Finland’s Varjo is a Game-Changer—VR-1 with Bionic Display Can Transform Industries

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The VR-1 — For Enterprises

The Varjo VR-1 doesn’t just have human-eye resolution unlike any competitor in the market, the device itself is aimed solely at enterprises in industries like AEC, manufacturing sectors like automobile, and aerospace and defense. Back in 2017 once the company had an early prototype, Varjo toured their technology around to find ideal early partners as beta tester customers. The companies that came onboard were companies like Saab AB, Audi, Airbus, and Foster & Partners.

The Tulip (image: Foster & Partners / Varjo for Architosh. All rights reserved.)

They chose famed architecture firm, Foster & Partners, to be their sole beta partner representing AEC. “Foster & Partners had just designed the new Apple Park headquarters, and they were going through a really interesting process working with the Apple folks,” said Konttori. “When we met them we felt that they were so far ahead of everyone else in terms of what they were doing with visualization. Working with them we actually learned most of what we would have learned from other companies,” he added.

Konttori noted that they did learn things that they were not able to solve in the first version of their VR headset. “So we are looking at those issues for the next generation of the product,” he adds, “and this applies to the other industries and not just AEC.”

Listening to early beta partners proved critical to the creation of the final VR-1 device. For example, the Varjo VR-1 features an optical chord as opposed to one with copper wiring like the other headsets. The reason is the automotive companies needed their designers and engineers to be able to walk around an entire virtual car at scale. “This was a tipping point for us, and we realized that other companies were struggling with the cables,” he adds. Their minimum spec to serve companies like VW and Audi was seven meters, but in the end, a Japanese company provided them a 10-meter optical cable. “It is not only long but really flexible and the smallest cable on the market,” said Konttori.

As if “human-eye” resolution and the longest cable in the market wasn’t enough, the VR-1 also features best-in-class eye-tracking technology called 20/20. With sub-degree accuracy corresponding to the size of your fingernail at arm’s length away from you, the Varjo VR-1 is actually proving a big hit within the aerospace industry where existing simulation and training technology costs range in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

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