Kopin is an electronics producer greatest identified for its microdisplays. In recent times the corporate has been eyeing the rising XR trade as a viable marketplace for their wares. To that finish, the corporate has been regular at work creating VR shows and optics that it hopes headset makers will need to snatch up.
At AWE 2022 final month, the corporate demonstrated its newest work on that entrance with a brand new plastic pancake optic and flagship VR show.
Kopin’s P95 pancake optic has only a 17mm distance between the show and lens, together with a 95° field-of-view. Moreover, it differentiates itself as being an all-plastic optic, which makes it cheaper, lighter, extra sturdy, and extra versatile than comparable glass optics. The corporate says its secret sauce is with the ability to make plastic pancake optics which might be as optically performant as their glass counterparts.
At AWE, I obtained to peak by means of the Kopin P95 optic. Inside I noticed a pointy picture with seemingly fairly good edge-to-edge readability. It’s robust to formulate a agency evaluation of the way it compares to modern headsets as my understanding is that the check sample being proven had no geometric or shade corrections, nor was it calibrated for the numbers proven.
You’ll discover that the P95 is a non-Fresnel optic which ought to imply it received’t undergo from the sort of ‘god-rays’ and glare that nearly each modern VR headset reveals. Granted, with out seeing dynamic content material it’s robust to know whether or not or not the multi-element pancake optic introduces any of its personal visible artifacts.
Although the check sample wasn’t calibrated, it does reveal the retina decision of the underlying show—Kopin’s flagship ‘Lightning’ show for VR units.
This little magnificence is a 1.3″ OLED show with a 2,560 × 2,560 decision operating as much as 120Hz. Kopin says the show has 10-bit shade, making viable for HDR.
Mixed, the P95 pancake optic and the Lightning show seem to make a viable, retina decision, compact show structure for VR headsets. Nevertheless it isn’t essentially a shoe-in.
For one, the 95° field-of-view is simply barely assembly par. Ostensibly Kopin might want to develop its 1.3″ Lighting show bigger if it needs to fulfill or exceed what’s provided in at this time’s VR headsets.
Additional, the corporate wasn’t ready to disclose any information on the brightness of the show or the effectivity of the pancake lens—each of that are key elements to be used in VR headsets.
As a result of pancake lenses use polarized gentle and bounce that gentle round a couple of instances, they all the time find yourself being much less environment friendly—that means extra brightness on the enter to get the identical degree of brightness output. That sometimes means extra warmth and extra energy consumption, including to the tradeoffs that will be required if constructing a headset with this show structure.
Kopin has been touting its shows and optics as an answer for VR headsets for a number of years at this level, however at the very least within the client & enterprise house they don’t seem to have discovered any traction simply but. It’s not solely clear what’s holding the corporate again from break into the VR house, but it surely probably comes all the way down to the value or the efficiency of the choices.
That mentioned, Kopin has been steadily shifting towards the form-factor, decision, and field-of-view the VR trade has been hoping for, so maybe the P95 optic and newest Lightning show would be the level at which the corporate begins turning heads within the VR house.