobile devices, which could offer us a screendoor effect similar to that of the DK1 using a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels… of course, the effect of diver’s glasses is over. What years await us!
