Wait, Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional doesn’t are available in black, does it? Nope, however Play For Dream MR does. And with what some are calling the ‘Android Imaginative and prescient Professional’, owing to its Android-based OS, Play For Dream appears to have turned some heads at CES 2025 this previous week.
Initially launched in Asia final yr, China-based headset creator Play For Dream had its sights on bringing the closely Imaginative and prescient Professional-inspired combined actuality headset to the West. Launching a Kickstarter marketing campaign in September, Play For Dream MR went on to garner $2,271,650.00 Hong Kong {dollars} (~$292,000 USD).
Play For Dream MR has packed in a laundry record of contemporary XR options, together with a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset working Android 15, twin 3,840 × 3,552 micro-OLED shows (90Hz), eye-tracking, auto IPD adjustment, wired and wi-fi PC streaming, and likewise a Quest Professional-inspired rear-mounted battery and Contact-style controllers.
Briefly, the headset seems to have all of it—even Imaginative and prescient Professional’s person interface.
Design inspirations apart, former Quest engineer Amanda Watson obtained an opportunity go hands-on with Play For Dream’s MR headset, noting in an X publish it was “completely the most effective throughout HMD demo I noticed on the ground as we speak.”
“It’s fairly actually an ‘Android Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional’. however the execution was wonderful. Nice efficiency, optics, UI and media seize/playback options,” Watson continues, who departed Meta in 2022.
Throughout her time at Meta/Oculus, Watson labored on various Quest-related tasks, together with each the tethered Hyperlink and the corporate’s Wi-Fi streaming software, Air Hyperlink. At one time, she was the only real developer of Air Hyperlink for 13 months previous to its launch. So when Watson says one thing is sweet, it most likely is.
“It has USB and wi-fi PCVR streaming (I attempted USB) — this was extra [work-in-progress] high quality (body price and latency) in comparison with different options, but it surely’s a comparatively current function [as I understand it]. The fundamentals like controller movement had been nailed down and backbone was strong.”
Moreover, Watson experiences its Contact-style controllers had been “additionally superb. They stated hand monitoring exists, however they didn’t demo it.” Notably, the headset’s pancake lenses had “wonderful distortion correction,” which Watson says is “the most important factor to me personally.”
Established in 2020 underneath the title YVR, Play For Dream has already launched two generations of standalone VR headsets, its YVR 1 and YVR 2, each of which had been launched in China in 2022.
Play For Dream MR doesn’t have a agency launch date or pricing but, nonetheless the corporate has stated it’ll are available in underneath $2,000. For extra, take a look at Play For Dream’s web site for detailed specs and ordering alternatives once they arrive.
