MeganeX superlight: a new PC VR headset revealed at CES 2024

As CES 2024 starts, Shiftall announces a new PC VR headset based on its MeganeX model, but 50% lighter and without inside-out tracking, that will be cheaper than the original version.

Unveiled as a prototype at CES in 2020 and announced as an upcoming product at CES 2022, the MeganeX which is an ultra-lightweight, 5.2K HDR VR headset supporting 6 degree-of-freedom (DoF) head position detection and various SteamVR applications now has a new version, the MeganeX superlight, that the company says results from “extensive lightweight tuning” that  “has significantly improved comfort while preserving high-end picture quality with 5.2K HDR OLED panels.“

The original MeganeX are equipped with a 5.2 K/10 bit HDR micro OLED display by Kopin and pancake lens by Panasonic. These will deliver, according to Shiftall, the world’s highest level of viewing experience and black expression that only OLED can provide. A folding frame with built-in speakers makes it easy to carry around. It supports 6DoF and lets you enjoy a variety of SteamVR-enabled VR applications.

The new MeganeX superlight, although keeping the 5.2K HDR OLED panels, omits, according to Shiftall, “Inside-Out cameras, speakers, and temples, and adopts an all-plastic lens.”  While this suggests that the price will also be lower than the $1700 asked for the MeganeX,  the fact that the headset does not have onboard optical tracking and needs to use SteamVR Base Stations for head tracking means you’ll need to buy them, and a pair of stations costs $400… meaning that unless the new PC VR model costs around $1000 its final price will be about the same as the original, without the versatility, as the MeganeX offers inside-out tracking and, optionally, Steam VR tracking.

Shiftall says that this model is even lighter than the original, with a weight of approximately 200g (excluding face pad and headband), but that alone might not be enough to make it interesting. In fact, the introduction of this lightweight model appears to be Shiftall’s answer to the Bigscreen Beyond headset, which has a price of $1000 and is its main competitor in this segment.

As the original MeganeX has not yet been made available in the global market, even though it was launched in Japan in 2023, we may  never see this new version, although Shiftall says it will be available somewhere in 2024.