Lenovo today announced its next standalone headset, the Lenovo Mirage VR S3, is set to release sometime in Q3 in select countries. Built in conjunction with Pico Interactive, the headset is targeting education and enterprise customers.

Update (June 2nd, 2020): Lenovo announced that its next standalone headset, Lenovo Mirage VR S3, is set to ship to enterprise customers sometime in Q3 of this year.

Starting at “under $450,” the 3DOF standalone will be first available in North America, China, Japan, the UK, France, and Spain.

The original article refers to the headset itself as the Lenovo VR Classroom 2, however that name refers to a program targeted at educators, which includes the Mirage VR S3 hardware, software, device management, and content.

Original Article (January 21, 2020): With Lenovo VR Classroom 2, the company is offering up a complete package to educators, which includes hardware, content, device management, training, and support—all of it intended for middle and high school students.

The company says in its education-focused site that the headset will help teachers and administrators “easily integrate virtual reality lessons and field trips into their curriculum, leading to inspiration and meaningful learning outcomes.”

As for the hardware itself, Lenovo seems to be going a bit retro in the tracking department, as both the headset and single controller are 3DOF, which not only will keep students sitting at their desks due to the lack of room-scale tracking, but will also likely lower the overall cost of the hardware.

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Lenovo says it will include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 running an Android-based OS, 1,920 × 2,160 per lens resolution display clocked at 75Hz, and an integrated 4,200 mAh battery charged via USB type-C. The field of view is said to be 110-degrees, which is more or less standard at this point; overall it basically sounds like a slightly beefier Oculus Go.

According to a press release, Lenovo VR Classroom 2 will launch sometime in Spring 2020.

Deflated Daydream ambitions notwithstanding, the Chinese tech giant is garnering itself a name in VR/AR product design and manufacturing. It recently partnered with Facebook to create Oculus Rift S, the inside-out tracked hardware refresh of the company’s PC VR headset, unveiled a new prototype AR headset for business travelers, and partnered with Finnish headset creator Varjo to certify a line of Lenovo workstations for Varjo’s super high-resolution commercial VR headsets.

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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.
  • Hmmm

    Looks remarkably like a Pico…

  • Alex Luloh

    Dear Industry,

    Please discontinue designing and manufacturing 3DOF VR Headsets. They muddy the water between cinematic VR and truly immersive 6DOF VR to the point where parents don’t know the difference and buy cheap gimmick headsets for their families and it leaves a bad taste in their mouth about VR as a whole.

    • Ad

      We need to stop calling 3doF VR, just call them 3D Personal Displays or something.

    • Actually there’s still a big market for them thanks to the low price. Virtual tours, 360 videos, etc… are still in use. They’re not for gaming, of course, bug for education, marketing and such, they are pretty interesting.

  • Ad

    Schools keep being sold bad hardware that’s obsolete fast at high prices. I feel really bad for any school that buys these and any kids that have to use them when they have a better 6doF headset at home.

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  • More than a beefer Go, seems a Pico G2 4K competitor

    • OMG.. just looked that up. Same controller, same back strap.

  • What are they charging schools for this lemon? Man, if it’s $400 or higher, any official that buys them needs to be FIRED. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.

    Worst yet, an entire generation might grow up thinking 3DOF VR is “normal VR”. This is all kinds of bad news. :(

    • silvaring

      The original rift was 3dof, and honestly a lot was done with it. Bring hand tracking and eliminate screen door and 3dof is perfectly acceptable for a lot of experiences.

      • Renato Wisocki Jr

        No, the development kit was 3dof. 3dof is not acceptable

      • Renato Wisocki Jr

        3dof on PC??? are you crazy? for such a price, just buy Oculus Rift or Quest.

  • JesuSaveSouls

    If the next oculus products are more like hp reverb and pimax combined it would be cool.They are more going to be the next step up in hardware as that of psvr.Meeting people with a budget means those with less pc hardware too.If the hp reverb runs on grx 1080 and many gamers are there but some have 1060s also…it’s possible they will release cordless pursuing only wireless to pc for premier gaming.

  • Warp

    My immediate thought was “Why on earth would you develop a 3DOF headset now?”

    Didn’t Oculus just reduce the price of a GO to $150?

  • Rudl Za Vedno

    Has anyone noticed more and more big tech corps moving away from gaming VR HMDs into enterprise and standalone educational/training products? What did gamers get in 2019/2020 so far? I can think only of Oculus releasing Quest/Rift S (I don’t count Pimax as serious player). OK we’re getting HP Reverb G2, but even this hmd is a mixture of enterprise/gaming hmd. Do you think this is a trend or will we get more gaming HMDs announcements later this year? Where the hell is Samsung with Odyssey successor for example?

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Pico never really had anything more than a non-consumer headset, so this isn’t really a suprise.

    • There is no money in gaming hardware for PCVR because Oculus absorb the true costs of Rift S/Quest (console model) and Valve have a huge pile of $$ from their Steam money printing machine.

      Makes the landscape skewed, and impossible to compete in, hence smaller companies pivot to “enterprise” where it’s possible to make profit on hardware and juicy service contracts (see HTC business)

    • kontis

      Monitors are irrelevant here. You can’t make software money on a monitor. Any device relying on software ecosystems will ride the hardware profit margins to the bottom (a problem monitors don’t have). That’s what Oculus did to HTC, so Valve had to make their own headset (as they have a store; despite the fact Gaben hates selling hardware because it doesn’t make money and hoped others like HTC or pre-FB Oculus would always do that charity job for him – he was wrong) and HTC tried to make their own store.

      There is no real money in PC VR for Samsung – they don’t have a software platform on PC. They cannot compete with zero hardware profit margins Oculus. Odyssey never made sense for them in the first place. They probably only did that for research and gaining experience / employee training.

      If Samsung ever makes a serious VR headset it will be standalone – that’s how you make money on VR. Hopefully a more open alternative to the walled garden Oculus Quest.

      It’s very surprising HP is still trying with Reverb.

  • Liam Mulligan

    Come on guys 3dof really?. Your making it so hard for us. We canned devving for 3dof 2 years ago. Our students want to move around and explore, you give them no credit and miss out on the fundamental benefits of VR treating this as a 360 consumption device. Damn, another example of how everybody gets 80% of the way with hardware and they do something dumb like this. You are better then this.

    • It’s like selling black and white television to schools whilst everyone else is buying colour televisions…

      • Liam Mulligan

        Agree, Ive met many from the Lenovo team, they are smart and forward thinking. But im dissappointed with this approach to focus on cheap hardware that ends up in landfill. It is such a waste of technology and resources when it is clear this is not what people want. The quest is the current benchmark, anything less then this is a step backwards. Having worked in education for 19 years, this will not scale.

  • Andres Velasco

    Meh, next story

  • mfx

    Every time a product is bad and overpriced, it’s “aimed at enterprise consumer”.
    probably because the feedbacks and figures are way more easy to hide when not on the open market..

  • NotRobot

    standalone wow
    All VR headsets should be standalone

  • Under $450 means $449, right?