Monday, September 13th 2021
HalfDive, World's First Bed-Mounted-Display VR Headset
VR and AR headsets might not have been quite the success they were expected to be, mainly due to cost, but now, a Japanese company has developed what has to be one of the weirdest VR headsets to date, one that's meant to be used in bed.
The HalfDive VR headset, or BMD (Bed-Mounted-Display) from Diver-X is trying to implement a range of new features that have never been seen before in a VR headset, such as "wind feedback. This is simply done by a pair of fans built into the headset that outside of adding a touch of wind in your face effect, can apparently also be used for cooling down the user.
Other more normal features include a 3D audio system that consists of four speakers placed around the head, a force feedback system based on what might best be described as friction bands, vibration feedback via an "audio exciter" and foot controllers in addition to regular hand controllers.
Diver-X is promising 4.5 degrees of freedom and the headset consists of two displays that deliver 1600x1440 pixels per eye at 90 Hz with a 134 degree field of view. They've also designed a custom 10 lens optical system with optional support for varifocal lenses. Other hardware features include DP 1.2, USB 3.0, a 3.5 mm audio jack and 12 V power input.
The HalfDive BMD is expected to launch on Kickstarter in November with a price of US$800 for the base model, whereas the fully featured model will cost around US$1,200. The varifocal unit will cost an insane US$4,000, which suggests it's very costly to make the lenses for those suffering from presbyopia.
Sources:
Diver-X, via Impress PC Watch
The HalfDive VR headset, or BMD (Bed-Mounted-Display) from Diver-X is trying to implement a range of new features that have never been seen before in a VR headset, such as "wind feedback. This is simply done by a pair of fans built into the headset that outside of adding a touch of wind in your face effect, can apparently also be used for cooling down the user.
Other more normal features include a 3D audio system that consists of four speakers placed around the head, a force feedback system based on what might best be described as friction bands, vibration feedback via an "audio exciter" and foot controllers in addition to regular hand controllers.
The HalfDive BMD is expected to launch on Kickstarter in November with a price of US$800 for the base model, whereas the fully featured model will cost around US$1,200. The varifocal unit will cost an insane US$4,000, which suggests it's very costly to make the lenses for those suffering from presbyopia.
20 Comments on HalfDive, World's First Bed-Mounted-Display VR Headset
In all seriousness, this looks pretty interesting. I like to see projects that put random tech out into the wild for people to try. It might just be the next best thing, you know?
Oddly however, I was reminded of the movie version of Surrogates featuring Bruce Willis, where two artificial humans start making out at the beginning and die and the feedback ends up killing both their users, and it turns out that the "girl" was actually a morbidly obese dude stuck in bed with a VR-like control system.
There are other feedback such as haptic, smell, etc which can be integrated with existing headsets.
They should just make this modular.
Maybe this is what inspired Nintendo to create Labo for the Switch. A cardboard box. :laugh:
Yes.
This systems clearly a reference to the (fictional) full dive VR used in anime like SAO, but has a lot of real world applications