Pimax completes Kickstarter campaign with $4.2 million

An extremely large field of view and an impressive resolution have made the Pimax 8K glasses a real success before the glasses are even on the market. The company’s Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign raised over $ 4.2 million, although the initial funding target was $ 200,000.

While the current generation of headsets are often somewhere between 90 and 110 degrees, Pimax is aiming for a highly immersive 200 degrees field of view, which begins to come close to the human field of view of 220 degrees. Although Pimax is aiming to make the final headset capable of running most titles, there are still many questions on whether the headset will be able to run on anything but the highest end GPUs.

Pimax showed off a bevy of modular accessories like a wireless transmitter, prescription glasses frame, scent-enabling module, inside-out hand tracking module, eye-tracking module, cooling fan, and headband with integrated audio—all either neatly clipped in place with magnets or attached with a simple screwdriver.

For backers, the risks of funding a Kickstarter campaign for a hardware startup are lessened somewhat by the fact that the company has put VR headsets through production and the leadership is well-connected to manufacturing pipelines in Shenzhen, but the uncertainty is still there as to what exactly the finished project will ship with.

Two different Knuckles controllers

By reaching the $ 4 million mark, Pimax has come up with even more surprises. The company says it will be offering both styles of Knuckles controllers, one with a trackpad and another with a thumb-stick.

Pimax says in their latest update that producing both controllers instead of settling on one isn’t particularly difficult: “Mass production is not an issue for us. Our manufacturing partners are top tier ODM factories, e.g. BYD, with over 180,000 workers. Many of our team members have rich experiences in producing and shipping smart devices. e.g. mobile phones, tablets. Our team members have shipped totally over 100 million in their career.”

Though the Kickstarter pricing for the full 8K setup is $800, the headset alone being $499, I truly cannot imagine that this headset, along with controllers and sensors, will retail for less than $1,000 as a package.

|Source: Kickstarter, Pimax