Lenovo, a technology manufacturer with a headquarters in Hong Kong, is quietly placing a bet on the metaverse. The initiative comes through its latest XR headset — the ThinkReality VRX — which it created to help businesses integrate operations in virtual worlds. In doing so, it is challenging Meta and Apple in what is quickly becoming a crowded headset field.
The ThinkReality VRX comes at a price point of $1,299 with an Android 12 operating system, 12 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, and pancake lenses for optics. The field of vision is 95 degrees, and the refresh rate is between 70 and 90 Hertz. Overall, the headset has a sleek design, and those who have reviewed it speak to its comfortability while wearing — combating a common complaint among XR headsets.
XR, which stands for “extended reality,” is an umbrella term that encompasses augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. Employing these types of headsets, a user can project images onto the environment around them as well as immerse themselves in virtual worlds. Many experts believe that XR headsets will become commonplace by 2030 and will revolutionize the way people interact with their environments.
But while the ThinkReality VRX headset is technically XR, Lenovo is not targeting consumers with its product. Instead, it is marketing the headset towards companies for use in what is called “the enterprise metaverse,” which are virtual worlds that companies use for training and other daily operations. That makes it different than Apple’s Vision Pro, which the company is targeting towards developers, and the Meta Quest 2, which is more consumer friendly.
An important difference, as well, between Lenovo’s headset and others is data protection. While the Meta Quest 2, for instance, is known for recording all types of user data, the ThinkReality VRX headset comes with a certain amount of protection, important for companies that rely on confidentiality and don’t want the data of their employees collected and later sold.
In an interview, Jason McGuigan, Head of Commercial Virtual Reality for Lenovo, told XR Today about the inspiration for the headset: “We recognized that there was a big gap in the market for the enterprise trading areas and what we consider the enterprise metaverse. Giving people the ability to utilize full VR devices for immersive tech to bring people on board, to train them.”
The ‘Metaverse’ No Longer Just Customer-Facing
When most people think of the metaverse, they likely have the impression of a decentralized virtual world where people can socialize, shop, buy land, hang out, and more. But in the past two years, the metaverse has evolved beyond those designed just for consumers — more and more companies are using them.
Among the metaverses businesses use are the enterprise metaverse and the industrial metaverse. The enterprise metaverse is often an internal virtual world that companies use for business operations such as meetings or to train employees. As Rarity Sniper covered last week, Bank of America revealed that it has been using the metaverse to train new hires and is finding success.
The industrial metaverse, while is also typically suited for businesses, is a little different. These types of metaverses rely heavily on digital twins to create a virtual replica of the businesses and their operations. The goal in these metaverses is to determine where there is inefficiency and cut it out. Renault, a car company, launched an industrial metaverse, which it says will save the company $330 million by 2025.
While it may be easy to overlook the metaverse concept now that the hype has died down a bit, companies are still employing them for a variety of purposes, showing that these virtual worlds have utility. Time will tell when consumer-facing metaverses become popular again, but as today’s story shows, the metaverse still has legs and will likely continue to grow.
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