Bigscreen announced its thin and light PC VR headset, Bigscreen Beyond, is facing delays in production, which the company says will see shipping dates for initial preorders pushed later into October and November.

Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar says in a blogpost that manufacturing bottlenecks have led to slower-than-expected production rates, making for what the company calls “approximately 25% of the target [production] rate” in some bottlenecks than previously projected.

Bigscreen says around 20% of US-based pre-orders initially quoted for a Q3 shipping window will be shipped by next week, with the rest expected to be completed by November. Most of those Q3 pre-orders were made in February, which was the company’s “biggest month of sales.”

“The remaining 80% will take another 2-7 weeks to ship. We aim to complete all Q3 preorder shipments by November 6-November 19,” Bigscreen says, noting it will reach “full capacity” production by November.

Meanwhile, the company says more recent pre-orders given a tentative Q4 shipment date are still on track, which includes both US and international orders. Here’s the proposed schedule moving forward:

Image courtesy Bigscreen

Bigscreen details a number of issues that contributed to the delays, including important calibration machines lost in customs on the way to a China-based parts supplier, and being out of stock of certain IPDs as they await additional headsets and parts to be produced.

SEE ALSO
nDreams Reveals 'SUPERHOT' Inspired Shooter 'Vendetta Forever', Coming to Quest & PSVR 2 in October

“We’re taking this seriously,” Bigscreen CEO Darshan Shankar explains. “Solving these bottlenecks requires significant effort with multiple flights to China and our team in California working until 5AM. To ensure we improve our manufacturing and calibration bottlenecks, I will personally remain on-site at our factories in China for the next month to ensure ramp up goes smoothly. In addition to these new machines, we will begin a second night shift at our factories to improve production. We’ve also doubled the size of our LA factory team in the past 2 months.”

The tiny SteamVR headset sets itself apart from the competition by offering a much lighter and compact design than traditional PC VR headsets. It does this by including high-resolution microOLEDs, pancake lenses, outside-in SteamVR tracking, and a custom facepad made specially for each customer to insure zero light leakage. Check out our review of Bigscreen Beyond to learn more, and hear our full impressions about what has undoubtedly become a pioneer in VR headset design.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


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.
  • Guest

    Custom(s) problems is double trouble!

    • NotMikeD

      SO many entendres in this statement

  • implicator

    I was lucky enough to get mine a little over a week ago. The people at Bigsreen have been very pleasant to interact with.

  • Bumpy

    Lots of people are buzzing about this VR device. Hope they get through this issue and succeed. We need more VR competition that’s not Facebook.

  • Clownworld14

    Aww, yeh this is one of my most desired headsets, looks so good. Hopefully they fix production issues.