pimax dream air (1) — Image courtesy Pimax

Pimax Delays Thin & Light ‘Dream Air’ PC VR Headset to Q3 2025, Reveals Cheaper ‘Dream Air SE’ Version

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May 12, 2025

Pimax announced Dream Air last December, aiming to take on the emerging segment of compact high-end PC VR headsets, such as Bigscreen Beyond and Shiftall MaganeX Superlight 8K. And before the company has even released Dream Air, Pimax revealed it’s also producing a cheaper version: Dream Air SE.

Previously expected to release in May, the company announced during its Pimax Connect event that Dream Air has been delayed to August-September 2025, as the company says it’s waiting on high-end Sony micro-OLED panels, 3,840 × 3,552 per-eye.

“Sony’s micro-OLED panels are top-tier, also used by Apple and Google,” says Pimax European Marketing Director Martin Lammi. “They have an excellent quality consistency across all panels and their visual effect is better. This is because the brightness is higher and the pixels have a wider view angle or ‘chief ray angle’, up from 15 degrees to 20 degrees.”

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Other updates to Dream Air include a more balanced split-cable design, which was revealed in March, as well as an optional flip-up style halo headstrap, and support for third-party head straps, such as HTC’s Deluxe Audio Strap.

In the meantime, Pimax revealed Dream Air SE, which includes many of the same features of Dream Air, including micro-OLED panels, integrated audio, self-adjusting strap, pancake lenses, hand-tracking, and Tobii eye-tracking. The standout difference though is Dream Air SE’s 2,560 × 2,560 resolution micro-OLEDs and lower price.

Image courtesy Pimax

Dream Air SE starts at $899 for the Lighthouse version, appealing to those with existing SteamVR base stations and controllers. The SLAM version, priced at $1,199, includes controllers and inside-out tracking. You can find them both available for pre-order on Pimax’s website.

Like Pimax’s other headsets, users pay an upfront cost for the headset which comes with a 14-day trial period. Afterwards, if users want to keep the headset, they then pay a Pimax Prime software membership for continued access. Here’s how that breaks down:

Dream Air SE – SLAM Version: $699 upfront + $500 Prime = $1,199 total
Dream Air SE – Lighthouse Version (no controllers or basestation): $599 upfront + $300 Prime = $899 total

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For comparison, Dream Air Lighthouse version starts at $1,899 ($1,199 upfront + $700 Prime), with the Dream Air SLAM version priced at $2,199 ($1,399 upfront + $800 Prime).

Check out the Pimax Connect announcement below:

Andrew Jakobs

Typical Pimax, not delivering what they presented, and yet another (prototype) model inserted..
- Alex
  
  Both voodoo and mrtv tested this prototype in SH, and they have high hopes on its potential though
  - Christian Schildwaechter
    
    The first impressions were positive, but the prototype was very unfinished. Basically just Sony microOLEDs paired with large pancakes and a simple IMU for 3DoF tracking, in a 3D printed case with fixed IPD, resembling AVP with non-functional audio bulges and an improvised strap.
    
    The good news is that the displays and lenses seem to be excellent, with a large FoV that will be somewhat reduced in the final version. And Pimax has already proven it is able to add lighthouse/SLAM 6DoF tracking, eye tracking and audio to an HMD.
    
    But Pimax again grossly oversold the delivery date targeted as May 2025, just six months after the announcement. MRTV estimated it would take another six months to finalize. Just adding the missing features from their existing HMDs might take less time, but staying within the announced weight and size limits will require a lot of optimization.
    
    The initial Dream Air announcements seemed like a reaction to the MeganeX 8K, with only a 3D render they at least quickly followed up with a working prototype. The timing was probably to stop Pimax customers from buying a ShiftAll by promising something similar/better "soon". But they better hurry now, as others can buy the same displays and lenses, and once several similar HMDs are out, prices and earnings will fall.
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  So far they only changed the when, not the what. And the new Dream Air SE prototype makes a lot of sense if it is indeed technically mostly identical except for the 2.5K instead of ~3.8K microOLEDs, but at half the price. This wouldn't add a lot of development time, and could massively increase sales, distributing the development costs wider.
  
  But of course the when has indeed been the "typical" issue with Pimax during the last few years. While they by now usually deliver the promised features, they rarely do so at the promised time. We are not talking Valve time yet, but this still means that a Pimax statement primarily serves as a marketing message to keep people talking about it, with details and esp. delivery dates later often changing in response to either the reaction they get, or their overly optimistic time estimates getting hit by development reality.
  - Dale Kirkley
    
    Other than HL2 what did Valve announce that did not release on time or match the features?
    - Christian Schildwaechter
      
      Steam Deck (2021-12 -> 2022-03)
      Steam Deck Dock (2022 "Late spring" -> 2022-10)
      Half-Life: Alyx (2019 "Later this year" -> 2020-03)
      Valve Source 2 SDK (2015 -> ???)
      
      developer_valvesoftware_com/wiki/Valve_Time lists more than 100 examples of Valve missing the initially announced date, and around 20 of reverse Valve time where they delivered before the promised date, though this was often only a few hours or days.
  - Alex
    
    I agree. Pimax’s biggest problem is delayed shipping rather than failing to deliver on promised features. For a small company (compared with Meta, Valve), it’s crucial for them to make noise and consistently show their latest technology in the PCVR market. Are there any other companies attempting something similar? I don’t think so—most have abandoned this market entirely
    - Mike
      
      still waiting for the air link thing I bought from them for the original crystal. it's been like a year. I paid around 250 dollars, I think. Also, they never delivered on the wide FOV lenses they promised. I'm never buying pimax again. my personal experience is that their product is junk. i don't even think i could sell it in good faith as the crystal only turns on about half the time. Been that way since I bought it like 2 years ago.
Dale Kirkley

Joke company makes joke announcement.

Pre-order cancelled.
Kryojenic

Apparently the Lighthouse versions also miss out on the hand tracking that's included with the self-tracking ones.
- XRC
  
  sounds like my index then!
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  This isn't really surprising. On most headsets the same nIR cameras are used for both inside-out room and hand tracking, so you get both or none. In theory they could implement hand tracking separately, for example the AVP uses two short range depths sensors, one for each hand, plus a long range one for room tracking.
  
  But that isn't really an option if they are trying to keep the weight and size as low as possible. And in the Dream Air SE announcement video they basically state they expect the SLAM tracking version to be(come) the default, so the lighthouse version is offered mostly for backwards compatibility with existing setups.
Davyyang

Pimax Dream Air SE makes sense – using 2560×2560 micro-OLEDs instead of 3840×3552 to cut the price in half is reasonable. The lighthouse version is perfect for keeping my existing base stations and Index controllers. Hoping they ship on time for once, since Pimax's biggest issue has always been delays, not missing features. Early prototypes look promising with great displays, lenses and FOV – just hoping the final version stays lightweight.
LucaX

It's amazing that they integrated eye-tracking in a headset weighing less than 200g. For someone like me who uses VR for social interaction, that's really attractive.
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  People always overestimate how complicated eye tracking hardware is because the first implementations we saw went for hundreds of dollars. But it really is just a couple of IR LEDs plus a tiny IR camera for each eye. Bigscreen said adding eye tracking only adds 1.03g on the Beyond 2e.
  
  The orange circle on the left is the IR LED array on the PSVR2 on a thin, flexible PCB, the light pattern it creates in the middle, and a random color HD camera module incl. lens and case for size reference on the right. IR tracking cameras usually only record 400×400 and much smaller when directly integrated.
  
  The real problem is the software. Detecting the pupil position from the IR image is easy and cheap, determining exact gaze direction and esp. eye movement a lot harder. Tobii, who provide most of the eye tracking solutions in HMDs, at one time said that their solutions worked only for about 95% of the people even after almost 20 years of development, because eyes are formed very differently with lots of possible defects. And the eyes make a lot of seemingly random movements that mustn't be misinterpreted as changing the gaze, all of which leads to eye tracking being rather compute heavy and only now becoming feasible on mobile HMDs.
  
  https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a67d8724cf7d92e7566ec6cd230525c98806519e58574f155e3961305c441b73.jpg
  - XRC
    
    Yes the Tobii pcvr solution is working very well for me, their "Eyechip" client software is very light.
    
    Finding their 120hz eye tracking is very capable, getting performance benefit from dynamic foveated rendering in compatible games, as well as the comfort of a more dynamic pupil
CY

It's great to see they focusing on smaller, more streamlined designs instead of sticking with bulky look. The inclusion of integrated audio, eye-tracking, and inside-out tracking is a smart move that could cut costs and simplify the user experience. However, as a BSB user, I tend to find out the importance of actual performance. Gotta to wait for hands-on impressions or detailed media reviews to determine if it's worth the investment or not.
Somerandomindividual

Pimax 100% did not expect to release in May 2025, they just wrote that. They lied and set false expectations, like with all their other headset releases. If you are going to aim for journalistic integrity, please be critical and truthful about how companies like Pimax set unrealistic deadlines just to troll competitors and get more pre-orders.
xyzs

This company litterally has ADHD…