NOLO
by LYRobotix
STEAM VR & MOBILE
Claims to be the "world’s first front-facing room scale motion tracking system that is both compatible with mobile and Steam VR game play."
A Brief History
LYRobotix is a Chinese company that focuses on human computer interaction with spatial navigation and positioning technologies. LYRobotix is a relatively new company which was founded in 2015. Before NOLO, they've created the Cobb prototype which uses the engineering version of Samsung's Gear VR. This was another tracking and positioning system with a head-mounted lighthouse-like tracking system, a base station, and controller that eventually led to the development of NOLO.
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LYRobotix began the development of NOLO in early 2016 after completing verification for PolarTraq which is NOLO's proprietary spatial positioning technology. Research and development for NOLO completed later that year in November, and a couple months later in January of 2017, LYRobotix launched NOLO's KickStarter campaign after its exhibition and demo at CES 2017. Its backing period ended in just 40 days earning just over $200,000 USD and NOLO sets began their first round of shipments just this May.
What is NOLO?
NOLO is a 6 DoF 'inside-out' motion tracking system which can turn "any mobile headset into a room-scale VR system." The NOLO set is an add on set which includes a headset marker, two controllers, and a base station. NOLO claims to be compatible with any mobile VR HMD, including Google Cardboard.
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Many of those who've reviewed NOLO say that its controllers are similar to the HTC Vive's in that they have all the same buttons and functions. These controllers have a tracking frequency of 60Hz in comparison to the Vive or Rift controllers which frequencies go up into the hundreds. The headset marker is stuck directly onto the HMD and needs to be powered via micro-usb. The company claims that it's tracking latency is only 20ms, which they say causes little to no dizziness. NOLO only comes with a single base station and this somewhat restricts the player's rotational movement, but full 360 degree rotational movement is not required for most games. LYRobotix claims that this base station has a tracking range of 4m x 4m with a precision of less than 2mm.
In order to play Steam VR Games with NOLO, LYRobotix has partnered with RiftCat which includes VRidge, an app that allows the user to stream VR games from a PC. NOLO is also meant to be compatible with Unity, which makes NOLO an option as a cheaper alternative to the Vive or Rift for testing VR appliances.
NOLO's Current Standing
There is overall positivity surrounding NOLO but, like with any VR headset and tracking system, NOLO has its problems. One of the main complaints for NOLO was the 60Hz tracking frequency. Though most admit that, for the most part, the NOLO set works really well, the tracking frequency becomes more noticeable when moving quickly, especially for games that require a lot of movement like shooter or arrow games. Another one of the issues that many backers had when they received NOLO developer kits was that the tracking would not work properly but would work fine during the NOLO VR testing app. But this was actually due to a problem between streaming Steam VR from a pc to the mobile phone and could be solved internally through RiftCat. There have also been issues surrounding NOLO's hardware, mostly due to controllers not working or shutting off unexpectedly. It's also been mentioned in NOLO's KickStarter community that the cables provided with the set are almost useless and should be replaced.
NOLO sets have just been distributed, some as late as this past October, and as of right now, NOLO's backers are waiting on an update on both RiftCat's and LYRobotix's parts. RiftCat has released VRidge 2.0 in the beta channel as of this November 3rd but the NOLO update will be delayed until its official release. RiftCat's NOLO update won't require a hardware firmware update, but they, along with NOLO's backers, encourage LYRobotix to update their drivers as well.
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LYRobotix is still dealing with shipment issues on their end but have recently announced both a NOLO Driver update for Windows and a firmware and SDK update. Features of these updates can be found in this link and this update is said to be released Friday the 17th, November 2017.
Sources
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"Play Steam VR Games on your Smartphone using NOLO VR" article submitted on core77
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"Use Cardboard to play STEAM VR?" article posted on Xtecher (Chinese)
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"Lyrobotix Merges Ultrasonic and Lighthouse-like Tech for Portable Positional VR Tracking" article posted on Road To VR
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"Compared to Microsoft, China's technical team mobile VR positioning scheme more reliable" article posted on Dragon 8 Entertainment (Chinese)
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