[HN Gopher] Meta's Subpoena Dropped - Simula One vs. Quest Pro
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Meta's Subpoena Dropped - Simula One vs. Quest Pro
Author : sandebert
Score : 85 points
Date : 2022-10-24 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (simulavr.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (simulavr.com)
| Kamran224 wrote:
| Title feels like clickbait after seeing one paragraph about
| subpoena and then a whole article about a different topic. Now
| sure what specs have to do with subpoena
| georgewsinger wrote:
| The title of our blog post ("Meta's Subpoena Dropped; Simula
| One vs. Quest Pro") is different than the HN title: I think HN
| might discourage dual titles? (We weren't the original
| submitter of this post to HN, so didn't choose the title).
|
| Also: originally our post was only going to be about the Quest
| Pro, but then we found out that Meta dropped their subpoena,
| and so we just ad hoc attached the news to the beginning of the
| post as an update to our preorderers.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I found the detailed comparisons interesting and also came away
| worried for Simula.
|
| The Quest Pro is available this week, has pancake lenses, better
| GPU, is a third to half the cost and has bet on Arm which is on
| its way to eat productivity PCs. Simula doesn't even run Windows,
| which would be a nice consolation for being stuck on x86.
|
| Quest's integrated business partnerships are rudimentary but are
| going to be adopted much faster than Simula users can figure out
| and share their custom workflows.
|
| Quest Pro 2 is probably going to come out before Simula finishes
| shipping its initial orders next year.
|
| We need a Simula to exist, but I don't think they are going to be
| able to iterate nearly fast enough to provide to this market. I
| hope I'm wrong, because it's a really cool project and completely
| above board in respect to future ad revenue and metaverse
| ambitions.
| RistrettoMike wrote:
| I came away feeling similarly.
|
| Their dedication to developing a true VR computer and focusing
| on specs that really matter for that (PPD and raw processing
| grunt) are commendable, but seeing them champion the idea of
| strapping an X86 computer to your face in what is an
| increasingly arm-powered world is... concerning. "But it can
| run _real_ Adobe Acrobat through WINE " is not something that
| gets me excited about a VR platform, but I'm likely not the
| target audience either.
|
| That being said, having tried out some remote-desktop apps on a
| Quest 2 earlier this year, the screens are absolutely not
| acceptable for that purpose in terms of viewable resolution --
| so if the Quest Pro really is only slightly better in that
| regard, I think it'll soil the experience.
|
| If Simula can manage to tune their x86 specs to run well enough
| under power-limited circumstances, have at least comparable
| poor battery life to other VR headsets, develop a VR computing
| environment with usage paradigms that make sense, and do it in
| a headset that's somehow still comfortable to wear for extended
| sessions, then they may truly be ahead of the curve in a way
| that matters. That seems like a big ask for such a small
| company's first outing, but they also seem the most passionate
| about this category of use-case despite their scale.
|
| I wish them the best. VR computers like the one they're working
| on would be a lot cooler than Meta's vision for the category.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Yeah. I like the simula one concept and the VR "Desktop
| Environment" appeals to me, but I would much prefer to
| decouple the display from the compute, because the hardware
| is at different levels of maturity and because the heavy bits
| don't have to sit on your head - You can stick a lot more
| compute and battery in a backpack form factor, and even with
| my Vive I ended up strapping the cords to my back for cable
| management reasons.
|
| If I had to buy a backpack laptop from them (And I would
| kinda love to have a backpack laptop + weird goggles, be
| kinda like the "Gargoyles" from Snow Crash) to get their
| display, happy to do so.
| cdev_gl wrote:
| Yea, I feel similarly.
|
| I'm actually really excited for Lenovo's upcoming T1
| wearable display. It's a monitor in glasses form, not VR,
| but I realized that the appeal of VR desktop environments
| for me is having a large screen, not the whole VR shtick.
|
| Couple that display with output from my phone running
| JupyterLab, and I'll have a desktop-like development
| environment that fits in my pocket. Perfect for travel and
| long backpacking trips.
| kanetw wrote:
| The compute pack is detachable, so you can decouple it and
| put it somewhere else.
|
| I think it's a less elegant solution overall, but it's an
| option (eg for supine computing or to lessen the head
| weight).
| kanetw wrote:
| I'm not fundamentally against ARM. But ARM in the VR world is
| Qualcomm, and they both didn't want to deal with us + their
| support for regular old Linux is (AFAIK) nonexistent.
|
| Apart from that, x86 is IMO just easier to adopt. I wouldn't
| buy an ARM laptop right now (except for possibly a Macbook).
|
| In a different tangent, I think the only way to get good ARM
| performance in a mobile format is to have custom-tailored
| silicon, like the Apple chips. Commercially available chips
| just don't compete with a i7-1265U or the Raptor Lake equiv.
| RistrettoMike wrote:
| Absolutely! The nascent state of ARM outside of iOS,
| Android, and now MacOS is definitely a roadblock for
| bringing it to projects from smaller companies like you
| folks.
|
| In my eyes (uneducated, consumer-level perspective) X86 is
| a _huge_ question-mark for HMD devices like this, since the
| heat and power usage are so counter-intuitive for small
| form factors -- and mitigating those concerns usually
| actively works against the "higher-performance" nature of
| the chips. (low-tdp allowances, throttling, etc.)
|
| Like I mentioned above, I really do wish y'all the best of
| luck with it. I just don't envy having to be reliant on an
| old and power-hungry architecture just because the newer,
| better architectures don't lend themselves to this sort of
| project yet. I hope the Simula One sticks the balance!
| kanetw wrote:
| I don't have an XR2 devkit so I can only guess, but TDP-
| wise they seem pretty comparable. Obviously that doesn't
| include boost power etc and there's stuff integrated into
| the XR2 that we need to do on an FPGA, but overall I've
| not felt like a modern x86 processor is overly
| disadvantaged.
|
| I'm sure one could do a more rigorous comparison, but IMO
| with the recent Intel/AMD chips you get pretty good
| performance/power.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I came away feeling similarly _for completely different
| reasons_.
|
| Obviously Simula wants to sell themselves and downplay meta for
| sales purposes, but a lot of their arguments in " Philosophical
| Differences" section seemed to just miss the mark. Like, I
| think they have the wrong philosophy.
|
| For example, simula critiqued the Quest Pro for relying on good
| wifi, noting you can't use it at coffee shops. That's a bad use
| case. They released a video of someone using simula at a coffee
| shop and everyone thought it was a joke. Productivity VR isn't
| a laptop, it's a better external monitor. You don't take a
| monitor to a coffee shop (or other similar establishments).
| Maybe, _maybe_ a plane is a good place. Probably hotel rooms,
| certainly offices and homes. Offices and homes can /will have
| good wifi.
|
| They also mention window management and the (lack of) it on the
| Quest. Except no one (outside techies) knows what a windows
| manager is or has custom workflows. Instead, quest has _screen
| management_ so you can have a virtual screen, and manager your
| own windows. I'm no Nostradamus but I doubt the future of
| technology rests in heavily customized window managers.
|
| Simula also has a few points that are just wrong about the
| quest, such as the need for a laptop. A laptop helps, but it
| does have a native browser and Bluetooth keyboard support so
| you can totally spend your day in Gmail and Google docs and all
| that browser jazz without a second computer.
|
| I do think an "untethered" future for VR is real though, like
| simula thinks. Quest is just _also_ positioned to handle it
| through the real future apps platform (browsers) not a techie
| dream (Linux desktop).
|
| For what it's worth I think the real winner of VR productivity
| in the short term will end up looking a lot closer to NReal
| instead of either of these two. It's cheap and comfortable, so
| it's a lot easier to start using. It also entirely relies on
| your host computer so no one has to set up a new computer, IT
| doesn't have to extend support of systems (ActiveDirectory etc)
| to new platforms, etc.
| shubb wrote:
| It's a niche usecase but it does speak to me - I struggle to
| be productive on a little laptop screen and would love to
| wear something like this not at a cafe but at a co-working
| space. The kind where you don't get a screen. If enough
| people do it it won't be embarrassing. I can also see the
| utility for digital nomads.
|
| On the other hand, what I'm really looking for there is, my
| laptop in a virtual screen - and that's all I need. A
| wired/wireless headset as a peripheral for my laptop is what
| I need and these exist.
| treis wrote:
| >I do think an "untethered" future for VR is real though,
| like simula thinks
|
| I think we're at least a decade or two of battery, processor,
| and screen development away from making that happen though.
| IMHO, I'd much rather have a lighter and better headset with
| a cord than what these two are like.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Yea 100%. That's why I think something like the NReal is a
| better short term future. If you can't be comfortable as an
| all in one, then put nothing extraneous in the headpiece.
|
| The Quest Pro looks pretty comfortable but it's battery is
| like an hour so it's not a stand-alone device that can
| exist untethered to a power cord.
| allanrbo wrote:
| NReal looks very interesting. Just ordered one.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| They do look interesting. The reason I haven't bought one
| (besides being sold out hampering my impulsiveness) is
| that the screens are pretty low-res compared to a regular
| monitor or iPhone screen. That and apple is likely to
| come il out with something and I don't want more ejunk.
| jolmg wrote:
| > Simula doesn't even run Windows, which would be a nice
| consolation for being stuck on x86.
|
| I think the only issue with getting it to run Windows would be
| Windows lack of support for stereoscopic displays (for its OS
| GUI). If someone in the community really wants it and can
| figure that out, maybe Windows can still run in the unit.
|
| This is assuming that there's support for installing whatever
| Linux distro one wants. If that's true, installing Windows
| should also be doable, I would think.
| kanetw wrote:
| You can install any distro. Windows is doable in theory, we
| just don't focus on it.
| v0idzer0 wrote:
| > The Simula One has compute specs that are legitimately
| comparable to a premium office laptop. For example, it supports
| an x86 architecture (i.e. just like a premium laptop), instead of
| an ARM based architecture like the Quest Pro (an architecture
| which runs on mobile phones and other portable devices).
|
| Pretty sure my ARM Macbook with 24GB RAM is a "premium laptop"
| georgewsinger wrote:
| Yes, for sure; however, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 and 12GB of
| RAM on the Quest Pro isn't that.
|
| We're also fundamentally a Linux Desktop platform, which ARM is
| finnicky with. We wanted to give people an experience that was
| truly comparable to what they would expect out of a comparable
| premium (Linux) laptop.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| > Pretty sure my ARM Macbook with 24GB RAM is a "premium
| laptop"
|
| Pretty sure the M1 isn't just a generic ARM processor but
| rather something Apple specifically designed for their use
| case.
|
| I challenge you to point to just one more vendor delivering a
| premium laptop experience based on ARM. Even better, please
| point to a chipset vendor that will license that technology to
| a third party to use as a platform for their hardware.
| MikusR wrote:
| Meta realized that Simula is selling a 3d render instead of
| actual hardware.
| georgewsinger wrote:
| https://simulavr.com/blog/first-glimpse-of-review-units/
| IceWreck wrote:
| I'll believe it when its sent to reputable third party
| reviewers.
| jolmg wrote:
| I honestly don't understand the hostility these guys get.
| Is there something you're specifically skeptical about? Is
| it their ability to make/obtain an appropriate compute
| pack? Their first review unit video shows one. It's
| physical size seems doable, though it's still being worked
| on. What's the problem?
|
| I mean, if it's simply skepticism, you can just wait to see
| what happens, but you comment like you're trying to call
| them out on something.
| MikusR wrote:
| Their comments here and elsewhere make them look like a
| tipical Kickstarter scam.
| jolmg wrote:
| They seem quite transparent in their work via their blog.
| What do you think they could've done better? What screams
| that their blog posts are lies? I ask as someone who
| hasn't experienced a Kickstarter scam.
|
| To me, their comments are a mix of sales-talk to raise
| funds for the units and diplomatic play to get Meta to
| leave them alone.
| kanetw wrote:
| It's kind of incredible how we can basically document our
| entire development process and people still go "it's a
| Kickstarter scam"
| jayd16 wrote:
| A lot of these points under section 3 just seem plain false. You
| can certainly use the device in a stand alone way w/o wifi. You
| can also open individual apps as windows as well as whole
| monitors when using it as a PC headset.
|
| The section about what is adequate for long term use seems to be
| just an opinion. Have they even tried one yet?
| [deleted]
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| The number of screens is a little dependant on your use case.
| In Infinate Office mode i.e. using the built in browser windows
| or 2D PWAs its all on board, limited to 3 in Quest 2 and idk on
| Pro. These are stand alone no external support needed. In PCVR
| mode as a remote desktop with Horizon
| Workplace/ImmerssedVR/vSpatial then you are limited by the
| resolution settings you want such that the total fits your
| Quest screen budget. I do find the PPD calculations interesting
| since they are right the details are not easy to find
| published. Color Passthrough is the big win on this Pro headset
| and new Mixed Reality applications will lead its adoption which
| is good news for everyone in the XR space including Simula.
| georgewsinger wrote:
| We acknowledge you can use native Meta apps in a standalone way
| (we discuss this in section 5). The problem is that there
| aren't many native productivity apps running on Meta.
| nicolashahn wrote:
| Can you also acknowledge that 1 and 3 of section 3 are false?
| It absolutely does not need a PC/wifi to use. Source: I have
| one on my desk.
| georgewsinger wrote:
| 3.1 and 3.3 are talking about the Quest Pro's VR Desktop
| capabilities. We just added extra clarification to make
| this clear. We don't dispute that the Quest Pro can run its
| own native VR apps without WiFi streaming.
| headhasthoughts wrote:
| "Literally every Android app that doesn't directly require
| GPS" is quite a few native productivity applications.
| andybak wrote:
| Except sideloaded apps are stuck in the "unknown sources"
| category which has no icons, no sorting, no search and is
| sorted in "last installed" order and nothing else.
|
| Or you can install an app launcher which is also stuck in
| "unknown sources". So you have to find your app launcher
| and launch that first - which rather cancels out any
| advantage an app launcher would bring.
|
| It's a huge disadvantage and and makes running sideloaded
| apps you use regularly a real pain.
| IceWreck wrote:
| Are you saying Android does not have productivity apps ?
| Cause the quest can run all of them
| croes wrote:
| I think they mean Quest native.
| philjohn wrote:
| And that's why the Microsoft partnership was so
| interesting.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I am surprised by the amount of support for Facebook here by a
| community that is normally pretty critical of Facebook
|
| That being said I think VR is amazing for games and similar
| environments but I find the idea of using VR goggles to view
| "screens" for work totally dumb. There is no way I am ever going
| to be doing that.
| jolmg wrote:
| > I find the idea of using VR goggles to view "screens" for
| work totally dumb. There is no way I am ever going to be doing
| that.
|
| I think it's going to depend on the person, their work, and
| their alternative work environments. The main point of value
| may be to offer a way to better isolate yourself and your work
| from your physical environment.
| _jab wrote:
| What a bizarre article. "We've successfully convinced Meta we are
| not their competitors and have been dropped from their antitrust
| lawsuit - oh by the way here are all the ways we're so much
| better than this company we're definitely not competitors with."
|
| Were Simula so desperate to shit on Meta that they needed to post
| this article the precise moment it ceased to be a legal risk to
| do so?
| tannhauser23 wrote:
| They were never a party to the lawsuit. Reading between the
| lines, they negotiated with Meta's lawyers and agreed to
| produce some documents/testimony in response to the subpoena.
| georgewsinger wrote:
| Just to clarify: we produced no documents or testimony to
| Meta at all. We basically negotiated on some very pedantic
| things (deadline extensions and so forth), and they ended up
| dropping the subpoena altogether.
|
| In Meta's defense, we found their legal team to be cordial
| and respectful.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >The Quest Pro cannot replace your laptop or PC. In fact the
| Quest actually needs a laptop or PC to WiFi tether into (for VR
| Desktop), so that it can emulate and stream a (limited number) of
| host monitors in VR space.
|
| You can either run apps on the device itself or on another
| machine if you need more compute. The are plenty of web apps and
| sideloadable android apps that can already be used even on Quest
| 2.
|
| >The quest Pro isn't reliably portable. On top of this, if your
| WiFi connection is spotty or simply unavailable, you don't even
| get to use the device's VR Desktop
|
| When using apps on the device itself this isn't a concern. When
| good wifi isn't available Meta sells a wifi dongle you can plug
| into your laptop.
|
| >The Quest Pro offers no true window management. The Quest Pro is
| only able to emulate (a limited number of) monitors on a host
| machine. It has no awareness of the individual apps, and doesn't
| allow you to separate or combine them into your own unique views
| or workspaces.
|
| There is a window manager, but it isn't that flexible. In the
| future it could change though. Meta's headsets gain a lot of new
| functionality with the frequent updates they receive. All of the
| cons for the Quest Pro except for the PPD can be fixed in a
| future update down the line and are not hard limitations of the
| product.
| allanrbo wrote:
| I've been a fan of SimulaVR for a while, but this sour attitude,
| trying to put Quest down by giving arguments for how superior
| SimulaVR is, is low.
| kanetw wrote:
| A sour attitude definitely wasn't intended. Meta has some
| misleading marketing and we wanted to correct that. Apart from
| that we're just comparing our products, as the Quest Pro
| (unlike the Quest 2) does indeed intrude on our niche.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| Wasn't the whole point of the initial subpoena complaint,
| "we're not a competitor to Meta?" and now that it's dropped,
| you're arguing why you're a competitor?
| kanetw wrote:
| The Quest Pro wasn't announced when they subpoenaed us.
| gretch wrote:
| Okay, so if you got re-subpoenaed for being a competitor
| tomorrow, will you comply with the subpoena given that
| your original argument is now invalid?
| altairprime wrote:
| (On behalf of lawyers everywhere, I encourage OP not to
| reply to this question. I am not their lawyer, this is
| not legal advice.)
| gnarbarian wrote:
| do you think this was a sneaky trap set up by meta?
| dylan604 wrote:
| whether it is or not doesn't make "don't respond to
| internet trolls", "don't make public comments about
| ongoing litigation", etc bad advice.
| gnarbarian wrote:
| I never implied it was bad advice. I agree
| wholeheartedly. It seems like 4d chess to me.
|
| Trick Your adversary into a particular defense which you
| are prepared to demolish.
|
| I'd be impressed by it if a single meta lawyer's salary
| wasn't more then the entire simulaVR budget.
|
| as such it looks more like a giant evil corporation
| having it's way with a small defenseless individual just
| trying to manifest their own vision for VR.
| [deleted]
| jamiek88 wrote:
| You are not a lawyer.
|
| You are on this site continually getting into legal
| arguments, even giving legal advice despite being asked
| not to by actual lawyers.
|
| Some of the questions you ask in an aggressive way like
| this one (mimicking either TV lawyers or maybe you've
| been to a couple depositions as a business person, a lot
| of us have) can put people in difficult positions, we
| have a site here where sometimes the actual protagonists
| come talk.
|
| We don't need our own self appointed Perry Mason.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| The Quest Pro wasn't a shocking development. Meta has
| been openly talking about their productivity VR/AR
| ambitions.
| georgewsinger wrote:
| But we've also been openly declaring these claims to not
| have any teeth, for almost a year now:
| https://simulavr.com/blog/we-dont-want-the-metaverse/
|
| TLDR: That post is from 2021, and we basically said that
| Meta's product vision is to start with a social
| network/gaming platform first, and then backwards
| engineer productivity into it as a third use case;
| whereas we want to start with productive VR computing as
| our first and only focus, and engineer everything we do
| around that.
| shafyy wrote:
| Come on. It wasn't announced officially, but it was
| leaked all over the place and there were almost no
| surprises in the official announcment, including that
| they're going to focus more on work not only gaming.
|
| As others have said, I love what youre doing with Simula,
| and the subpoena was out of place from Meta, but you've
| got to work on your communication.
| xeromal wrote:
| It seems strange to think they were compelled to compare
| themselves to a potential product in a court case.
| koolala wrote:
| The Quest 3 will be really interesting. If they can really
| lower the price of the Pro to $300. I'm excited for the
| Deckard as well but doubt it will be near $400.
|
| My main concern with the future is Ergonomics. We are
| practically talking about a cybernetic-interface here. It
| isn't cheap or easy to solve. Above all else I feel like
| people really just hate having a thing strapped to their
| face.
| fhd2 wrote:
| FWIW, "intrude on our niche" sounds pretty sour. It's not
| _all_ bad to have competition, especially someone with a bad
| rep like Meta/Facebook.
| georgewsinger wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback.
|
| Our intention is to offer constructive criticism of Meta's
| product vision, not a sour attitude. Meta is marketing the
| Quest Pro as a productivity device, but to us it doesn't seem
| to have much teeth: it can't replace someone's laptop, requires
| WiFi tethering to a host machine to be used as a VR Desktop
| machine, caps the # of screens it can emulate to 5, and has
| poor pixel density.
|
| Are these not fair things to point out?
| koolala wrote:
| They started out very restrictive on their vision and
| ecosystem - but nowadays isn't all that made up marketing?
|
| You can't install Linux on it sadly but like... can it run
| any Android app? Can it connect to a PC Linux software in any
| way a power user would want? Can it run any program that can
| practically be built for it? I feel like it can but I
| obviously want more and something better.
| camdat wrote:
| The Quest Pro will be (very soon) on shelves for customers to
| purchase. It's a product that exists with an app ecosystem
| and other users. As far as I can tell, SimulaVR won't have a
| product ready until at least Q4, and even then I'm sure
| volume will be low.
|
| Imo the most damning part of this article for SimulaVR is
| this annotation:
|
| >[6] There are lots of tradeoffs involved in battery life vs.
| headset weight that we still need to decide on.
|
| The Quest Pro has already made these trade-offs, and exists
| as a real device with specs that are available, while Simula
| is still trying to figure out the balance of your device?
|
| It's unfair to compare a released product to something that
| might be available to consumers sometime in the next year.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > SimulaVR won't have a product ready until at least Q4
|
| How much closer to Q4 do we have to be for it to qualify as
| "real soon" in your book? I'm asking as it is Oct 24 with
| Q4 starting Nov 1. Unless, I'm not business savvy and have
| my fiscal confused with physical again?
| camdat wrote:
| I would forward this question to Simula, since their
| website still says:
|
| "We expect units to ship no earlier than Q4 2022, with
| priority given to Founders Editions."
|
| Given that, as you've said, we're in Q4 and there's no
| updated information available on their purchase page, I
| doubt it's going to be any time in the next few weeks.
| kanetw wrote:
| No, absolutely not Q4. We need to update that, but Q1-Q2
| 23 depending on how things go with suppliers.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| I like your logo very much.
| sebringj wrote:
| I remember it was posted here prior... I wonder if this is THE
| best way to report wrongs from big tech and then shame them into
| retraction so the little guys don't get crushed.
| jolmg wrote:
| This post says the Simula One has Wi-Fi 6.
|
| The store[1] and these older posts[2][3] say it has Wi-Fi 6E.
|
| The CPU also seems downgraded in this post from i7-1265U to
| i7-1165U.
|
| [1] https://shop.simulavr.com/
|
| [2] https://simulavr.com/blog/upgrading-to-alder-lake/
|
| [3] https://simulavr.com/blog/32gb-ram-upgrade/
| georgewsinger wrote:
| Yes, thank you for catching. We just pushed the fix.
|
| The original table was copied over from an old post (when we
| were still using 11th Gen Intel), and I somehow missed updating
| it.
| kanetw wrote:
| Typo. We'll fix it
|
| i7-1265U and Wi-Fi 6E is correct.
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(page generated 2022-10-24 23:02 UTC)