Silicon Valley is betting on Pancake optical technology.

Author ｜ Ye Jing

Edit ｜ Sang Mingqiang

The Yuan universe made the VR track, which has been silent for many years, became lively again.

Since the concept of the Yuan universe broke out last year, combined with IDC data, the global VR hardware shipments exceeded the 10 million inflection points in the same year, and it is expected to reach 20 million units this year. Hardware determines the logic of human -computer interaction, just like the PC for the Internet and smartphones in the era of mobile Internet. Virtual scenes also need an entrance. Obviously, the VR track is entering a stage of accelerated warm -up.

Taking the old domestic player Skyworth VR as an example, as the earliest companies that adopt the Pancake optical solution and realize mass production and sales in many countries around the world, from 2015, we have focused on building B -end products. S6 Pro, as of October last year, its VR products have exceeded 100,000 units worldwide, and customers have spread throughout North America, Europe, Japan and South Korea, the Middle East and other regions.

"In recent years, we have established a complete underlying technical architecture, including the six -freedom tracking algorithm, data fusion algorithm, and related technologies related to optical lightness." Li Wenquan, general manager of Skyworth VR, pointed out.

The mature experience of the B -side has accumulated potential energy for Skyworth VR to enter the C -end. From July, Skyworth VR first released three models that use Pancake folding optical schemes in Meta, Apple, and Pico: Pancake 1C, Pancake 1, Pancake 1Pro; By August 26, Pancake 1C and Pancake 1 will also start pre -sale. Skyworth VR officially enters the C -side VR hardware market.

The high growth potential of the VR hardware market and the low osmosis rate of C -end products allow the entire track to be at the time node of C -end products from quantity to qualitative changes. Players represented by Skyworth VR are based on their own strategic determination. The common results under the implementation of strength, market role, and technology, but whether VR hardware can really enter the lives of the people also requires technology and products to speak.

01pancake: Products of the Times

Ding Cheng (pseudonym) is a VR enthusiast. He started Oculus Quest 2 last year, but after experiencing it, "In fact, in terms of content ecology and various parameters, Q2 is already a benchmark product in the industry, but the entire wearing is not friendly to myopia. There will still be a glare when we put on it. "He said," The head of the weight of more than a pound is inevitable and sullen. After a while, Meta has new products for launch, but the price has exceeded one thousand knives. "Q2 streams streaming to the streaming to the stream After PC Steam played half a minute of ALYX for more than ten minutes, Ding Cheng felt that the product compressed his cheeks and orbits was easy to get tired.

In order to solve the hardware and uncomfortable wear and improve the user's visual experience, it is understood that the Cambria will be launched soon will adopt the Pancake optical solution. Apple, Pico, and Google will also follow up with the development of this technology. Jiao Folding Optics has been default to the next stage of the development of VR optics.

Relying on the principle of polarizing and polarizing and blasting film to achieve a folding light path, the Pancake scheme is equipped with a lens set with semi -anti -semi -optical optical properties, so that the light can be transmitted between two or more lenses, and eventually shot from the reflective polarized film. Essence At the same time, the lens group does not need to keep a large distance from the display panel to compress the thickness of the lens group and reduce the thickness of the VR head display.

In the VR device, the hardware used for display is divided into two parts: screen display (luminous source) and light machine (communication medium). The role of the light machine is to enlarge the rendering screen and achieve an immersive visual effect. It cannot be done too much, so how to design light machines has become a key step to reduce the thickness of the glasses and improve the visual experience.

The Fresnel optical solutions used by most VR glasses, such as Q2, Pico NEO3, Adventure 3, Vive Focus3 and other devices. By "digging" a multi -threaded lens by "digging" a convex lens, although you can see more clearly, you can see more clearly The image, but the light cannot be focused on a little bit, the curvature is always incorrect, and the focal length of the lens cannot be further compressed. Damaged) Even the lightest Q2 exceeds 500G, and Vive Focus 3, which has stronger performance, is close to 800G, which not only affects comfort, but also causes the edge image quality to blur.

If the Pancake short focus folding optical solution is used, the lens of the traditional solution can be reduced from 35-45mm to about 16-20mm from 35-45mm. Take the new product Pancake 1 as an example. The thickness of the optical module is 17mm. Compared with the traditional Fresnel lens optical module, the thickness of 39mm has been reduced by more than 50%. Only more than 400 grams.

Comparison of the thickness module of Fresnel and Pancake solution

In the past seven years, Skyworth VR has launched many products. Pancake 1 is the second -generation short -focus product after the short -focus VR split glasses launched in 2020. In fact, domestic manufacturers have launched Pancake optics before. The VR all -in -one machine is either because there is no mass production and content ecosystem, because the whole machine weighs up to 630g. In contrast, Pancake 1 has a relatively traditional optical VR glasses than 3/4, the host is only 189G, the whole machine is only 400 400 Yu Ke, Skyworth VR is the first VR company to realize the lightweight product of Pancake optical landing. However, it is not necessary to ignore that most of the Fresnel and non-spherical lenses use a vertical production method. Resin as raw materials. Through mold manufacturing, the actual cost is only 10-20 yuan. above. Pancake is multi -film, with higher craftsmanship, and the yield of production and assembly is relatively low. It is rare to achieve more than 70%, let alone high production and film costs.

In other words, costs and yields are the key factor restricting the mass production of VR products. Compared with the current price of about 5,000 similar products on the market, the Pancake 1 series that can be lower than the market price and realizes mass production. To some extent, Having said that based on the technical thickness and industry depth accumulated in the past, Skyworth VR has launched the first shot that truly realizes the C -side Pancake optical VR all -in -one.

02 The body is immersive, not just entertainment

According to product introduction, the production rate of Pancake light machines in Pancake 1 can reach 60%~ 70%. After years of technical iteration, in addition to optimizing the high -definition of the center of the center's edge, within two pixels in terms of color difference, Pancake's optical analysis ability is 50%higher than Fresnel, and overcomes the latter's edge glare, ghost shadow, ghost shadow, ghost shadow, ghost shadow, ghost shadow, ghost shadow, ghost shadow, Problems such as distortion and scattered.

Skyworth VRPANCAKE 1 version parameters of each version

In terms of product clarity, Skyworth VR new product Pancake 1 screen adopted VR special high refresh rate low-delayed dual 2.1-inch Fast-LCD screen, double eye 5K level 4560X2280 resolution, 1512 PPI has reached the global FAST-LCD display industry The highest level is much higher than the current PPI of about 1200 mainstream products in the industry.

On the other hand, because the focus of the pupil distance and VR lens is in a state of coincidence, the screens seen by the eyes are the clearest. It is reported that the current three -stage pupil distance adjustment adopted by similar mainstream products cannot accurately match each one for each one User's pupil distance, and the pupil distance error is also an important factor that causes heavy shadows and faint screens when wearing VR products. Pancake 1 supports 59mm-68mm unparalleled pupil distance adjustment. With the adaptive range of the lens itself, it can almost cover all all of them. The needs of VR players.

Since its development in 2016, most of the VR products, although technical breakthroughs, entertainment and social sales are still the main selling points of the product, and the VR immersion of multi -freedom interaction, smoothness, and low latency can leverage VR users Passionate leverage.

3DOF and 6DOF schematic diagram

As the world's first consumer short -focus dual 6DOF product, in addition to supporting custom 10MX10M large spaces, the handle of the optical tracking scheme adopted by Pancake 1 covers a 240 ° X195 ° viewing angle. According to Zhang Yi, the person in charge of Skyworth VR software, Pancake 1 uses the four -eyed fish FOV camera with a built -in high -precision IMU. Its self -developed 6DOF VR all -in -one machine is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 as the core processor. The tracking system has a sub -millimeter positioning accuracy. The movement delay is lower than 2ms, and the overall performance is higher than the market level.

In addition, Skyworth VR currently realizes visual perspective technology based on a 4 -meter gray camera, while supporting the expansion of two color RGB cameras to realize the real environmental perspective of color. Pancake 1Pro allows users World behavior interaction, such as touch and opening controllers, and even signing courier.

From the appearance point of view, the design of the Pancake 1 series is better than the traditional VR. The latter often uses a fixed support band from the two sides. The top of the head adopts a trapezoidal fixing method. It is compressed by the back of the gears or straps. The user's cheeks and orbital positions are stressed. The comfort is not good and cannot be worn for a long time.

Pancake 1 is based on the ski goggles and uses zero-pressure toughness head hoop. The stress is concentrated on the forehead. The dispersion of the head is the pressure that the head is to the face. And it is the only product that can be worn in the industry that can be worn without installing magnetic suction masks.

"Whether you can really use it for the C end depends on whether it can solve some pain points in life, and whether we want to use it." As mentioned earlier, the product upgrade is accompanied by the increase in cost, and only the equivalent running runs up. Only to achieve scale benefits, and then feed on the optimization of products and form a virtuous cycle, and the latter is often determined by consumers' willingness and frequency of use.

The landing of the Yuan universe needs to be continuously constructed, but if VR is used as an entrance for only games, the global volume may be a ceiling of 50 million to 60 million. Essence "For example, students can observe the celestial bodies through VR, from from far to near, from near to far, and obtain better perception; some medical remote surgery can capture the real world through the camera and display it on the screen. Remote guidance. "03 A ticket to the Yuan universe

"In fact, content and ecology are a way of spiral development. Because of good hardware, it has spawned the explosive content. With some explosive content, it will promote the development of the hardware." Li Wenquan is interviewing in the interview. In this way.

How to enable consumers to play or use it, the product needs to be playable. In terms of content ecology, Skyworth VR mainly enters two aspects, one is the game and the other is the video. Pancake 1 has more than 40 games when it is listed on sale, and maintains 1-2 updates per week, covering FPS, sports, audio games and other categories, and supports thousands of games in wireless streaming SteamVR. The latter collects 3000+ contents of Kukai Kaishi platforms, extended the S802 and V901 200 units+8K panoramic videos of 5A -level scenic spots, pioneering VR interactive videos, 3D 180 ° videos, and accessing third -party video resources.

Skyworth VR content ecology

It is unknown how the finals of the Yuan universe, but it will never be a Yuan universe in a product limited to a certain brand. It should be a state of interconnection. For example, when we use fast hands, Douyin, WeChat, these APP software applications can log in on different hardware, the latter as a carrier of an application to undertake the user's needs.

Li Wenquan believes that different people have different views on the Yuan universe. My understanding is that we still need a virtual world outside the real world. Then everyone can communicate and even live, just like "Number Player", but how to develop in the future, in fact, we are also exploring the stage.

"Everyone can get in, go together to achieve something together, and formulate some rules in the industry, instead of saying which hardware platform to kill this thing." From the perspective of the development of smart terminals, PCs and mobile phones are more than one family. Terminal, in the future, if VR wants to become a productive forces, the same is true, but each product of a certain product is the most perfect, which does not meet the laws of scientific development, so the market also needs some differences for consumers to choose from.

There are more and more teams in domestic developers who do VR content. Under such a premise, the C -end of the entrance may be the most meaningful to push the product. There is no need to repeat the development potential of the Yuan universe market. In the era of this giant competition, the emergence of Skyworth VR added a key to opening this door.

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