Pimax has announced that both eye and hand tracking modules, both of which were included as stretch goals in its original 2017 Pimax “8K” headset Kickstarter, are shipping out to backers soon.

A Pimax spokesperson took to Reddit Sunday to reveal that both eye and hand tracking modules will be shipping “in a month” to backers.

“Backers will be able to get the eye tracking for $99 for a limited time,” the spokesperson says. “The price is greatly below the cost to produce it. The price will be much higher when we retail this later in the year.”

The 7Invensun-developed eye-tracking modules teased last year were slated to cost $300 MSRP, however there’s no telling what the final price will be once the company opens up orders to the general public.

Image courtesy Pimax

The company’s hand tracking, which is powered by Ultraleap (ex-Leap Motion), is quoted to cost $170 when bought direct from the company’s website. It’s uncertain whether backers will also be offered a lower price here as well to account for a near three-year wait.

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Hand tracking is slated to arrive around one week after eye-tracking, however the spokesperson says the company will “probably combine with other stretch goal items to decrease the number of shipments. We might offer a program where those who want them faster can just pay for shipping.”

“We also been testing a very impressive new game that supports the hand tracking,” the spokesperson teases.

For all of Pimax’s follies (and there are many), the company has been steadfast in fulfilling goals and continuing its development to hone its ever-growing swath of high field of view VR headsets. What’s more, both eye and hand tracking modules are said to fit in all Pimax headsets, which is a good thing considering how many variations we’ve seen devised since the original 2017 crowdfunding campaign.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Heliosurge

    Hand Tracking was not a Stretch Goal but a Backed item at the tine for $100 US. Hand Tracking was sold in fall 2018 Pre order fir $160 US.

    The Image you have is from Pimax Day 1. Where the Eye Tracking was also said to be sold to backers at under Cost to produce at $199 US(Originally a Free Stretch Goal). During Pimax Day 2 it was reduced to $99 US for backers and is not supposed to expired. The Consumer Price was reduced to $199 US.

    Only Stretch goal to Trickle out so far is 2 pieces of Content out of 3. All other stretch goal items have yet to ship(Modular Audio Strap, Extra Face Foam, Prescription Frame adapters, Cooling Fans, $100 off Wireless Coupon).

    Some backers also purchased a 10m cable that has yet to be released.

    • Rudl Za Vedno

      Tobii’s eye tracking (best currently available) costs $100 per unit. Pricing it at 300 bucks is a ripoff imo.

      • Heliosurge

        Hence likely why pimax adjusted the price to $199 for consumer release of an eyetracker designed for wide fov.

      • Virtual Funkality

        This is for much larger lens and a much smaller market so they have to price accordingly to be profitable.

  • nejihiashi88

    if this works and give 50% performance boost i would buy it even if it were 400usd

    • Rudl Za Vedno

      I’m sorry to disappoint you but eye tracking + foveated rendering needs support of game dev and none of the game support it yet. Support will not come until some big player like Oculus/Valve or rumored Nvidia VR project decides to implement it in their helmet. Pimax’ hmds are niche inside a niche no dev/publisher cares about.

      • nejihiashi88

        if this comes out the only thing it needs after that is an implementation from nvidia or amd, but if there is no hardware for it how can they support something that doesn’t exist the hardware should come first so this is a progressive step towards foveated rendering.

        • kontis

          Foveated rendering is extremely difficult to get right (so it’s not visible and gives performance boost), most naive implementations not only are noticeable but degrade (!) performance.

          VRS and other latest tricks may make it easier, but it’s still a cutting edge research that has to be implemented and maintained by the top people at Epic Games (unreal) and Unity.
          IF these companies don’t get serious its not happening no matter how many headsets with eye tracking are on the market.

          These companies may get serious if a big guy like Apple or Sony pushes for it with their hardware and ecosystem. Maybe even Valve would be enough, although that’s not a given (their improvements to Unity renderer for VR were mostly ignored).

      • anonmon

        Foveated rendering is the kind of thing that needs to be universally supported at the video driver level, not the game level, for it to make sense to be a feature. Though, with things like SLI where that should have been the same scenario, that clearly never happened, so how things ultimately get implemented is completely up in the air.

        Though with the onset of “OpenXR” (I despise the meme tier “XR” moniker being touted all over the place at all being a thing) creating standardization for how VR games and software interact with VR headsets, I’d be genuinely surprised if there wasn’t provisions for foveated rendering baked into the specifications. Which at that point it’s more a question of how well porting existing things to “OpenXR” goes. Which with that being more a engine side thing rather than strictly a dev thing to worry about, I could imagine a fair number of games with active studios re-compiling games for better interplay with different headsets.

        • Moe Curley

          If you think you despise the term XR now wait a very short time when high fidelity camera pass through on VR devices supplants clear lens projection overlay as the de facto AR implementation and the term gains even wider usage.

      • Kev

        They said specifically this eye tracking module works with 99.9% of SteamVR games.

  • apoc1138

    Pimax have been saying various items will be released “in about a month” for the last year, I’m still waiting for my kickstarter items, like an actual headset that in October last year they said would be released by Dec 2019. Pimax time is completely different to any other definition.

  • Ad

    I wish some of their accessories worked on other headsets. I think they could do well making consumer packages of universal body, eye, and hand trackers.

  • Moe Curley

    Got to give them some slack because they are trail blazers but their progress has been GLACIAL in some promised areas.

  • Moe Curley

    An aside, is the Artisan even availabe yet?

  • MW

    I like Pimax news. It’s hard to find good reasons for good laugh this days:) They never fail. Maybe they waiting until backers will die of old age? That’s some creative way to earn some money.

  • They claim the eye-tracking addon would cost $300 alone, but the Droolon F1 by 7invensun for HTC headsets costs $150…

  • ConfessJesus2bsaved

    Does the hand tracker or original leap motion eliminate a need for a base sensor ? Can you get at least 6dof ?