Hades Widebody Is One Heck of a VR Headset

Virtual reality (VR) technology has been advancing rapidly in recent years. New developments have made VR more immersive, affordable, and accessible. As a general rule, the headsets are becoming lighter, more comfortable, and more powerful. The latest headsets, such as the Oculus Quest 2 and the HTC Vive Pro 2, offer high-resolution displays, accurate motion tracking, and immersive sound.

But despite all of these technological advancements, for the VR aficionado, there is still much to be desired. Issues like insufficient display resolution and too narrow a field of view break the illusion of reality and ruin the entire experience. So what can we do when there are no commercial devices that meet our needs? The answer for most people is to grumble about it, yet still use the best available option on the market. But for a hardware hacker going by the handle dragonskyrunner, the solution is to build a customized VR headset.

For dragonskyrunner, the perfect headset would have OLED displays with a minimum 1440p resolution and a 90 Hz refresh rate. The optics should provide a wider field of view than the 90 to 100 degrees most commonly seen. Body and eye tracking are also a must, along with non-proprietary connectors like USB and HDMI. Leaving no stone unturned, dragonskyrunner also wanted to be sure that none of the other components were skimped on, from headphones and microphones all the way down to the straps.

With some very lofty goals laid out for a DIY project, the very long process of designing the headset, and acquiring and assembling the parts got underway. When the project was finally completed, the headset, called Hades Widebody, was very impressive indeed, although whether or not the juice was worth the squeeze is still up in the air. After this experience, dragonskyrunner mentioned that he would never, ever go through this exercise again — and no, he will not build one for you either.

Unquestionably, the displays are the single most critical component in a VR headset, so a very nice pair of 1600 x 1440 OLED panels running at 90 Hz were chosen. These were not easy to come by either, only a single seller could be found with an off the shelf product matching the requirements. The original idea was to create large, custom lenses that would fill the entire viewing area, but dragonskyrunner quickly discovered that making your own optics is no simple task. So an alternative approach that involved using stock GearVR lenses as the main, central lens, surrounded by 8 cm diameter fresnel lenses on the periphery was taken. The addition of the peripheral lenses really paid off, putting Ambilight-based solutions to shame.

This setup gave a field of view of about 108 degrees, but was limited by the size of the OLED displays. If the displays were just a touch larger, the field of view could be extended to 120 degrees in theory. While it is not quite perfect, dragonskyrunner notes that when looking straight forward, there is only a tiny hint of there being an edge to the display, which is far superior to the commercial headset he owns.

The headset was rounded out with an eye tracker, as well as a Lighthouse tracking system. All in, the Hades Widebody cost about $700 to build (not counting losses from mistakes), which is pretty close to a number of off the shelf headsets, but given the improved specs, it could be seen as a bargain. But then there is the little matter of actually building the device, which dragonskyrunner made no attempt to sugarcoat. The best option may be just to wait another year or two for commercial devices to catch up, but if you do not care to heed the warnings and want your own right now, check out the project write-up for lots of tips and tricks to help you along the way.