Bigscreen announced it’s now shipping Beyond, the company’s thin and light PC VR headset unveiled earlier this year.
Created by the same team behind the Bigscreen Beta VR app, Bigscreen Beyond is a tethered PC VR headset that uses Valve’s SteamVR tracking standard. Priced at $1,000, the headset makes for an interesting value proposition for users already hooked into the SteamVR hardware ecosystem, offering up a slim design thanks to the inclusion of pancake lenses and micro-OLEDs. Check out the specs at the end of the article.
Now Bigscreen says it’s started shipping Beyond, with packages going out daily to customers in the United States; international shipments are said to begin in “mid to late Q4.”
“Since launching in February, demand was stronger than expected and we’ve got an overwhelming amount of headsets to build! We’ve spent the past few months ramping up production in order to ship tens of thousands of units in the coming months ahead,” the company says.
To meet demand, Bigscreen says it’s hiring more engineering and production staff for its LA-based factory, and meeting with overseas manufacturing partners in China to ensure production proceeds “without a hitch.”
There’s also a bigger international expansion on the horizon. In addition to taking preorders from customers in the US, UK, most of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, the company is also set to expand preorders to Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The company says it also plans to sell in South Korea, Israel, “and more soon.”
Check out our hands-on with Beyond back in March, where we tested out every aspect of the headset, including its display clarity, brightness, custom ergonomics, and got to grips with its next-gen form-factor.
Bigscreen Beyond Specs |
|
| Resolution | 2,560 × 2,560 (6.5MP) per-eye microOLED (2x, RGB stripe) |
| Pixels Per-degree (claimed) | 28 |
| Refresh Rate | 75Hz, 90Hz |
| Lenses | Tri-element pancake |
| Field-of-view (claimed) | 93°H × 90°V |
| Optical Adjustments | IPD (fixed, customized per customer) eye-relief (fixed, customized per facepad) |
| IPD Adjustment Range | 58–72mm (fixed, single IPD value per device) |
| Connectors | DisplayPort 1.4, USB 3.0 (2x) |
| Accessory Ports | USB-C (1x) |
| Cable Length | 5m |
| Tracking | SteamVR Tracking 1.0 or 2.0 (external beacons) |
| On-board Cameras | None |
| Input | SteamVR Tracking controllers |
| On-board Audio | None |
| Optional Audio | Audio Strap accessory, USB-C audio output |
| Microphone | Yes (2x) |
| Pass-through view | No |
| Weight | 170–185g |
| MSRP | $1,000 |
| MSRP (with tracking & controllers) | $1,580 |
