Agreed there are definitely some cool headsets about to be released (both the Lynx and the MeganeX). I wish these projects well. Any successful VR headset (even gaming headsets) lift the whole industry and interest level up for everyone else. And it's also great for consumers, who get more choice.
The niche we're attempting to carve is 100% VR computing focused. When you preorder our headset, you're signing up to get something that "just works" out of the box specifically for this use case (without any further hacking required). We're also leaning as much as possible on premium specs, which we need to power the clearest and most readable text (which is super important for long working sessions).
Finally, I totally understand your concerns about backing a project that leads to a never-shipped product. We are committed to sending out weekly updates throughout the course of this project, and are aiming to have review units finished in a few months. Perhaps we can earn your trust over time, or after our first batch of headsets ship.
If you change your mind in the interim, you (or anyone else who reads this) can use the discount code "DISCOUNT_HN" to get $100 off today. We also have a partial deposit option ($1,499 now; $1,499 before the headset ships) which allows people to spread the cost of the headset over time. This allows you to reserve a headset now for lower than MSRP ($3,500), but not pay the full amount until you see more proof of our progress.
The Lynx R1 definitely is attractive in its own way. We have all of those specs except for the thinness. We're planning for our AR latency to be sub-frame (<11ms exposure to display photon out), but it needs verification with actual hardware which takes a while.
The FoV is probably going to be worse than current gen headsets (Index, Quest 1/2, etc).
For a bit more nuance, here's a nice article that talks about how rendering geometry maps to FOV https://risa2000.github.io/vrdocs/docs/hmd_fov_calculation.h... although notably this does not account for the distortion shaders used in modern HMD pipelines to correct both for geometry and chromatic aberrations. There can be more techniques for improved text rendering, like what Oculus does with their timewarp layers: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1942692682...
For those interested, here's some discussion focused on optimal text rendering in 3D engines: https://bgolus.medium.com/sharper-mipmapping-using-shader-ba...
In a previous thread, @kanetw was actually kind enough to chat in more detail about some of the Simula's optical specs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29930547
For some basic references of different aspects of visual fidelity for HMDs, this old writeup by UC Davis professor/VR researcher Oliver Kreylos is a good place to start: http://doc-ok.org/?p=1414
If you're interested you can surf through his blog for lots of insights. Also, this doc is one I just found that does a good job covering a bunch of the optical issues with HMDs: http://almalence.com/doc/SPIE-11765-23-V3/Near-eye_display_o...
The formula for e.g. PPD in the h-direction, assuming uniform pixel distribution, would be hPPD = hRes / hFOV. With a uniform distribution, 2448px at 100deg FOV would be 24.5.
We don't have uniform pixel distribution, as the human eye cannot resolve well where it can't gaze. So we magnify more wherever you can actually point your pupil at, and less towards the periphery. That way we retain eye-acuity while allowing us to "waste' less pixels where they aren't required.
We maintain >32 PPD within +- 15 degrees of eye rotation, which accounts for 86% of eye rotations.
I also think it's also somewhat bad timing, since HMD hardware releases are finally picking up. Panasonic's MeganeX, which uses 2560x2560 120Hz micro-OLEDs, is finally being released in the spring for <$1000 after being first shown 2 years ago (and there seem to be lots of similar micro-OLED HMDs in the pipeline from various Chinese manufacturers). Also, even though the PPD is much lower, there's stuff like the Lynx R1 coming out shortly that will also have full OpenXR support, is committed to privacy and staying independent, and has number of things that makes it more useful as a platform for all-day wear and hacking on: an ultra-thin flip-up form factor, 6DoF SLAM, UltraLeap hand tracking, eye tracking, and has already-working overlay AR (w/ 20ms camera-eye pipeline).