Razer Nabu X Wearable & OSVR Open Source VR Headset - CES 2015
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,537 words · ~7 min read
0:00
Lionus Tech Tips coverage of CES 2015 is brought to you by Phantom Glass. Visit
0:04
store.fantom.glass for the best darn screen protectors out
0:08
there as well as HyperX. So, our first video at the Razer suite
0:12
is going to be the things that I'm actually frankly not that interested in.
0:15
Number one is the Naboo X. Now, I talked
0:19
about the Naboo when they originally announced it back at CES last year. And
0:23
the Naboo X is effectively the lowerc cost version of what was already a very
0:28
reasonably priced wearable device, albeit one that didn't have a ton of
0:32
functionality. So, the main selling points of something like the Naboo were
0:35
going to be it's got that sort of like privacy mode, read your messages on a
0:39
little OLED screen on the inside thing. It gives you notifications just like
0:43
you'd expect any smart wearable that's paired to your phone over Bluetooth
0:46
would. It's got some fitness tracking stuff and then they're building in these
0:49
social features that I don't know, maybe you guys have a lot more friends than I
0:53
do, but I don't know anyone else who wears the same wearable as me. In fact,
0:56
I don't have many friends at all. So, for me, it's not much of a selling point. But this one, depending on the
1:01
pricing, they're saying it's going to be $49.99 at retail, although insiders
1:04
could get them for as little as $19.99. Might be a good balance between, okay,
1:11
it doesn't have a lot of functionality, but it's also not very expensive. So,
1:14
it's got three LEDs on the top. They are red, green or blue. Although no color
1:20
mixing is supported at this time. And then basically you configure it within
1:23
their app to say okay well you know green is going to be oh I don't know
1:27
missed messages and then red is going to
1:30
be whatever else. When you reach an achievement in your fitness goals then
1:33
you can get the fireworks to go off. And there's there's little ways that you can
1:37
program it like that. It's got a vibration motor. And unlike the Naboo, I
1:41
can already say that the build of it seems to be a little bit smarter. So,
1:47
it's got more of a watch band style band with lots of different notches. So, I
1:50
can actually make it the right size for my wrist, even though mine are quite small. I had a hard time even getting a
1:55
watch that was going to fit me quite right. and the overall ruggedness of it.
2:00
The module actually fits inside and it looks like they've built in the
2:04
capability to potentially upgrade this thing in the future, although Lord only
2:08
knows what they would actually do to upgrade it. But the module fits inside and then it's got what is effectively
2:12
the band. It makes the band effectively like a protective housing for the thing.
2:16
And it really does seem to be designed to be banged around as long as it's uh
2:20
within its protective casing. They're quoting 5 to seven days of battery on
2:24
it, which for me is really the magic sweet spot. It's the reason that I'm
2:28
still using a Pebble instead of an Android Wear device. So, what do I have
2:32
to say about this? Um, Razer's going to have to prove to me that social
2:36
integration with something like a wearable device, like exchanging, you
2:39
know, friend contact information by shaking hands with someone or holding
2:43
wrists with them, you know, like, I have the power to exchange contact
2:47
information with you or see the last game you played on Steam. They're going to have to prove to me that that's
2:50
functionality that people care about. But, in the meantime, at least it's
2:54
affordable if nothing else. And they are doing a lot of work on the whole health
2:57
side of things as well. As little as I believe that a health wearable is
3:01
actually going to make people healthier, they're at least building in support for
3:04
things like iOS's health app. So you're not tied down to just using Razer
3:09
software on your phone. You can actually do other things as well. Speaking of not
3:13
being tied down to Razer software, this is something I wasn't really expecting
3:17
to see. Maybe because I don't pay attention to rumors at all. Maybe
3:20
because I'm a caveman shut in and I don't read anything at all. But maybe
3:24
everyone knew this was coming. But this is their OSVR headmounted display. And
3:30
what it is is it's OSVR. You can tell there's no Razer branding on it
3:34
whatsoever. Because OSVR is not
3:37
Razerowned in the sense that they actually it's
3:41
it's not a company that they own. This isn't a product that they own. They are actually they developed this product and
3:45
they are open sourcing the whole thing.
3:49
So the idea is that they're open sourcing both the software and even this
3:54
piece of hardware. You'll be able to download an Excel sheet with every
3:57
single component inside this thing. And whether it's for personal use, like you
4:01
want to change out the 1080p screen for your own screen if you so desire, or
4:06
whether it's for commercial use and other companies want to jumpstart their
4:09
own headmounted display technologies, this thing is going to be completely
4:13
free for anyone to use and develop for and augment or whatever else the case
4:18
may be. Now, you might be asking yourself, well, what's in it for Razer then at this point? Well, they've got a
4:23
couple cool technologies that they hope to be contributing to the VR space in
4:27
general. Also, one of them is a dual lens system that eliminates distortion.
4:31
And also, actually, what's cool is, I believe it's with the knobs on the
4:34
bottom, but don't quote me on that one. You can adjust it so that if you have a
4:38
visual impairment, if you need glasses, you should be able to use this by
4:41
adjusting the dials to sharpen the image without glasses. And the other thing is,
4:45
I think they're more than anything else hoping to sell people hydras as VR takes
4:50
off and becomes more and more ubiquitous. So, what's in it for Razer?
4:54
Well, whether or not they actually release a Razer headmounted display is
4:58
up in the air right now, but they will definitely be able to sell peripherals
5:01
to anyone who's getting into VR. And anyone who's getting into VR is going to
5:05
need a whole new set of peripherals because that whole keyboard mouse thing
5:08
does not work very well for VR. So,
5:11
whether or not this is a success is uh is a complete mystery to me because
5:15
right now I don't think they have any comment pretty much whatsoever from
5:19
Oculus about whether they're going to support this whole OSVR thing. And I
5:23
would suspect that based on that Oculus right now is talking about game de games
5:28
needing to be developed specifically for functionality with the Oculus. We're
5:31
going to be looking at kind of an iOS Android type approach here where Oculus
5:35
might be that more closed system but more tightly integrated and OSVR might
5:39
be that shaky at the start but who knows what the open source community can do to
5:44
polish it over the long-term solution. So exciting and uh I definitely need to
5:48
actually try it out. But I'll bring you guys another video trying it out on the floor if I get some time. But uh the
5:54
future for this one is very very hazy. Both of these. Speaking of things that
5:58
are hazy, CES, lots of cigarette smoke in the air, lots of great content. And
6:02
our trip here would not have been possible without our sponsors, Phantom
6:05
Glass. Visit store.fantom.glass to check out the very best screen protectors we
6:09
have ever encountered. They're Gorilla Glass 3, so they're perfectly transparent. And they have that same
6:13
wonderful feel on your thumb, so you don't have that like gross, oh crap, I
6:17
have a piece of plastic over my awesome glass feel. That's store.fantom.glass.
6:21
You can check out the link in the video description. Also linked in the video description is HyperX. So they've got a
6:26
lot of great gaming content on their YouTube channel. You guys are going to want to check those out.
6:29
youtube.com/hyperx. Those are also linked in the video
6:33
description. Don't miss any of our CES coverage by making sure you're subscribed. And uh on to the next video,
6:38
right? You're just waiting for our next video. Go watch it now, unless it's not
6:41
out yet, in which case. Thank you for watching this one so quickly.