Qualcomm today revealed its expectations for wired and eventually wireless VR and AR viewers in the coming decade. As part of the update Panasonic also released a statement indicating the company is targeting 2021 for its lightweight VR glasses.
I tried out the VR glasses at CES in January and left the demo fairly impressed. The glasses were only 3DoF but featured precision adjustment for interpupillary distance. That means the small high resolution screens could be brought into perfect fitting across a wider range of face shapes than many fixed width designs. While the glasses appeared to be a step backward in terms of field of view, Panasonic representatives said at the time that they are looking into putting larger panels inside the glasses. While we also hoped for the addition of cameras for more robust tracking, the latest comment from Panasonic suggests the company may be focusing on the same use cases currently targeted by Oculus Go. That is, a VR-based media viewer of some kind.
“Panasonic has demonstrated the world’s first HDR Capable & Ultra-high definition VR glasses prototype at CES 2020 in Las Vegas and it was very well received by the industry”, said Michiko Ogawa, CTO, Appliances Company, Panasonic Corporation, in a prepared statement. “With the support of Qualcomm Technologies, we plan to optimize these VR glasses to work seamlessly with 5G-enabled smartphones. With a combination of 5G connectivity and compact, lightweight, ultra-high image quality VR glasses, we hope to deliver highly immersive experiences for live music & sports events in 2021 and beyond.”
We’ll provide more updates on the Panasonic glasses as soon as we have them.
