Lynx says its next headset won’t run Android XR, as Google “terminated” its agreement, but will have by far the widest FOV of any standalone.
If you’re unfamiliar, Lynx is a French startup that in 2020 announced Lynx-R1, a standalone mixed reality headset with an open periphery design, and ran a Kickstarter for it in 2021. Had it shipped on time, in 2022, Lynx-R1 would have been the first consumer standalone headset with color passthrough. But after repeated delays it was beaten to market by Meta Quest Pro, and by the time backers started to receive their headsets, years later, Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro had shipped too, with much more powerful chipsets.
Further, at the time of the Kickstarter Lynx-R1 was envisioned as a roughly $500 consumer product, directly competing with Meta Quest headsets, and Lynx says backers did receive headsets for this price and claims that most who did not have received a refund offer. But the price for new orders rose to $850 and then $1300 as the company pivoted to primarily targeting businesses.
David Heaney
When Google revealed its Android XR operating system back in December, it announced that Lynx, Sony, and Xreal were building devices for it too, to follow Samsung.
Last month, Lynx teased its next headset with a darkened image, and because of Google’s December announcement, we speculated that it could be the second opaque Android XR headset.
However, Lynx tells UploadVR that Google “terminated Lynx’s agreement to use Android XR” in what the startup describes as a “surprising turn of events”.
“We remain open to having Android XR running on the device when Google releases the OS for other headsets, as we worked closely with them for a year to make sure the compatibility would be guaranteed”, Lynx says in a prepared statement.
Instead, the next Lynx headset will continue to run Lynx OS, the startup’s open-source fork of Android with OpenXR support. And Lynx says it will release the source code for both hobbyists and businesses to use as an alternative to closed-source XR operating systems.
UploadVR reached out to Google to ask about the Lynx partnership and the status of Android XR for headsets other than Samsung Galaxy XR. While the company wouldn’t comment on the status of any agreement with Lynx, it confirmed that it’s still working with Xreal and Sony.
David Heaney
Lynx will announce details and specifications of its new headset over the coming months, with a full reveal at SPIE in late January.
For now, it’s only saying that it will be a “mid-range” headset, priced somewhere between Quest 3 and Galaxy XR, with the widest field of view of any known standalone due to the use of advanced aspheric pancake lenses built in collaboration with Israeli startup Hypervision.
The optical approach here should be somewhat similar to Meta’s Boba 3 prototype, though given the practicalities of the standalone form factor, Lynx notes that while its headset will be noticeably wider than anything else on the market today, it still won’t be anywhere near as wide as Boba 3.
When it comes to delivering this time, Lynx founder Stan Larroque tells UploadVR that his company has “learned so much with the R1” in regards to electronics supply chains, and will not do a Kickstarter or preorders for the new headset. When it’s available to buy, it will be ready to ship, Larroque claims.
