DisplayLink to Show ‘XR’ WiGig Wireless VR System at E3 Capable of Dual 4k @120Hz

Another entrant in the rapidly burgeoning wireless VR segment appears as DisplayLink prepares to present their new WiGig 60Ghz wireless VR technology at next week’s E3 convention and, according to a recent hands-on, it’s looking pretty impressive.

Given recent opinions shared by the founder of Oculus, that current generation virtual reality headsets would not see a successor until 2018 at least, it’s fallen to other technology leaders to push the state of VR hardware forward. The next most enticing prospect to enhance the PC VR experience are wireless VR add-ons that let VR enthusiasts cut the cord on their high-end VR headsets.

The market is already starting to look pretty busy, with Road to VR taking a look at several solutions both ready for retail and in the works. Now, veteran video protocol specialist DisplayLink is due to debut their own solution to the world at next week’s E3 gaming convention in LA.

DisplayLink XR is a system which utilises the WiGig (short for ‘Wireless Gigagbit Alliance’) garnered 60Ghz wireless video standard and, according to DisplayLink is capable of delivering dual 4k (3840×2160) video signals at a whopping 120Hz. Tom’s Guide got an exclusive sneak peek at a prototype iteration of the technology recently and according to them, when coupled with an HTC Vive, which sports dual 1080×1200 resolution OLED panels running at 90Hz, the new system delivers “razor-sharp”, low latency wireless image quality. Such was the proficiency of DisplayLink XR demo, which was powered by the company’s latest DL-8000 chipset, that Tom’s Guide said “We couldn’t even tell that the difference between corded and uncorded use.” Sounds impressive.

WiGig (Intel’s chosen solution) is, as the name suggests, a wireless multi-gigabit networking standard which dramatically increases over-the-air bandwidth over standard WiFi over short distances (the same room). In actual fact, the name ‘WiGig’ is a shortening of the organisation (Wireless Gigabit Alliance) which helped define the IEEE 802.11ad 60GHz standard. WiGig is aimed at very high bandwidth data uses, such as the broadcast of multi-gigabit uncompressed video and audio streams. Although its uses are more limited (short range, doesn’t work well through walls) it is ultimately a very high speed general purpose network standard in the same way as other WiFi standards. Bottom line, if you buy an 802.11ad compatible router, it’ll not only be backwards compatible with your older devices, you’ll be able to use that extra bandwidth for any sort of data transfer, not just video and audio. WiGig data rates max out at 7 gigabits per second per channel.

The system, as with the likes of TPCAST’s WirelessHD based system, requires the user to strap a receiver to the top of their VR headset, with a transmitter and encoder (powered by a proprietary compression system) relaying the digital video signal from the PC. In the case of DisplayLink XR (still at the prototype stage), that head mounted box is formidable in size at present with no details of how much it weighs. I’d hope and expect to see this form factor improved as the system edges closer to a final release. Speaking of which, although DisplayLink have not yet settled on a date for making the unit available to the public, they are tossing around a possible price of $249, which is close to the aforementioned $220 TPCAST wireless VR system, which went up for sale last month.

Road to VR are of course on the ground at E3 2017 next week and will do our best to get our hands on the new DisplayLink XR system while we’re there.