Recently emerging out stealth, Singapore based Deca has revealed an ambitious PC VR headset called DecaGear. With built-in face and hip-tracking, the company says the headset is designed to embrace social VR content, but also promises very high resolution displays, inside-out tracking, and even wireless game streaming from your PC with an add-on accessory. At just $450 and a promised release date of May 2021, consider us skeptical until we see more evidence that the company can deliver on its ambitions.
DecaGear emerged this month seemingly out of thin air and has not shied away from making big promises.
The venture, purportedly based in Singapore, is headed by CEO Or Kuntzman who, according to his LinkedIn profile, has co-founded two companies between 2004 and 2013, and was most recently the Managing Director at a now-defunct studio called Betastamp, which described itself as a sort of startup-idea incubator.
According to the profile, Kuntzman’s latest work is founding Megadodo Simulation Games which “produces and operates D.E.C.A, a free-to-play massive multiplayer virtual reality gaming platform,” though I haven’t been able to find any external evidence of the MMO’s existence. Alongside ambitions of a VR MMO, the company apparently has also pivoted into full blown development of its own VR headset called DecaGear.
The DecaGear headset is claimed to have a 2,160 × 2,160 (4.6MP) per-eye resolution at 90Hz (which would match the class-leading Reverb G2), IPD adjustment, face-tracking with two inward-facing cameras, motion controllers with finger-tracking, four camera inside-out tracking, and full support for SteamVR content. All supposedly for just $450. The company says the face-tracking feature would be ideally suited for social VR content like VRChat, and presumably also the company’s own D.E.C.A VR MMO.
While Megadodo is making big promises and doesn’t seem to have much concrete history to point to, at least the details of the DecaGear headset seem thoroughly considered and the company has even offer up some good ideas, like the DecaMove hip-tracking attachment.
The puck-like device is designed to clip onto your belt so that VR apps can understand your hip-direction in order to provide a locomotion heading that’s independent from your head or hands. Implemented correctly, that really could make thumbstick-based locomotion in VR more intuitive and make avatar movements look a bit more natural.
The company has released two videos, one which shows its face-tracking in action and the other which shows hip-based locomotion.
Megadodo is also promising DecaAir, an add-on accessory that allows users to stream VR games wirelessly from their PC to the headset for a mere $50. Once again we remain skeptical considering major PC headset makers have either opted to avoid wireless streaming due to latency and quality issues, or have released expensive hardware to make it possible, like the $350 Vive Wireless Adapter.
Between the too-good-to-be-true prices, the fact that the company is taking pre-orders right out of the gate, and with no track record of hardware development, it feels way too early to say whether or not Megadodo is really capable of delivering everything it claims. We’ve reached out to the company to learn more about its headset and how it expects to achieve its ambitious vision.
Thanks to Adil3tr for the tip!
