Varjo now offers cloud streaming for high-end XR

Update:

The Varjo Reality Cloud is now available for enterprises and professionals.

At launch, Autodesk VRED is supported. Over the course of the year, support for Unity and Unreal applications will be added, as well as headsets and mobile devices from other manufacturers.

Cloud streaming is priced at $1,495 per month. The solution works for up to five users at a time per company.

More information about the Varjo Reality Cloud is available on the official website.

Original article:

Finish VR headset manufacturer Varjo is getting into XR cloud streaming. First for its own VR headsets, later possibly also for other devices.

The cloud streaming service is intended to bypass current graphics card bottlenecks and allow companies to power Varjo's high-end XR goggles from the cloud. The company hopes this will make them easier to use and improve scalability and productivity.

"With our cloud streaming, users can participate in photorealistic virtual experiences and collaborate in an immersive environment using almost any laptop with a dedicated Nvidia GPU and a Varjo headset," Varjo founder and chief technology officer Urho Konttori said at the announcement.

Cloud streaming is an extension of the Varjo Reality Cloud and supports all devices currently sold by Varjo: the VR-3 and XR-3, as well as the Varjo Aero.

Positive initial impressions of Varjo's service.

The service relies on a combination of AWS' Wavelength platform, streaming-optimized Nvidia GPUs, and a "foveated transport algorithm" that uses eye-tracking to reduce downstream bandwidth to 35 megabits per second. After initial setup, cloud streaming can be started with one click in the Varjo software. The data is automatically encrypted.

Ben Lang of Road to VR was able to try out the service with an XR-3. In the mixed reality demo, he saw a vehicle projected into the physical environment and rendered in detail (see video below). The XR glasses were connected to a laptop.

The scene was crisp, and aside from a few occasional jerks that resulted in slight artifacts, the experience was as smooth as if it were rendered locally, Lang writes. However, the AWS servers responsible for rendering were also only a few hundred miles away from the editor.

EV manufacturer praises cloud streaming

The service is still in early access, and one of the first customers to test cloud streaming is car manufacturer Rivian. The company is using the service with Autodesk VRED for design and 3D visualization.

"With Varjo Reality Cloud, we can make high-level immersion a key part of our design development and scale it effectively across multiple locations," says Trevor Greene, the company's director of visualization design. "This is a turnkey solution that allows users with very different skill sets to collaborate in an immersive environment."

Varjo's cloud streaming is scheduled to launch for enterprises in the first half of 2022, and Varjo is currently seeking additional partners for early access testing. The service is not included in the annual usage fee of Varjo devices and will be an additional charge. Pricing is not yet known.

The company plans to offer cloud streaming for other VR glasses in the future, whether PC VR or standalone.

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