Hands-on: Sony’s new MR headphones impress with clarity and ergonomics, but still need tuning

Sony’s new headset, officially called the SRH-S1 “content creation system” combines a compact form factor with new controllers. I got to check out the headset first hand at AWE 2024 and came away impressed with the headset itself, even if input and tracking still needs work.

The still priceless Sony SRH-S1 is being designed as an enterprise headset. It is built with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor for standalone use. Sony also tells us it can be driven from a PC via a compressed video stream (like Quest Link).

Sony confirmed it The Road to VR The actual resolution of the headset is 13.6 MP (3,552 × 3840) per eye, using Sony’s ECX344A OLED micro-display. The display is capable of 90 FPS and 1000 nits (at 20 duty cycle), with 96% DCI-P3 color coverage. This means that the Sony SRH-S1 has higher resolution and better color accuracy than the Vision Pro:

• Sony SRH-S1:
  • 13.6 MP per eye
  • 96% DCI-P3
• Apple Vision Pro
  • 11.7 MP per eye
  • 92% DCI-P3

The Sony MR headset also has a compact lens with a flip-up viewfinder and two completely unique controllers: one is a star-shaped pointer and the other is a ring that goes on your finger.

The ergonomic design of the SRH-S1 hits all the right notes. The headset has hardware-adjustable IPD, flip-up viewfinder, rear-mounted battery for balance and eye relief adjustment. The eye relief adjustment allows you to bring the lens as close to your eyes as possible for maximum field of view.

And although it’s all plastic, the headset and controllers feel well built, including the flip visor mechanism. The Sony flips up the visor primarily so a user sitting at a connected computer can see their screen’s full resolution, then flips down the visor when they’re ready to view virtual content.

Granted, even with the eye relief dialed all the way up, the field of view wasn’t wide. It felt smaller than something like the Quest 3, but it wasn’t very small be useful. A smaller field of view also means the headset’s pixels are even denser, which – if the optics are up to the task – should mean significantly sharper images than the Quest 3 or Vision Pro.

In my short time with the headset, the display looked impressively sharp with no visible pixels. However, the content I saw wasn’t great at clearly comparing how sharpness stacks up against contemporary headphones. However, I can say that the optics seemed to have great edge-to-edge clarity, rivaling what I’m used to seeing with the Quest 3’s excellent lenses.

I did notice some reflections on the lens, though I’m pretty sure most of that was due to outside light reaching the lens from the open periphery of the headset. I didn’t get to try it, but Sony has featured the headphones with a soft peripheral blocker add-on for when you prefer less reflections and more immersion.

The first demo I saw was a virtual filming setup where I could move and adjust a virtual camera that was shooting a virtual scene. I could also control the lighting by moving the lights and loading their colors.

While everything looked very sharp, the content being displayed didn’t seem well-optimized for running on a standalone headset. This made the experience quite choppy – it probably doesn’t run at a consistent 90 FPS properly – which made the head tracking feel sub-par.

This probably also affected the tracking feel of the controller, although I think the controllers had their own problems with lag and accuracy. The ring controller in particular had a lot of jitter, which made it pretty bad for any kind of precise input – even just grabbing and moving things. The star-shaped controller felt much more precise, not only because the tracking was more stable, but also because you naturally hold it with an outstretched index finger, making it a natural ‘pointing device’. However, it didn’t feel as accurate as what you’d expect from a Quest 2 or Quest 3 controller.

I quite like it CONCEPT from the SRH-S1 controllers, but they still need some work on more than just tracking. Both controllers actually have physical buttons on them, which are elegantly hidden under the skin… which also makes it very invisible to know they exist.

The rep who showed me the headset was trying to describe the location of one of the buttons for me to press by saying something like “it’s on your index finger,” but they they were not talking about the button under my fingertip. Instead, there is another hidden button that you press with the inside of the first segment of the index finger (before you reach the first finger).

I literally don’t know if I have EVER pressed a button using that part of my finger. So, beyond being invisible, the fact that it’s in a strange place made it even more of a strange choice. It is not necessarily one bad choice; this could be a great way to get two distinct inputs from one finger, given the controller’s unique design, but it should be much more intuitive.

And, indeed, it’s likely the details of the user experience that will make or break Sony’s SRH-S1 MR headphones as a viable competitor to other headphones on the market. I feel pretty confident that the company can tighten up the device control and the controller without any major breakthroughs or redesigns. But is Sony waiting? enterprise developers to understand all the small details of how to teach users to use these unique controllers and how to best use them in their applications?

Sony says the SRH-S1 has been specially designed to work with Siemens NX, a full suite of CAD tools used by Sony itself. It will also apparently work with a wider range of software, but it’s currently unclear what software platforms or software standards the headset will support. Apparently OpenXR compatibility would be a good choice as an open standard, but even beyond that it’s not clear whether Sony plans to maintain a software distribution platform for the headset or leave it up to companies to figure out how to deploy and manage software.

Despite this being an MR headset, Sony unfortunately wasn’t ready to reveal the crossover, saying it’s still in the works.

Sony plans to launch the SRH-S1 headphones later this year. But the price, regional availability and software compatibility have not been announced yet.