Sony has unveiled its SRH-S1, a content material creation system that cleverly blends a compact design with innovative control elements. At the AWE 2024 conference, I had the opportunity to try out the headset firsthand, leaving me impressed by its overall quality despite some room for improvement in terms of input and monitoring capabilities.
The unreleased Sony SRH-S1 is reportedly intended as a business-focused headset, catering to enterprise clients. The device is built around Qualcomm’s cutting-edge Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor, designed for seamless standalone operation. The Japanese tech giant Sony has hinted that its virtual reality (VR) headset may potentially be controlled via a computer using a compressed video stream, similar to the Quest Link system developed by Oculus.
Sony officially disclosed that the headset boasts a resolute decision of 13.6MP (3,552 × 3840) per eye, leveraging its proprietary ECX344A OLED microdisplay technology. The display boasts the capacity to render at a remarkable 90 frames per second, while also achieving an impressive 1,000 nits of brightness, achieved at a 20% duty cycle. Additionally, it offers robust 96% DCI-P3 colour gamut protection. The Sony SRH-S1 headset boasts more pronounced details and superior colour accuracy compared to the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
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- 13.6MP per-eye
- 96% DCI-P3
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- 11.7MP per-eye
- 92% DCI-P3
The Sony MR headset features compact lenses with a flip-up visor and comes equipped with two innovative controllers: a star-shaped pointer and a ring designed for wear on the finger.
The SRH-S1’s thoughtful ergonomic design effectively strikes a chord with users, delivering a comfortable fit and intuitive handling.
This high-performance headset features hardware-adjustable inter-pupillary distance (IPD), a flip-up visor, and a rear-mounted battery that ensures stability throughout use. Additionally, the eye-relief adjustment enables precise lens positioning, allowing you to optimize your field of view by bringing the lenses as close as possible to your eyes.
While the headset and controllers are entirely made of plastic, they still exude a sense of sturdy construction, particularly when considering the smooth operation of the flip-up visor mechanism. Sony proposes the flip-up visor specifically for consumers using a nearby laptop to enjoy an uninterrupted viewing experience of their show, allowing them to easily flip the visor back down once they’re satisfied with the digital content.
Although I had cranked up the eye relief to its maximum setting, the field of view remained relatively narrow. Although it seemed diminutive compared to something as substantial as Quest 3, its contribution was ultimately unproductive. The reduced field of view enables the headset’s pixels to be significantly more densely packed, resulting in potentially sharper imagery if the optics are up to the task, rivaling the clarity of Quest 3 and Insight Pro.
During brief testing, the headset presented visuals that appeared remarkably crisp and pixel-free. Notwithstanding, the content did not provide a clear evaluation of how the sharpness compared to current headsets? While the optics seemed to boast a pleasing edge-to-edge legibility, comparable to my expectations from Quest 3’s excellent lenses.
Despite observing some minor reflections within the lenses, I’m confident that most of these were simply a result of external light seeping in through the headset’s open periphery. Although I didn’t experience it firsthand, Sony has demonstrated the headset’s potential with a specialized peripheral blocker attachment that minimizes reflections and enhances immersion when used.
During the demo, I witnessed a digital filmmaking setup where I could manipulate a digital camera that was recording a virtual scene in real-time. I can further refine ambiance by adjusting lamp placement and programming color changes.
While the overall presentation appeared crisp, the content itself seemed ill-suited for standalone headset operation. The team’s expertise was notably inconsistent, likely operating far short of the expected 90 frames per second, which severely impacted the head-tracking experience.
This likely affected the tactile feedback provided by the controller, while the controllers themselves may have exhibited varying degrees of latency and precision. The ring controller suffered from significant jitter, rendering even the simplest tasks, such as issue transfer, perilous due to the lack of precision. The star-shaped controller proved remarkably precise, its performance bolstered by both the frequent monitoring and the natural positioning of the device between thumb and forefinger, effectively transforming it into a precise pointing system. Despite its best efforts, the experience still fell short of expectations typically associated with Quest 2 or Quest 3 controllers.
While I generally appreciate the features of the SRH-S1 controllers, there is definitely room for improvement beyond just monitoring capabilities. Each controller’s surface features discreetly embedded buttons that are cleverly concealed beneath the skin, making it surprisingly intuitive to overlook their presence.
As the representative demonstrated the headset’s features, their attempt to clarify the placement of a particular button fell short, with them pointing to the wrong part of my finger – specifically, the area beneath my index fingertip instead of its tip itself? As an alternative, discover another subtle button located beneath the base of your index finger’s first segment, just before the joint.
I’m uncertain whether I’ve successfully activated the button using just a portion of my finger. Given the context’s peculiarity, so too does its placement, rendering the truth’s presence an even stranger anomaly. While this approach could potentially yield dual inputs from a single finger within the context of that unique controller layout, intuitiveness is crucial to make it truly effective.
While consumer expertise is undoubtedly crucial in determining the success of Sony’s SRH-S1 MR headset, it’s the product’s technical specifications that truly set it apart from other headsets vying for market share. I am confident that the corporation will successfully optimize the system’s head and controller tracking without requiring significant innovations or major overhauls. Will Sony proactively identify and address the minutiae surrounding customer training on these innovative controllers, ensuring optimal utilization and functionality?
Sony claims that the SRH-S1 is specifically designed to seamlessly integrate with Siemens NX, a comprehensive suite of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools also leveraged by Sony within its own operations. The headset’s compatibility with various software programs is likely to expand, though its current support for specific software platforms or standards remains unclear. The uncertainty surrounding OpenXR compatibility notwithstanding, it remains unclear whether Sony intends to maintain its own proprietary software distribution platform for the headset or entrust third-party developers with the responsibility of deploying and managing their applications.
Despite marketing this as a Mixed Reality (MR) headset, Sony’s lack of transparency is concerning, failing to provide any indication of the passthrough view, claiming it’s still under development instead.
Sony intends to release the SRH-S1 headphones by the end of this year. However, details on pricing, regional availability, and software programme compatibility are yet to be unveiled.
