This feasibility study covers two subjects:
Validation of commercial/market feasibility of Light-Field:
- Market feasibility study for high-end and mid-range Light-Field projectors for VR/AR with the objective of the market analysis of 2-3 key segments, their sizes and the fitting go-to-market strategy;
- Identification of the additional problems in current VR goggles in key application areas: design preview, product presentations, games and training A list of use cases where our solution will improve the UX of existing products;
- Identification of VR/AR headset OEMs for the integration of our solution into their products - 5+ new qualified leads;
- Identification of the appropriate low volume production partners with the objective to obtain price estimation or offer from 2-3 production companies in Europe or Asia;
Validation of economic/financial feasibility of Light-Field:
- Estimate BOM for small Light-Field projector for smart glasses Analysis of the costs, challenges and other considerations for mass production for industrial and other purposes;
- Develop the pricing approach for small Light-Field components A detailed volume-based pricing strategy for the headset OEMs.
To assess the market feasibility of our patented light-field technology, this study reviews and evaluates existing applications of VR/AR in enterprise and consumer markets and identifies where current technologies are the most limiting factor. Based on these findings, the study identifies huge market potential for our light-field display technology in use cases where users interact with virtual information (objects) at close distances and for a long time, such as VR/AR gaming, design preview, training and remote assistance and product presentation. Light-field technology brings a unique selling point and a clear consumer added value to these applications with respect to the current solutions, i.e. absence of the visual conflicts (vergence-accommodation conflict) and extended use time.
Bringing complete VR/AR light-field headset solution to the market would require considerable resources, therefore, we concluded that our best go to market strategy is in offering our light-field display technology to current VR/AR manufactures as a core component for smaller volumes (industrial and enterprise markets) and through licensing for larger volumes (consumer market) is as a more credible business model. We, therefore, identified the most promising partners to integrate our technology into their headsets, which are HTC, vrNgineers, Sony, Fove, and Varjo and described strategies to approach them. We have also identified manufacturing partners for low volume production of required components.
To asses the production feasibility, we performed a detailed analysis of the manufacturing costs of light-field displays for different production volumes from prototyping to mass-market, confirming production cost of only $99 (VR) and $132 (AR) per display (mass-production), which is perfectly acceptable for mass-market consumer devices. We presented a comprehensive overview of challenges for different production steps for high volume manufacturing. Finally, we analyzed how to determine the price of our devices for our customers and integration partners.
