Varjo Aero

I have been offered a used aero with 2 x 2.0 lighthouses and knuckles controllers for £950.
I could get a new aero and a pair of used 2.0 lighthouses for £1250.
My use case is only for sim racing, what should I do??
 
olliej82 said:
I have been offered a used aero with 2 x 2.0 lighthouses and knuckles controllers for £950.
I could get a new aero and a pair of used 2.0 lighthouses for £1250.
My use case is only for sim racing, what should I do??
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Does the used Aero have any of the 1 year warranty left (it's transferable)? Otherwise I'd go for a new Aero at 990 Euro / £855 from https://varjo.com/products/aero/ and 1 or 2 new light houses from https://store.steampowered.com/app/1059570/Valve_Index_Base_Station/ at £139 (For simming i was fine with 1 but some people have 2). You don't need knuckles at all for simming.
 
Thanks for the reply, well I tried multiple times and different payment methods on the Varjo site but I could not get the payment to go through. Also there were taxes and possible customs fees on top of the 990 euros so I’ve gone for the used one instead, can’t wait to see how it compares to my quest pro!
 
Mine has just arrived and the image is amazing, having some steam game issues so trying to resolve them, seems like the are not displaying in the display but only on the monitor. Tried several things so need to try some other things. Tried a couple of games that worked and initial display is stunning.

Also took 4 working days and no additional custom fees to pay, it was the 990Eur and uk tax only, which is shown at checkout
 
sgavan said:
Mine has just arrived and the image is amazing, having some steam game issues so trying to resolve them, seems like the are not displaying in the display but only on the monitor. Tried several things so need to try some other things. Tried a couple of games that worked and initial display is stunning.

Also took 4 working days and no additional custom fees to pay, it was the 990Eur and uk tax only, which is shown at checkout
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That’s great! It said 2 to 4 week’s delivery for me which I was fine with but they didn’t want to take my money.
Still £950 isn’t bad if I can sell the knuckles on for a few quid
 
olliej82 said:
Thanks for the reply, well I tried multiple times and different payment methods on the Varjo site but I could not get the payment to go through. Also there were taxes and possible customs fees on top of the 990 euros so I’ve gone for the used one instead, can’t wait to see how it compares to my quest pro!
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I had the same problem, i also could not buy an Aero through the Varjo website and that was iirc in 2021! Ended up buying from SystemActive but i don't think they sell them anymore. Yeh you should get a few quid for the knuckles. I'd advise you to properly test they work when you get them as they are known to be quite fragile, i bought a duff 1, didn't notice straight away, and when i came to sell it i had to sell it cheap as 1 of the thumbsticks sometimes didn't work. Knuckles in good condition were fetching over £200 on Ebay last time i checked.
 
Ok so a quick review have some issues with the steam overlay and integration not always working or blocking the Varjo plugins in steam VR, Asseto corsa comp. will not start but have seen lots of video so likely all this may be down to a config issue somewhere, tried a steam vr re-install as well as some games that had issues, half life alyx would no start so had to start with -autoconfig and now that works and the games that do work all I can say is wow, the image is amazing sort of like using a great quality 1440p screen but VR.

Automobilista 2 and american truck sim are both amazing the dials are fully visible. I suspect maybe as I had a vive installed before this something may be conflicting so may look to do a windows re-install. I'm on win11 but says compatible. Tempted to try going back to windows 10 fresh install to test. I see the hardware as great and the software is good and hopefully keeps getting improved

There's a fan blowing inside across the lens and this is on all the time and takes some getting used to, it has no control\power save mode which seems like a bit strange.

Overall first impressions are good and as long as you are prepared to do some config setup it's brilliant ... for now I'll need to do more testing oh the hardship :D
 
sgavan said:
Ok so a quick review have some issues with the steam overlay and integration not always working or blocking the Varjo plugins in steam VR, Asseto corsa comp. will not start but have seen lots of video so likely all this may be down to a config issue somewhere, tried a steam vr re-install as well as some games that had issues, half life alyx would no start so had to start with -autoconfig and now that works and the games that do work all I can say is wow, the image is amazing sort of like using a great quality 1440p screen but VR.

Automobilista 2 and american truck sim are both amazing the dials are fully visible. I suspect maybe as I had a vive installed before this something may be conflicting so may look to do a windows re-install. I'm on win11 but says compatible. Tempted to try going back to windows 10 fresh install to test. I see the hardware as great and the software is good and hopefully keeps getting improved

There's a fan blowing inside across the lens and this is on all the time and takes some getting used to, it has no control\power save mode which seems like a bit strange.

Overall first impressions are good and as long as you are prepared to do some config setup it's brilliant ... for now I'll need to do more testing oh the hardship :D
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And this on your 3080 ?
 
Yes it's on a 3080, I have just finished a new Windows 10 install and it seems better now, the games I tried seem to load correctly, Assetto Corsa Competizione looks stunning as does pretty much everything. One thing I noticed which I saw someone say in a video is I now notice that a lot of vr textures are not great :D Just need to setup MS Flight sim now
 
I have only used an original vive, and a pico 4 for a day, and it's about the same as the vive and I think less than the Pico, I have no issues racing with it, the vertical is a little low but again not really noticed unless I look for it.

Just in case anyone is thinking of the pros and cons, covered in other videos

Pros is the screen and resolution, weight and feel, definitely a high end piece of kit and amazing image quality. Eye tracking but not sure if anything really uses this apart from lowering the resolution quality outside of the where you are looking. The company does business VR and this is based off that so I feel confident that they will keep it updated and built on good experience

Cons, no sound so have to use a 3.5 mm on the side\left, this may be the same as other non vive but you have to run their software for the headset and then steamvr but once running seems fine, one or two games wouldn't show the steamvr overlay but most issues are likely software and hopefully fixed later on. It doesn't shut down unless you close their software and the fan is always on but sound isn't noticeable really and it can possibly dry your eyes a bitif used for a long period of time but not noticed it myself.

I feel like it's a big enough jump from my Vive without feeling like a side step, not a pico\quest where I feel SteamVR, which I mainly want, isn't a side thought and could possibly have issues or be removed with an update.

VRCompare website has some comparison for FOV etc
 
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Well mine arrived today, underwhelming to say the least! Horrible chromatic aberration on all text, desktop pretty unusable due to the poor text and blown out brightness and in games I’m getting terrible performance despite having a 4090. And the fov is rubbish! Now I’m going to have to try and sell it on and hope I don’t lose too much money
 
Strange I find mine to be great and I think I have now got it setup nicely, nothing major just Highest res in the base software, still deciding if to cap FPS to 45, I feel the brightness is too much and lowered to 50% seems good for me. In SteamVR I lowered the video\resolution to about 70% again still trying to find the best overall so I don't have to be changing per application. I don't use the desktop app much, only to launch games and seems good enough.
 
olliej82 said:
Well mine arrived today, underwhelming to say the least! Horrible chromatic aberration on all text, desktop pretty unusable due to the poor text and blown out brightness and in games I’m getting terrible performance despite having a 4090. And the fov is rubbish! Now I’m going to have to try and sell it on and hope I don’t lose too much money
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Really ? I would use mine just for sims personally.
My headset at the moment is the questpro and love it.
 
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I may have over reacted! Having played about with some settings I am now getting much better visuals. The desktop is still pretty bad, the quest pro is far better in that respect but in games I am now getting a much sharper image. Open xr toolkit helps a lot, the only thing letting it down now is the fov but I think I can get used to that.
I will be keeping my quest pro for roomscale games as my pc and sim racing rig are in a small room and I use a hardwired Wi-Fi 6 router in my living room to stream games to the quest pro.
 
I've had my Aero for about 10 days or so now, and really like it for flying in DCS, combined with the dynamic foveated rendering I'm hitting 70-90 FPS in most situations with quite high settings (5900X & 3080Ti).
I agree that the desktop is blown out a bit, but reducing the brightness to 50 or 55 helps.
Also using the redshift fix helps a lot with the chromatic abberation.

Unfortunately the right lens is slightly out of focus, on mine, so I'm sending it back as I end up with eye strain after an hour or so.
Hope it's simple and quick replacement process.
 
Don't have issues myself but would like to know how the return process goes, just if people are considering it, the way a company handles support is important
 
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