It wasn’t too long ago that the LucidCam’s crowdfunding campaign ended, but it seems that LucidVR, the creators of the LucidCam, have been busy since. We covered the LucidCam, a 180-degree 3D virtual reality camera, back while the campaign was still in full swing. Eventually, the camera generated enough support that it blew past its $100,000 goal by nearly $15,000. In the grand scheme of things, however, crowdfunding money only takes developers so far. It might be enough to create a few prototypes, but it’s never quite enough to bring the product to mass production.
However, LucidVR has successfully solved that issue, it would seem, thanks to its partnership with Wistron Corporation, an ODM (original design manufacturer) based in Taiwan. Although companies who source ODMs must sometimes sacrifice part of their original vision or performance of their intended products to bring them to market, we were told that LucidVR's and Wistron's partnership has been entirely beneficial.
Not only has this partnership granted LucidVR access to the funds needed to bring the LucidCam to consumers, but according to Han Jin, LucidVR’s CEO, it has also allowed them to essentially double the LucidCam’s specifications. For example, storage has increased from 16GB to 32GB, RAM has increased from 2GB to 4GB, framerate has increased from 30 frames per second to 60 frames per second, and so on.
In addition to the Wistron agreement, LucidVR drummed up another $2.1 million in seed funding from investors.
Virtual reality consumption has experienced steady increase in consumer interest over the past few years, and we the consumers are witnessing just the tip of the iceberg in terms of VR applications. The LucidCam is just another example of VR’s many uses--namely, user-generated content--and LucidVR’s partnership with Wistron illustrates just how close the consumer VR is.
There is no scheduled release date for the LucidCam, but LucidVR is aiming for December of this year.
Update, 4/13/16, 7:35am PT: Added information about additional seed funding.
Alexander Quejado is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Alexander Quejado on Twitter.
