Oculus Rift has a new rival in China

Huang Chaiming, 29-year-old founder of Hypereal. Photo credit: Hypereal

Though China’s VR market hit an estimated US$300 million last year, very few of its startups made it outside of the country’s borders. Cheap, low-quality headsets flooded the domestic market, while Western VR companies, like Oculus Rift and Google Daydream, made international headlines.

Huang Chaiming wants to change that. His startup, Hypereal, is tackling the whole gamut of virtual reality: hardware, software, and content.

“You could say that we’re similar to Oculus,” he tells Tech in Asia. “Whatever technology they have, we have. Whatever technology they’re developing, we’re also developing.”

However, Oculus has a much smaller market and no “method to its operations,” says Chaiming. “All they have is the money Facebook gave them. They’re doing research – they’re like a research institute. It’ll be hard for them to really bring VR into the world.”

Hypereal is selling its headset for a fraction of the price of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

It’s a bold challenge, but Hypereal is laying down strong groundwork to back it up. Yesterday, the startup launched its own suite of virtual reality hardware: a headset, wireless controllers, and cameras for positional tracking. The headset – dubbed the Pano – has the specs to match, or in some cases, outdo its competitors: a 2K OLED screen, a 120-degree field of vision, and a latency as low as 11 milliseconds, according to Hypereal (a latency of 20 milliseconds or less is ideal for minimal lag).

And unlike high-end devices like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, Hypereal is selling its headset for a fraction of their price: US$363.

Chaiming at Hypereal’s press conference in Beijing. Photo credit: Hypereal.

The Shanghai-based startup has developed its own in-house SDK, which is open to third-party developers and content creators. Hypereal has also open-sourced its laser positioning technology, reminiscent of Valve’s Lighthouse, which is used for positional tracking.

That puts it in stark contrast with the many Chinese startups focused solely on hardware. According to Niko Partners, in China, 78 percent of investments in all VR-related products in 2015 and 2016 were hardware investments.

“You can’t sell hardware,” says Chaiming. “No one will want it.”

You can’t sell hardware. No one will want it.

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