Virtual Reality

The Immersed IRL event, held yesterday in Austin, Texas was the company’s big moment to showcase its upcoming headset and build confidence that it was on track to deliver on the promise of an ambitious headset. But a botched demo may have done the opposite.

At the end of the keynote, Bijoy said that the headsets were being updated to a new firmware, and that the start of promised demos might be slightly delayed. I headed to the demo line, scheduled to be part of the first demo group at 11am. At 11:30, a harried-looking group of Immersed employees pressed quickly through the crowd with headsets cushioned in styrofoam and disappeared behind the black curtain screening off the demo area.

For the next couple of hours, we waited patiently, getting occasional hints from event workers that setup was still in progress, and that demos should start soon. Eventually, a voice over the intercom announced that demos were starting, but that software issues meant that they would be “hardware only” demos.

What that ended up meaning was that we could look at and handle the headsets, and we could even put them on our heads to feel the comfort and weight. But that none of the headsets would actually be powered-on. I asked if we could at least power them up to see the quality of the displays, even if we couldn’t use them running a proper virtual environment, but was told no. Questions to determine when an actual demo might be possible—late in the day? Tomorrow?— were met with discouragingly noncommittal responses.