Sulon Q announced as standalone VR headset

Start-up Sulon Technologies has unveiled an all-in-one virtual reality headset, dubbed the Sulon Q, which it claims offers a 'wear and play' experience that doesn't require any external computing hardware to operate.

Unveiled during fiscally-troubled chipmaker AMD's GDC Capsaicin event, the Sulon Q is unsurprisingly powered by the company's hardware: inside the head-mounted computer is an AMD FX-8800P, the integrated Radeon R7 graphics of which is being leveraged for rendering work. In other words: the Sulon Q isn't exactly a performance powerhouse, despite being used to drive the 2,560x1,440 resolution organic LED (OLED) panel which makes up the display portion of the device. The rest of the computer hardware is equally mid-range: 8GB of DDR3 memory and a 256GB SSD make up the computer portion, with 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 for wireless connectivity. Audio, meanwhile, is provided by GenAudio's AstoundSound technology, which is claimed to provide convincing 3D spatial reproduction over the bundled earbuds.

Sulon claims that these specifications are enough to provide 'console-quality graphics' with full support for AMD's LiquidVR virtual reality API and Microsoft's 'Project Dragon' spatial computing technology for Windows 10. Additionally, the company's own hardware - the Sulon Spatial Processing Unit - provides real-time machine vision and the ability to mix virtual reality and augmented reality, something its rivals in the VR market cannot yet offer.

Sulon has confirmed plans to launch the Sulon Q some time this spring, but is so far silent on the pricing of the device - but given its integration of a fully-functional Windows 10 computer, expect it to be priced considerably higher than rival headset-only devices from companies like Oculus VR and HTC. More information on the Sulon Q is available in the below video.