Oculus Rift has a new rival in China

Huang Chaiming, 29-year-old founder of Hypereal. Photo credit: Hypereal

Though China’s VR market hit an estimated US$300 million last year, very few of its startups made it outside of the country’s borders. Cheap, low-quality headsets flooded the domestic market, while Western VR companies, like Oculus Rift and Google Daydream, made international headlines.

Huang Chaiming wants to change that. His startup, Hypereal, is tackling the whole gamut of virtual reality: hardware, software, and content.

“You could say that we’re similar to Oculus,” he tells Tech in Asia. “Whatever technology they have, we have. Whatever technology they’re developing, we’re also developing.”

However, Oculus has a much smaller market and no “method to its operations,” says Chaiming. “All they have is the money Facebook gave them. They’re doing research – they’re like a research institute. It’ll be hard for them to really bring VR into the world.”

Hypereal is selling its headset for a fraction of the price of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

It’s a bold challenge, but Hypereal is laying down strong groundwork to back it up. Yesterday, the startup launched its own suite of virtual reality hardware: a headset, wireless controllers, and cameras for positional tracking. The headset – dubbed the Pano – has the specs to match, or in some cases, outdo its competitors: a 2K OLED screen, a 120-degree field of vision, and a latency as low as 11 milliseconds, according to Hypereal (a latency of 20 milliseconds or less is ideal for minimal lag).

And unlike high-end devices like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, Hypereal is selling its headset for a fraction of their price: US$363.

Chaiming at Hypereal’s press conference in Beijing. Photo credit: Hypereal.

The Shanghai-based startup has developed its own in-house SDK, which is open to third-party developers and content creators. Hypereal has also open-sourced its laser positioning technology, reminiscent of Valve’s Lighthouse, which is used for positional tracking.

That puts it in stark contrast with the many Chinese startups focused solely on hardware. According to Niko Partners, in China, 78 percent of investments in all VR-related products in 2015 and 2016 were hardware investments.

“You can’t sell hardware,” says Chaiming. “No one will want it.”

You can’t sell hardware. No one will want it.

That’s why the startup is investing heavily in software: namely, content creation tools for VR. It’s developed a program called Cast that lets you whip up spaceships and other 3D models in virtual reality. It’s like Google’s Tilt Brush, but a bit blockier and less smooth.

The goal is to let content creators build quick prototypes and sketches of their ideas, and be able to share them with others. In future versions of Cast, multiple users will be able to share the same virtual space, for instance.

The startup is also working on an animation creation program called Directool. Using Hypereal’s two wireless controllers, you can drag and drop characters in a pre-set landscape – or you can make your own – and toggle with their animation sequences. Both Cast and Directool will be open to the public at the end of May – right now they’re undergoing beta testing.

Hypereal’s content creation tool, Directool, lets you drag and drop characters into animation sequences. Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

When I tried it using Hypereal’s headset and controllers, it was actually fairly easy to get used to. I sent trees flying into the air and made the protagonist – a young schoolboy – run through the neighborhood in just a few waves and clicks.

It reminded me of Google’s Daydream animation tool, but more sophisticated. I could cut video sequences inside the app and even change the camera angles. At any frame, I could add new actions or swap things out – for instance, make the boy walk instead of run. And though the world I was working in was pre-loaded – a tree-lined neighborhood surrounded by mountains – more experienced animators can load their own environments into Directool.

“We don’t really have a content team. We mainly focus on creating software – not games, but VR software,” Chaiming explains.

“If you go in the direction of media, you’ll never be able to develop.”

However, the company will have its own VR content platform with third-party games, similar to Steam and the Oculus Store.

Most of Hypereal’s content partners will come from overseas companies, he says. “There aren’t a lot in China.” For instance, Ubisoft, creator of Assassin’s Creed, is one of Hypereal’s content partners. On the hardware side, the startup has partnerships with graphic chips manufacturers NVIDIA and AMD.

Copycat stigma

Chaiming has come a long way since founding his startup in 2015. “When I first started, I didn’t have a huge goal,” he says. “We didn’t dare dream, because we didn’t have much money.”

The 29-year-old founder went to high school in England, turning down admission to Oxford University’s computer science program before returning to China. After trying out one of Oculus’s early developer kits, the DK2, he gathered friends from his days competing in the British Mathematical Olympiad to build Hypereal.

Now, Chaiming has his sights set on the global market, starting with Asia. The main goal this year will be selling Hypereal’s products, which have been in development for about two years, says Chaiming.

However, the company has received some flack about being another Chinese copycat, especially given the shape and exterior design of its hardware, namely Hypereal’s headset and controllers. When I ask Chaiming about it, he shrugs off the accusations.

“If they think what we’ve done is copying, then ask them to take out two patents and let me see it,” he says, referring to Oculus and HTC Vive. “Look at Vive, they also made a [headset], but no one ever said their headset can’t look like this or that, right?”

So far, Hypereal has about 130 employees in its Shanghai headquarters. In 2015, the startup raised a US$6 million series A from SIG China. Last September, it raised a US$10.5 million series B from Qiming Ventures.

Currency converted from Chinese yuan. Rate: US$1 = RMB 6.89.

(Correction: This article has been updated to correct the date of Hypereal’s series B investment from March 2017 to September 2016. Pano’s field-of-vision has also been corrected from 110 to 120.)

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