There was a lot of excitement around the launch of the HP Reverb Pro, HP’s new Windows Mixed Reality Headset. It’s probably the best Windows Mixed Reality device released so far and many business and enthusiasts have been pre-ordered the device. The devices where due to ship this week but there has been a lot confusion as Amazon and others delayed or cancelled shipping. There were rumours of a flaw in the devices and some people speculated that HP withdrew the device due to lack of sales.
HP have now tried to clear up the issue with an explanation on the Windows Mixed Reality sub Reddit.
UPDATE: A contact of mine has been told by HP there there is absolutely no manufacturing issue with the display panel and given its been a quick turnaround it may only be a trivial issue.
The reason for the delay is HP found an issue with the headset at the last minute, they do not say what it is but there is speculation it is a calibration issue or something as simple as a headphone connection strap problem. HP did not want to ship the devices with the defect and therefore they recalled the batch of devices that had shipped.
Production has started up again and they will start shipping as soon as they come off the production line, in the next few weeks we should see devices in the hands of users.
While many consumers are frustrated with not being able to get their new headsets HP are doing the right thing by making sure they do not ship defective devices. HP have been a little slow getting the information out but at least they have put out the details now. A good sign is that there has been plenty of interest about HP’s new Windows Mixed Reality headset.
Here is the information from HP:
The Delay:
Development is a fun game. Everything is going awesomely and at the last minute, something trips ya up. That’s what happened here. All prototypes have their issues, (They are expected to…) and the fixes are made and tested again on the next round of proto builds. There can be many phases where this occurs until you get to the proto build that simulates what the finished product looks like… When we got to this phase, and it looked good. So, we started production. (Nothing unusual here.)
Production churned away and we tested those units as we would any other development phase, and we found something we didn’t like.
I won’t go into details as to what popped up, and it was something small, and most folks would never have noticed, but it effected enough of our test samples that we decided to put the breaks on things until we got it fixed. (I think it’s fair to say there was a bit of panic in there too.) We knew we’d be under the microscope (“HP? Trying to make waves in the VR space?“) and wanted this to go out as close to perfect as possible. (We know we can’t please everyone. That’s just part of the game.)
The “Recall”:
I want to say it wasn’t RECALLrecall… like a problem that would cause people to die, but that what its called when you pull product back in. These were a handful of units that were shipped out before we found our gremlin. We have no idea if they were effected, and the math says most would not be, but we didn’t want to take that chance… (Remember the microscope?).
Shipping Date:
They kept changing as we were pushing hard to get things ironed out… we were a bit ambitious, I think. We were eager to get it out but the last minute wrinkle just wouldn’t get ironed out. (I truly dunno where the online chat folks are getting some of their dates though. This is also something I am looking into.)
As production has just started back up again, I don’t have an exact date yet, (Hold the pitch forks.) but they will be shipping out as fast as they can be made. (If the first lot comes off the line tomorrow, that lot will ship out then.) You should start seeing things, as orders are fulfilled, within the coming week. When I start getting dates, I’ll post here.
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