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The AR Show: Stan Larroque (Lynx) on the Power and Potential of Video Passthrough | Otter.ai

The AR Show: Stan Larroque (Lynx) on the Power and Potential of Video Passthrough

Jason McDowall1h 4min

Jason McDowall

00:03

Welcome to the AR show where I dive deep into augmented reality with a focus on the technology, the use cases and the people behind them. I'm your host Jason McDowall. Today's conversation is with Stan Larroque. Stan is the CEO and co founder of Lynx, a company creating the first all in one mixed reality headset that links are one offers a unique VR device with good video paths through the real world to create mixed reality experiences. Stan was inspired by the early Oculus device the DK 2, but wanted a better connection to the real world. As he finished his university education he embarked on the journey to establish the leading European mixed reality hardware technology company. Along the way, he has received support from industry founders and insiders, including Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, and optics expert Bernard Kress of Microsoft and Google.

Jason McDowall

00:48

In this conversation, Stan shares how his passion, a great team and a few mentors have helped shape the company into Europe's leading mixed reality hardware company, Stan starts by laying the foundation for why he believes the Lynx approach to video pass through is the right path to the market.

Stan Larroque

01:01

When you compare a pass through device, which is basically a VR headset that can do ar and the AR optical see through devices, the problems you need to solve are not in the same category. On the past four devices, we are solving engineering problems, you know, better displays better process to build better cameras. And most of that is our engineering problems coming from the smartphone world. So the supply chain is there, you know, a lot of money is in there to make all those things better. And when you look at the AR devices in the same class of the Magic Leap and or the Hololens, those are not engineering problems, those are scientific physics problem you need to solve. And even with all the money in the smart people in the world, at some point, you know, bending the light just stops, you know, there are some hard limitations there. And my intuition, as you know, very junior engineers, I was convinced that I think the go to market for AR was with the passthrough.

Jason McDowall

02:04

Stan goes on to touch on the retention issues for VR devices. Why the fully featured AR headsets such as HoloLens will cease to exist. His approach to establishing a contender to compete against meta links his approach to privacy, and the opportunity and imperative of being based in Europe. As a reminder, you can find the show notes for this and other episodes at our website, the AR show.com. And please consider supporting the podcast@patreon.com slash var show. Let's dive in.

Jason McDowall

02:30

Stan, a couple of years ago, you had a chance to spend several weeks in the US raising capital for your Paris based startup. What was that experience? Like?

Stan Larroque

02:37

It was an interesting experience for sure, I can tell you more about it, because the context of it is certainly the interesting part. You know, for links, I had a very hard time at a few moments during the company life. And when I was trying to raise our second round of funding, we haven't reached production mass production yet. And the product wasn't really there. I just had a I would say almost working prototype with all the features. But it was not even close to the experience of the device today. But at the time, in 2021, I received the call from the founder of Oculus Palmer Luckey, from a common friend. And you know, the borders were closed with the US at the time it was I think, during the second or third wave of COVID. And pretty much everything was very uncertain. We were all working on Zoom, it was very even more difficult to do hardware at the time. But Palmer called and say, Hey, how can I help you very nicely. And one of the things that came out of that is he proposed me to go to his house in Silicon Valley. He lives in LA now since he started another venture. But he's still at the house when he worked at the time at at Facebook and before that occurs. And so I found a way to cross the border and stay at his house for way too long for six weeks, because you know how much time it takes sometimes to book a meeting with an investor. But he was instrumental to help me I think meet the right people. So Palmer, you know, worked on Oculus and certainly is the reason why all of us work in AR or VR probably. I'm very glad that I had the opportunity to meet him and to to see that he still wants the best for VR and AR I still want us to win. I think he wants to continue to better the industry in some ways, even though he's involved in another company with a very different industry now. But it was certainly an experience to stay for six weeks at Palmer Luckey house near Palo Alto to meet investors and you know, the right people you have to meet in VR and AR and most of them are there and it was a great opportunity. But in the end I wasn't able to raise money there. I raised Some money somewhere else with other people. But it was a very important time for me to learn how things are working in this industry. So I would say those six weeks were maybe not the best for funding because it was not the right time for my product and my company. But it was very important for me to learn, oh, you know, the world. Turns around in VR over there.

Jason McDowall

05:24

Amazing. When when you were staying at the house, were there other people staying there as well? Or was it just you in this nice house and outside of Palo Alto,

Stan Larroque

05:32

it is a pretty big house, and I was alone in there. So it was a bit scary at first, because, you know, it's like, I don't know, a 10 bedroom, gigantic house and Palmer lived there with his friends and, and that some of them were also working at oculus at the time. So it's a gigantic house. But I was all alone. You know, it was during COVID I think you had plans for the plans for the House to turning into some like space where people could do hardware stuff or, you know, create things. But yeah, it was all along. It was it was crazy.

Jason McDowall

06:08

And so in that period, you were not ultimately successful in wooing those investors. In that particular block of time be noted, you had refined your understanding of how the industry raises money and how it works from the Silicon Valley perspective. And you end up finding that funding somewhere else, as you kind of worked on your messaging, and ultimately made it work. Was it about the narrative about the story that you were telling to investors? Or was it about the progress that you were making with the hardware itself? which one had the bigger impact?

Stan Larroque

06:38

You know, I think it's both plus the state of VR. And AR at the time, I think my you know, I wasn't maybe pitching right? Maybe I wasn't very clear, in my effort to make investors like, you know, founder stand and the big ones in town over there. To understand how it was very predictable innovation, what we're working with links, the product, the state of the product was nowhere near where we are today. So we knew it was going to be like the Lynx or one and what people are trying today and I are experiencing, but at the time, we didn't have the hand tracking, you know, we didn't have some of the parts that really makes the immersion in VR or AR what it is today. And at the time, you know, the question was on the market, and the world was really divided into the VR bulky headsets, or the sleek HoloLens and Magic Leap AR glasses kind of things like transparent optical see through devices. And there was no bridge, clear the point that, you know, pass through devices will be able to cover the full spectrum of immersive technologies. So yeah, it was a hard challenge to convince VR and AR people. So you can imagine it was even more challenging to convince investors.

Jason McDowall

07:59

Yeah, that's kind of in between space. Maybe we can back up you've noted that, that Palmer in some ways, and the work that you're doing Oculus with DK one and DK two, was your inspiration many in this industry have was inspired initially by the introduction of that device and what it foretold for the possibilities. What was your story, your initial experience with this sort of device? And why is it you decided that there was something that was missing based on the trajectory of Oculus at the time?

Stan Larroque

08:25

Yeah, well, my very first headset was the DK two actually. So I can again, thanks bomber for that. But my first headset was a dk two when I was an engineering student. And for a project on my last year, I had access to this to this VR headset with the school. And like, I think most people at the beginning of this way with the that was brought by the decay to I thought to myself, well, this is obviously part of the future, I have to work in this industry. It's way better than making apps or website for for living, it's more exciting, and it will probably pay well in the future. But the first thing I thought to myself when I wore the headset was okay, that's great immersion is done. It's this product solves it. But when I'm wearing it that I cannot see for the headset, and I'm missing out on the real world. And so the first thing you do when you're a geek and you realize that is you put you take a webcam, and you put it on the headset, and you get the frame back in the headsets. And that way I was doing augmented reality without knowing the name of it. And then you had to webcam because you have a stereo and then you had more and more sensors. And in the end, you have something like killing someone.

Jason McDowall

09:34

And so you you began to tinker and so it's a two part thing. One, you're inspired by the technology and the other is you were not excited about the alternatives that were immediately obviously available to you. Yeah,

Stan Larroque

09:44

well the thing is, the company really started as you know myself in my students room with duct tape and cardboard and you know to do the turbo nerd working on the challenging engineering project. And I think it's still today an engineering project, it's still very challenging. And I think the team here was attracted not by me, but by the project, you know, links, how we need to build this high hand, affordable consumer high, you know, electronic hardware device. At the same time, I met people over time that told me, Well, you know, the thing you're building here, it can solve real problems, and you can trade a company and all that. So the more I iterated on the device, the more people that told me Well, okay, you can get over that, but it has a real use. And this is where you start comparing to what you find out there. And at the time, it was the time between the hole and Swan and HoloLens two, magically, one was not out yet. But we you know it one year later, it came on the market finally, and I was not convinced and happy with the AR part, from, you know, from these devices. And when you compare a pass through device, which is basically a VR headset that can do ar and the AR optical see through devices, the problems you need to solve are not in the same category on the past devices. With the stack and the architecture of the headsets, we are solving engineering problems, you know, better displays better process to build better cameras. And most of that is our engineering problems coming from the smartphone world. So the supply chain is there, you know, a lot of money is in there to make all those things better. And when you look at the AR devices in the same class of the Magic Leap and or the HoloLens, those are not engineering problems, those are scientific physics problem you need to solve. It's not the same amount of money you need. And even with all the money in the smart people in the world, at some point, you know, bending the light, the light just stops, you know, there are some hard limitations there. And my intuition, as you know, very junior engineers, I was convinced that I think the go to market for AR was with the bathroom path. And when you look at devices coming out today on the market, I think I was right at the time, because there are a lot of clones or people that are sharing our ideas with us through for sure. And I think one of the pivotal encounters I had, at the beginning of my my company was with another famous VR and AR person in this little Rove, I showed my prototype, my duct tape, you know, and cardboard prototype at the conference, which is called the SPE and it's a famous hardware conference for optics and photonics. And there I met a French, another French guy, a French guy that is named Bernard Kress. And at the time, he was one of the lead optical architect of HoloLens. And he came from the Google Glass team, he was one of the key people at Google Glass working on the optical architecture for the prism of Google Glass. So he really was at the top of his game at the time regarding you know, Article engines in headsets. And he was working on HoloLens, which was basically you know, my nemesis as engineering architecture perspective. And he could have taught me everything like you know, we're Microsoft go back to school, there is no way this is the, this is going to end up as convincing as things like HoloLens or stuff like that. But what it told me was, you know, what, this is great, create a company, I'm going to help you meet people, this has potential, this is the future, it's another class of devices. Let's try it out. And what you're doing is potentially the right thing. It was very humbled for, you know, the kind of engineer that he is, and today, he is the president of SPE. And one of the key people working back at Google now after is, it's time as Orleans. And Bernard today is a friend, like like paler, and all those people, you know, are very friendly in the AR and VR space. And you know, independently of the company, on top of these guys, this small bubble is still very friendly. It's how I got started and how I build my conviction, my conviction of Patrick,

Jason McDowall

14:12

that's two amazing champions that you've discovered in Palmer Luckey. And Bernard dressbarn. Address hasn't been a guest on this show. But he's influenced, I think, a lot of guests on the show. He's literally written the book on optics for seethrough devices for AR amazing that he's also a champion of yours. So you come out of school with this conviction that not only your own intuition, your own passion is directed, you know, along this path, but also you having experts in the industry who have had a front row seat of have had a front row seats to these various waves of innovation in this area, are saying keep going. This is something unique and different. But when you think about it from a company building perspective, what gives you the competence or what's the approach that you take being a small company You doing something different, and fighting against the Oculus and HTC is of the world,

Stan Larroque

15:05

you know, I, I don't have the ego to tell you that I'm competing directly with them today. But the ambition for Lynx is to create a, like this European champion of mixed reality for sure. But how we think how we did it with the first product is, as a very small company, especially when I was alone, actually, we I started showing immediately my work and billing in the open. For example, when I met Bernard at the conference, it was, I have the pictures here, but it was very, you know, not clean headset out there, that he tried. But I want to reach the feedback of these people, as soon as I could, you know, exposing to CES in 2019, when I had this, this, this prototype, going to conferences, to technical conferences, reaching the you know, the feedback of those key people that had the knowledge that I didn't have that then, you know, still looking for actually, even today. So I think that's one key to building the open and rich for feedback. The other one regarding pure competition is that as a small company, I have to differentiate myself. And I think this is also what we did with links are one we, when you look at the product, we try to bring innovation on some key elements in HMD. When we designed the headsets, we looked at the metrics that people were looking at, you know, like Field of View resolution, from fact or power and all of that. And for every metric, we tried to dump the specs a little higher. And sometimes you needed to invent something completely different. For example, the lens that is the interlinks on one is certainly different from the other architectures that you can see even even today in headsets, form factor is new, it's a very, very thin headset, at least on the front part, the past room was new with this low latency processing. And this is work that we did with partners, when we couldn't do it ourselves, we tried to work with the best team on planet to solve the issue. So for example, the latency pipeline with the camera for the past room was is two years effort with Qualcomm to reach this kind of latency. This this dedicated pipeline, the lens is a year and a half in CO design with the Spanish team that was just recently acquired by Apple. So you see that, I think it's a good sign, you know that our lens partner was acquired by Apple, which means that really they were the best in class. And we have some other key partners, also on the manufacturing side. And I think one of the value of the company is not only the patents and the IP we can build in the team, but also the partners. And one of the things I tell my team almost every day now is if Lynx fails, if we for whatever reason, you know, the startup life, you know, in three weeks if Lynx shuts down completely, I don't think any other team coming out somewhere on the planet, especially in Europe, forming a team convincing Qualcomm convincing the manufacturing, big guy in Taiwan and all of these people to team up and form together to build a headset. At the time where the market is consolidating. I don't think it's possible. So it's also you know, the time we arrived in the market that was, I think, a lot of luck. It's the hardware lottery, you know,

Jason McDowall

18:22

at some level, that is the case, one of the things that you touched on there you hinted at is that is the European base of the team. Does that extend beyond the geography to something about the mindset? Or how you kind of present yourself to the world?

Stan Larroque

18:36

What they are? You know, when I started, I did, you know, I had to decide where do I set up the base camp for this company? And one of the, I think the main question was, should I move to San Francisco? Or should I stay in Paris. And when you look at things today, I'm really glad that we stayed in Paris, because the first is, you know, the team company is a group of people. And a group of people I have today is the best I could dream of. And especially even more than when I see the people we attract, because in France, we tend to create very strong engineers, the talent pool is there, there is no nothing you need to be ashamed of. A lot of the good engineers in Silicon Valley are also French. When you look at you know, Bernard, Chris, for example, is a French dude. So we can work with him. Of course, he's way too expensive. So the talent pool is there. And also, when you look at the values of the companies we wanted, you know, as we wanted to express and the kind of public support we wanted to have, it completely made sense to stay in Europe, and to stay in France. And today, I'm very happy to share with you that we have the full support of both France as a country and the European Union. I'm talking I'm in a room with the legislators there to talk about the VR and AR policies that will start to need to be addressed. When you look at my company dinners most of them are social media companies. And you can imagine the kind of issues with the data that you that you see transiting through headsets. And when you look at the past experiences of those big players, I think the fact that we're in Europe is kind of the middle between, you know, China and the US where this industry needs the underdog. And I think it should come from Europe. So this is also why we're here,

Jason McDowall

20:25

I'm going to come back to a couple of things you said they're going to go through a conversation that I want to dig into, but maybe we can explore the technology itself a little bit and come at it from the perspective of video pastoral, what, what exactly is it? And What's complicated about it? What are the kind of the elements in order to deliver a good video pass through that and what's hard about that particular architecture,

Stan Larroque

20:45

when you look at links, the headset, we have to color cameras at the front. And those two color cameras are of only one purpose, they are built and plugged into the system in a way where they have one purpose, and they do it very well. It's the pass through function. And the pass through really is opening those cameras looking out in the real world. And try to get the image of the camera back onto the display as fast as possible. With a very good geometric alignment of the real world compared to what you see with without the headset, it's basically putting a wet webcam in front of you, and back on the on the display. And what you need to do is to trick the brain of the user, and to trick the brain into making it believe that what he's seen for the camera is or can actually be the real world. And so there is this huge question of latency. Of course, you know, the way our universe behaves, when we look out is without any perceived latency. And so you need a dedicated circuit in your headset, and in your chip that starts at the camera. And that really ends at the display, and you need to cover the full stack to deliver a very low latency. And what we call a low latency is something that is below 20 milliseconds. And ideally, below 10 milliseconds, when you look at the quest to for example, they have a pass through with you know, black and white cameras, and the quest Pro as color pass through now. And the measure latency is around between 50 and 60 milliseconds. So I don't think it qualifies as good enough for the experiences we want to build with mixed reality. It's a good first step, of course, but you really need to achieve a human like perceived latency. An example I can give you is that, you know, pipeline, the camera image never touches the RAM. In the chip, there is a dedicated pipeline all the way to the display. And the sensor and the display are synchronized. It's very difficult to achieve, especially on on an architecture like on the mobile chip. Because the headset doesn't have any cables, it's completely standalone. So you're computing all of that in front of the eyes of the user where, where all the electronics are in, you need full control and understanding of that. So that's the first thing. And then there is the geometric distortion. That also requires a very good understanding of your optics, your camera, and the kind of remapping of the real world you need to do when you have that. Maybe you have a good password. And you need to look at, you know, all the other stuff like the to the user have peripheral vision does your chipset hello to have a high frame rate? Is your panel? Is your display good enough for the resolution you you need, again to trick the brain? And I think the short answer is you need a full understanding of all the components of the headset. And that is hard to achieve. You know, a group of engineers, optical software mechanical engineers talking together is something hard. You can see in big companies, they don't often talk to each other in here at links, we're all in the same room, designing headsets together.

Jason McDowall

24:01

So you you solve this multiple problems around kind of the video pass through, you noted, you gotta get that image from the camera to the display as quickly as possible. And to format that image in a way that is as natural as possible, not only with the speed, but it also in terms of where things are. And once you've achieved that, what's then the benefit, what's the sort of experience that you can create that might be better through a video pass through then it would be through a see through sort of system?

Stan Larroque

24:25

Yeah, well, when you when you then compare this to something like HoloLens liquid optical super device, you see immediately clear benefits. So there are pros and cons of every headsets coming on the market. Even today, even links are one even links or two in the future, are compromises. And it's just the set of compromises you're willing to make and put in your product that define the experience. And for the past few devices. You're compromising on this transparent thing that the HoloLens have where the latency is, of the real world is zero. But in a pastoral headset compared to optical see through device, you have a much larger field of view. For the holograms, you know, the virtual objects that you put in the view, you have much better colors, much better opacity, you can have full occlusion. So the, you know, the virtual objects inserted in your real world don't have this ghost like feeling, the colors are great, the field really anchored in your reality, you can blend the real light outside with the light of the virtual objects, so it can look really anchored in your environment. So I think you gain in immersion. And if you have that, plus the peripheral vision, then you can have I think something that is way better than what we can see in any articles if your device out there, because you have your full field of view, like you have a central field of view, at the center of your vision that is from the camera of the bathroom. And on the sides, you have your real life, vision, you know, your real vision from directly from your eyes with no latency. And this is where you see speed where you see, you know, fast moving objects. So for your security, you can use a password device, you know, outside or in industrial environments. And that is one of the things we brought with links, because all the other pass through headsets are usually occluded on the side or a bit bulkier, you know, to get back to the compromises. One of the things we could not compromise around is the latency. And from there, you can work out the other problems usually on the software, you know, like the colors, the the camera correction, but the latency, you cannot compromise on that. And you have to build that on the hardware as well.

Jason McDowall

26:43

So one of the other things he had mentioned. So thanks for the overview there. I think one of the things that you've mentioned that was challenging, was making it thin and lightweight. For this type of device. And in you opted to partner with a Spanish based optical design team. Clearly a very high quality one, as you noted, Apple recently purchased that team. And what was it that you were looking for that didn't exist on the market? At that time? Are you looking for something different? And what is it that you worked with them ultimately to create?

Stan Larroque

27:13

Well, you know, we've we've leaned back the Spanish company, basically at the time, in 2019, I was looking for pancake optic, but it didn't exist at the time, it was not in any other headset. So those pancake optics is what you see in the newer headsets like the PICO or the quest Pro, that allowed to that allow the designers to make a spinner headset. And one of the metrics we needed for good pass through after latency is the parallax. And we absolutely needed to have a thinner headset. So the camera of the pass through would be closer to your eye. So the view of the real world wouldn't be you know too far away from what you should perceive. So there are ways in optical design to emulate the fact that the camera is closer to what it really is. But one of the easy way is to have a lens that could shrink the path, the optical path between the display and your eye. So this is what pancake lenses are doing. But this is also what our lens is doing. And I choose to use this lens and put all that effort to shrink the size of the headset to reduce the weight, but also, more importantly, the parallax. So we need, we don't need to do a lot of free projection of the camera because it's already very close to your eye anyway, on the contrary, if you look at a product that doesn't do that, I can think of the value x are free headsets, it's a much bulkier headset, and the camera is way farther apart from your eye than in our headsets and the pass through just doesn't feel right as as it is in links are one and everyone agrees on that. And it's uh, you know, it's very subjective. When when you look at the data, we have way less parallax and the image feels more natural and coming from your eye because it's just clover. So that's that was the main objective with the lens. And you know, if you have to compare it not to pancake lenses, or lens doesn't lose as much light and contrast from the display as pancake lenses. Pancake lenses. When you output 100 nits on your display, you usually end up with around 10 It's in the user eye. And in order in order lens is the other way around. You have 100 needs you get back 9085 nits in the user eyes so on the battery and on the contrast and the colors of the classroom and VR in general. We're better than that still,

Jason McDowall

29:39

to accomplish that to have that advantage there through the unique optical design in the partnering with this limb back and now they're part of Apple, which highlights a potential risk on the one hand it's highlights the fact you picked a really high quality team to work with. On the other hand, it highlights the risk that in this this current phase of consolidation Within this market, there is added risk in partnering with other small companies. How do you think about that as a challenge the risks of being dependent upon another startup within this arena?

Stan Larroque

30:11

Well, it's a it's a good question. And it happened in the past with other partners as well. But, you know, the AR and VR market is consolidating, like the big ones are buying the small ones. And we are trying to turn into a big one without being acquired by you know, another one. But when I partner with companies or suppliers, now, I make sure that in the contract, I will keep the rights to use the technology I need, even though there is a change of ownership of the of the company. And this is exactly what we did with lean back. We knew way in advance that was going to happen. And we, and I'm very happy for Pablo and his team that are working now with such a corporation. It's well deserved. But it would potentially put in jeopardy my you know, my business case here. So I made them sign an agreement that I could use the lens, and slightly change the design if I wanted for future versions. So I can keep the work we've been doing for the last two, three years together. And when I work with newer partners, especially small and young, promising startups that have a key advantage that can put in my headset, the first or second thing I ask is, can you provide me a contract where we can work together without this risk? Because when you look at the latest news in the last month, it's acquisitions all the way in, in VR and AR in the industry now.

Jason McDowall

31:39

Yeah, very smart. Thanks for sharing that strategy. One of the other strategies that you have opted, as you noted, at the beginning, one of these key points was that you are developing in the open that there is this notion of, of being open about what you're doing and how you're doing it. So can you describe a bit what that means? Does it mean to develop in the open and how are you continuing? That was, you know, a couple years back, but how are you continuing that notion of openness today?

Stan Larroque

32:05

Yeah, well, I think, you know, I decided to build in the open, because it's a great way to have brutal and honest feedback that you actually don't get in bigger companies. And it leads to some time disasters. For example, the display of HoloLens two is one example. You know, when you only have Yes, men around you, or people that promise you that things will be corrected, you end up with industrial disasters like that. So for us billing in the open was a way to assume what that we don't have all the technical knowhow in, you know, internally, and that we try to be humble about that, and telling what we're doing out there. And reading what people are thinking about is cheap and great way to maybe try to do better things. So that's, that's the first, you know, core thing about, like, trying to share what we do as much as we can. And it's always difficult to find the time with all the work we have here. But I think it's very beneficial. And to stay open to criticism is, I think one of the only ways to keep innovating as well, and don't get sloppy and all that. And also there is the fact that we want to build trust, you know, as a hardware provider, to our future ecosystem. And I don't think there there is a lot of trust today between, you know, hardware providers and developers in this industry in this market. There is a lot I heard so many horror stories from Mehta and Oculus developers, you know, that publish something, and then it's out of the store for some reason, and they're completely out of revenues. And this is also why we need a challenger like underdog in the in the hardware space, that can provide a platform that is that you can trust, because part of it is that it's more open. So this is also why want to build a brand like this.

Jason McDowall

33:56

Yeah, that makes sense. Along those lines, one of the challenges of bringing a product to market is about having that sort of marketplace of of apps of software providers who are building for your platform you need one, one way to lower them in is that you are building an open platform, they understand what's going on maybe the set of values you have aligns with what they're doing as well. But how do you accomplish this kind of large challenge of developing an ecosystem or marketplace so that people have things to load onto your device?

Stan Larroque

34:27

Yeah, well as a burgeoning ecosystem, the first thing you need to do is to make to let anyone play on your platform. This is why Lynx is going to not only have one app stores, but multiple on the device, you will be able to use tmvr you will be able to use our custom app store. And in the future as well. We will be able to load stuff through side quest. And I think teams like ours in the team sideways for example, are really convinced of this openness on the on the on the platform and to to build on have that, you know, on top of things like open XR, so it can be interoperable. And it's the only way I see us getting content is to, you know, let everyone in, share the revenue with third party platforms, and not scared developers and users, again, saying, Oh, if I buy on links, and you know, I use another headset, I won't be able to use the content I bought. And this is why we're trying so hard not to wait for software updates in our software work to be compatible with as many people as possible. There is another stuff, there is another thing that is very, very important that I want to tell here is that I think, you know, for AR and VR, as a platform, once again, the web will win. What I mean is that standards like WebEx are, and the web brother are absolutely going to win in the content delivery on those headsets. One of the things that is slowing the development and adoption of VR is the friction of the headset, you know, using it trying to learn the gestures, the controllers, and all that. And you have all the, you know, appstore thing, creating an account and all that. And the web is the first content delivery platform today on all the other mediums, and I think it will stay true with the upcoming one. And this is why we're working so hard with the volvik team, which is using Firefox as the backend to have a very compatible web is our web browser. So content will also come from there.

Jason McDowall

36:34

The web wins, wins, at least in terms of, of breath. Yeah, you know,

Stan Larroque

36:39

I think the only exception is Apple, maybe that created an ecosystem outside of the web on the iPhone, and then on the Mac, trying to push for the native thing and to on the platform. Maybe if you're Apple, you can bet against the web. Otherwise, I wouldn't. I wouldn't bet against the web. Yeah.

Jason McDowall

36:58

One of the things that you just mentioned in that was the the controllers like there's this friction that comes with learning the new system and getting access to new system and ultimately interacting with the new system. And one of the additional challenges that you've opted to take on is to design your own controllers for the for the links are one, what was the motivation to do so?

Stan Larroque

37:16

Well, the the motivation, again, is to try to bring has many contents, including existing content on the headset. And one of the things we are bringing with Lynx is very good hand tracking things to our ears for the partner. And again, you know, this partner is they had the best solution in the world today. And now, I hope that won't get acquired for the conversation. But hand tracking is a very natural and very good way to interface, especially for pass through and AR experiences. But a lot of the existing content was created, you know, on the UX and UI with four controllers. And we still want to play with those games. And we still want users to be able to leverage the, you know, the content, the bots. And I think for some use case, controllers are still including gaming, I think controllers are still very, very important inputs. So this is why we are compatible with all the bay, you know, the lighthouse tracks controllers, like the valve index one. And we will be able when you play through CDR, and we will be compatible with our controllers for version one and version two, it will be the same pair of controllers. And I think we will see them before the summer, we will show them and demonstrate. I have like free for people working on it full time here. So it's, it's an important project internally,

Jason McDowall

38:36

this notion that you're trying to be as compatible as possible with all sorts of existing content software services, will definitely lend itself to make it broadly useful. But what do you think is going to be the motivating use case or a couple of use cases it's going to motivate people to buy the device initially, one of those top couple use cases there?

Stan Larroque

38:57

Well, when you look at the people that are buying links today, they are like two masses. The first one is where we still do, the majority of our revenue is from the b2b world is from the people that came from HoloLens, you know industries that are convinced that AR can bring a lot in the professional training, remote assistance. And I think the value proposition of links for these people you know, in the industrial sector, medical and defense is that you only need to buy one device and you can train someone in VR during the first week on the job. And then after they use the same app, the same device, you know, on the shop floor using the password and that is very powerful. You know, because when you look at companies today, they usually buy one or two HoloLens here, one or two HP reverb or Ameriquest, whatever, and you have this mess of devices. And I think the versatile power of links is really bringing something to these people. So that's the first one, you know, like would say, like boring b2b training remote assistance applications that we see in in some verticals. And we're very good at that. And then I would say for 20 25% of the current sales, where we're seeing our developers and Game Studios in the entertainment market. So it's, it's all the way from being VR applications to location based entertainment. So it's almost, you know, related to b2b. But when you look at the b2c market, you know, that the retail market, I think we all hoped for meta to bring this market on the table for everyone. But when you look at the numbers and the past nine months, you can see it was slower than anticipated, I would say once again, right. It's not for now. But it's, it's slowly growing in and I think this industry is maturing, I believe it's an intuition. But from the roadmap, I see, you know, the hardware side of things, I think the next wave of devices on the hardware, I'm not talking about software, but not hardware on the hardware, on the form factor or power consumptions resolution and all that the next wave of devices will enable mass market use and high volume. We're not seeing that with the current devices like the quest Pro, the PICO for are the links or one or the HTC Vive and it's because of the price because it's they're still you know, even if Lynx is very faint, or HD Swan, there are still bricks you put in front of your eyes. It's going probably to be solved in 2024 with the next Qualcomm chip in the progressing displays, and sensors.

Jason McDowall

41:44

You think that's what's necessary, better, better chipsets, better display is better optics will enable this class of device to be more mass market

Stan Larroque

41:51

and to reduce the compromises we're still making with these devices. Absolutely. You know, especially for for mass market.

Jason McDowall

41:58

Yeah. How do you think a device like this coexists with see through AR? If it ever gets good enough? Let's let's pretend for a moment that there is decent see through AR, is there still a place for this sort of device?

Stan Larroque

42:12

I think there is some room for smart glasses. Like, you know, very thin, lightweight AR glasses. I think people will want that. But they're even in the Smart Glass market. They are different classes of devices, you have like the Google Glass monocular, you know, like notification style classes, that only brings very low volume of information. And then you have the Enrile glasses, which is like an external monitor. And you don't use those glasses the same way. But for the further reach AR headsets that are the HoloLens two and Magiclip. Two, I don't think they're they will continue to exist, I don't think they will have any high added value compared to pass through devices. And I'm not being dismissive. You know, it's really looking at the pros and cons of both systems on price on features. The convergence with pass through is too poor, for for those rich AR headsets to to continue to exist, in my opinion.

Jason McDowall

43:15

Yeah, that's right. One of the things that you talked about previously, is this notion that the existing major players are primarily social media companies, in particular. Yeah. And that brings with it a set of business oriented compromises about how the company makes money. Yeah, and what that source of money has. And you also know that Europe has a little bit of a different perspective on some of these things. Some, at some level, the world looks to Europe for helping to define what is acceptable from a company's perspective, and what's desirable from the end users perspective, in terms of protecting data, you also mentioned that you have a seat at the table with some of the European Union legislators. So when you think through this, this problem set around privacy, maybe you can talk a little bit about why this device is, is an extra level of unique privacy concern. But then, you know, how do you as a company think about privacy and protecting it?

Stan Larroque

44:14

Well, one of the very simple things I can tell you regarding the privacy or headset is that you can use or headset without creating any kind of account on any service. And it's not linked to any cloud service out there. If you want to use it offline, for all the life of the device, you can for the same price there is no hidden fees or whatever to get to your point regarding Europe and privacy loads and values and all that. There is no clear understanding in Europe that we missed a lot of markets. We missed the smartphone. There is no light laptop or smartphone producing high volume coming from companies that are designing in Europe. We think I look at that, and we fail very hard. You know, like you remember Nokia, you have your, your answer just thinking about them. And and what we're trying to build with, you know, with Lynx is we convince people that we don't need to invest in Europe, in semiconductor industry, if it's to build the things that people already built, we will never catch up on the laptop will never catch up on the smartphone, we need to fight the battle that is going to happen in two or three years. And those products are VR and AR headsets. And now there is an understanding of the legislation and the companies there that we need providers, we need system integrators like links, this is what we're doing. We're a system integrator, we're taking taking technologies, and we're playing Legos with that, sometimes we're building it ourselves, sometimes we're buying that. And we integrate, and we have no integrator in Europe, we have no strong integrator, this is what I'm trying to build. And when you look at the talent pool, and the companies in VR and AR in Europe today, 99% of them are software and services companies that are building on Chinese or American platforms, and whoever the people that are taking 20% of those revenues. They are the same players that are taking 20% in the mobile markets and in the desktop market. And there is a need for another platform with rules that we could control better in Europe. And that will be more beneficial for at least the European citizen, and maybe hope for the best for everyone in the world.

Jason McDowall

46:43

And as a company yourself, you describe this notion that there's the data, the video itself, I'm just gonna dig into some of the details of like where it is that somebody could extract from what you're doing the data, but there isn't a place because you don't store any of the video processing in memory, just go straight from the camera to the display. And you don't have to create an online account, nobody's tracking you was tracking what you're doing on the device. And you have an opportunity to note it to establish this perspective, through this unique company in Europe, where there isn't an existing major player or doing any sort of information technology in terms of major platform today. And so you have an opportunity to push forward a new perspective, a new way of doing business in this market. And I love that personally, because I am concerned about the incentives and how they pervert well intentioned people into making choices that are not necessarily in the interests of the users, the best interests. But I'm also privileged in that I'm often willing to pay for things out of pocket in a different way than giving up my attention and data. So I appreciate sometimes there's a trade off that people consciously or maybe not so consciously making.

Stan Larroque

47:53

Well, I have an incentive to not care about what you're doing with my headset.

Jason McDowall

47:58

And I don't care. Yeah. I appreciate that. One of the other things that is we look at the evolution of the market, we see you've noted that ocular medical quest, this platform has continued to evolve, right is it is the extension of the Palmer Luckey vision. And as early decay devices. And Oculus within meta has continued to deliver the leading device in terms of sales volume, even if from a spec perspective, in terms of quality of display, or quality of the cameras and quality of the rest aren't necessarily there, they have been selling the most of these things. But one of the things that that stood out in a recent Wall Street Journal report was that while they are selling a lot, it doesn't seem that there is a ton of retention. In fact, there might be a retention problem. So people are buying the devices and they they play with them for a little while, but after a few months, then not so much. So if there is a retention issue, what do you imagine are the reasons?

Stan Larroque

48:53

Well, there is clearly a retention issue with this class of, you know, VR devices, like like the quest to for example, I'm going to just tell you an anecdote about about the numbers there. But when the quest two came out, this this so at meta, an uprise of woman logging in the art, which was not explained by the marketing or anything really, but this so a lot of middle aged woman using using the device because when you use the quest, you have to log into your Facebook accounts, while at the time it was Facebook. And so they didn't know all the demographics of the user. And when they dived into the matrix and tried to explain why women sort of certainly certainly had a VR years, they realized that it was actually the mothers who bought the headset for Christmas for their child that use their own Facebook account to log in so that they can use the headset. But to get back to the to the retention problem and the fact that women are not using VR has matured As men, and that is very, it's still very geeky and nerdy in a bad way, I would say, it's because first of the friction with the hardware, we cannot blame software developers for that. Software developers are heroes of VR world today, because they are dealing with the limitations of the devices we produce. And we need to make better devices for them. And for the users, you know, in every big innovation in technology, it's always, you know, some hardware that comes out, and then the magic of the software that enables experiences. And I don't think we can see those magical experiences on the software, there are a few counter example, you know, like half life Alyx, or those, those those great experiences that that are more like a one off thing than you know, what we really believe for the future of VR and AR. But it's really down to the hardware, we are not we haven't passed the hardware stage, either for smart glasses or for VR devices. And this is what I told you know that the next wave of headset, I think, I think this will be the right iteration to drive more adoption and reduce the friction with the users, they can keep using those devices on the long run.

Jason McDowall

51:23

Since the friction is the key, it's just too much of a pain in the butt. To get into these types and access to things we want to absolutely. One of the things that is unique about your device that I think is just a fantastic feature is this ability to flip up the visor. So you can actually completely engage in the real world, and immediately flip it back down. In terms of physical like this physical wearing the device, it is uncomfortable to be locked into the VR headset locks is a bit of an overstatement. But this notion that you're putting it on, and it completely obscuring the real world, even if you have these, this video, this video pass through cameras that sometimes work, okay, to be able to quickly come back to the real world to engage briefly, and then come back with that engagement in the real world is with another person or to move through space, you know, move through space safely, I just find that to be such a powerful design decision. What was the inspiration for you there?

Stan Larroque

52:15

Oh, it was absolutely stolen from HoloLens to no shame about that, when we so you know, we were not sure that we were going to do it, it was on the table. But when HoloLens two came out, we tried it. And it was it was a certainty that we had to bring that to our headset, I think the flip of design combined with the fact that we can open our peripheral vision, when we wear it is making our headset, very breathable, you know, in a way you, you don't have this tunnel vision, you can always get back to you know, the eye contact with the people in the room. And even for developers, you know, when they iterate on their code, they don't have to wear off the headset completely to remove it. And I think this work and what we brought with links are one on the market is lower friction, it's not perfect yet, but we reduced the point of pressure on the face, you know, we're not putting any pressure around your face, we're only touching the, you know, the forehead, the forehead and the back of the head. Same thing with the battery at the back, you know, to balance the weight of the of the headset, so you can wear it longer. And also the optional head strap on the middle of the headset. And this is one of the things that my industrial designers are really enjoying, and they enjoyed a lot at CES when people tried a lot during the session, they really almost forgot they were wearing the headset. This is I think the end goal for any headset maker out there is to make you forget that you're wearing anything. That's the ultimate interface. Right. And this is what we're trying to achieve. We did some work with links are one and we were continuing to work for more iterations.

Jason McDowall

54:01

Very nice. So with the general availability of the r1, imminent here in early 2023, what is your biggest concern as you look out over the next year or so

Stan Larroque

54:12

what my biggest concern is to not be able to build all the 1000s of headsets we will sell because I think we have a lot of traction. So it's I would say it's a good problem. The other issue is not to be able to I mean to keep up the pace with the software, because right now the hardware is here. And we need to iterate a lot on the software to, you know, to fine tune everything to make the experience better for user and developer. You know, Mehta has been doing NHCC I've been doing that for almost like eight years now. They have this huge software stack that we need to catch up with. We have a lot of help from your chip and Qualcomm but we want the experience to be at a point where you don't need an email You're all to operate the headset. And that's the roadmap for this year, the software updates, we're bringing

Jason McDowall

55:06

supply chain and software. When you look at this, one of the rumors that's floating about is that Apple is one day eventually going to produce some sort of device. And the rules are, there's going to be a mixed reality device with video pass through on it. And the most recent news was, they're gonna have the super fancy one that's gonna come out first, and then they're working on a cheaper version, that will be some period of time behind it. But how much does that rumor about their mixed reality headset concern you

Stan Larroque

55:32

absolutely not concern about Apple for now. And I'm very happy if they come out of the closet, after all this time, because if they deliver something, it absolutely is going to be a Ferrari. That is that has the price of a Ferrari. And I think it will damage companies like indirect burial or high hand or their high end devices. I don't think they're going to produce a lot. I mean, I'm certain because we we know the volume numbers from their manufacturer, we know what it looks like. But they're obviously things I can't share. But we are not worried. I mean, if they deploy something, if they are really releasing something, even in low volume, it will be a huge validation. And that, you know, Wall Street in the financial world will say, Oh, if Apple is going there, then there is probably a huge market. So I think the valuation of all the companies in the industry will go higher. And also the fact that their headset is close to what we're doing, in a way, is also a huge technical validation for us. So yeah, I mean, if they're not delivering well, from change, or life, but if they're delivering, I would say it would be for the better for us.

Jason McDowall

56:49

Bring it. That's the attitude. I love it. Yeah,

Stan Larroque

56:52

I mean, it's not arrogance, it's it's excitement, you know, it's like, okay, well, some things, you know, Apple is a huge validation for for everyone, if they if they come out, I think they also don't want to play the meta game. You know, they don't want to bring this validation to companies like Mehta. So I don't know what they're going to do. But volumes will be quite low. device will be amazing hardware will be amazing. That I'm sure of but for the rest.

Jason McDowall

57:23

As you think about this kind of iteration, you've hinted already this, you're beginning to think deeply about our to the second iteration of this device. So based on the set of compromises is a really good choices that you've made in r1. What's something you're really looking forward to improve in version two?

Stan Larroque

57:40

Well, it's it's a bit of everything already, we're already starting from a blank page again, and I was afraid of, you know, with links are one I was happy we demonstrated a lot with with our company that we could bring not one but multiple innovation in one products. And I was afraid that you know, version two of what we do after it will just be an iteration on that. And we won't be able to keep innovating and invent new stuff and bring new architectures. But from what I see from the team, and with the work we're doing, I believe we are going to keep surprising people, I'd say also that they need to, we need to take our time and slated release is by 2024. When you look at the roadmap of displays, and cameras and chips that we need, and we want, it's going to take some time. So this is why we are putting a lot of resources and efforts on links are one so we can build the very good software stack on it and a very good ecosystem. And links are two, we'll just take the fruits of all that. And hopefully with the market, that is time we'll be able to reach very, very high volume.

Jason McDowall

58:50

Fantastic. Let's wrap it a few in lightning round questions. What commonly held belief about AR VR spatial computing Do you disagree with

Stan Larroque

58:59

I disagreed, and I keep disagreeing with the current articles, architectures, especially the waveguide world, it's expensive. It's not the right solution for the market, that the companies behind those one pushing are really, you know, being honest about I think a lot of senior engineers misled management, those companies regarding those architectures, and it's going to take time to to have something decent, so I really disagree on that. But otherwise, I can't say I disagree with people in general in VR, and AR You know, it's a small world. And, you know, another takeaway is we all want to bring this to the masses. We all want people to get excited about this, this industry. So that would be the only bad thing I would say today.

Jason McDowall

59:54

Besides the one you're building what tool or service do you wish existed?

Stan Larroque

59:57

I wish the underlying algorithms that we're using like hand tracking six stuff, nerf 3d reconstructions, had more standards and were more open. And we're, we're trying to bring things in there. There are some initiatives out there. But it was very hard for people to enter this market to create a headset, because everything is so closed, everything is a black box in there. So it's I wish there were companies that would tackle that.

Jason McDowall

01:00:31

What book have you read recently that you found to be deeply insightful or profound?

Stan Larroque

01:00:35

The latest book was a French one. So I don't know the title in English, but it's it's a very old book. It's from the writers channel, and it's called La chateaus department. But right now I'm reading novels and books from the 19th century, I find it relaxing. People had the same issues back there between you know, humans, but things were much simpler. In terms of well with it, they didn't have all the social media and interconnection between individuals. So I do that to sleep at night. Yeah.

Jason McDowall

01:01:15

Nice. If you could sit down and have coffee with your 25 year old self. And this may not be quite so relevant. It's not so much time. But what advice you're sharing, maybe we'll go back and further, you can sit down and have coffee with your 20 year old self, what advice would you share?

Stan Larroque

01:01:29

So that was like eight years ago, and I was in Los Angeles building a dating app with a guy that I met online. And I would sit down with with myself and say, Well, don't worry, you're not going to build these kinds of products for the rest of your life. You but you have to keep I think you have to keep being curious. You know, I I still believe in I believe back in the day that I think you're only getting old when you stop being curious. That's my definition, you know, in, in life, you're dying, and you're getting old when you when you lose that curiosity. And that curiosity led me to discover this, this wonderful industry. And I would give this advice to myself at 20 years old.

Jason McDowall

01:02:18

Any closing thoughts you'd like to share?

Stan Larroque

01:02:20

Well, I think we covered a lot. But I just want to say that I'm extremely grateful for people in the industry, that are the same, I think, audience that you have today, that overwhelmed us with how we were treated, you know, as a company, in this market with links, we had our ups and downs, we had, you know, a lot of delays, it was really hard. But the support we had in this community was also one of the key drivers that explained the fact that we were not acquired, and that we still have this energy to build this European champion of mixed reality. And it's absolutely worth it. And I'm really thankful for the support of everyone out there. I haven't met, you know, someone that that was just mean with us. And this is how welcoming people are in this industry. We want to see better things. And the fact that we're trying, you know, we don't we don't have the truth, but we're trying stuff. And that was very welcome. very heartwarming for for us to see this support. So thank you, everyone.

Jason McDowall

01:03:28

Awesome. Where can people go to learn more about you and your efforts here at links

Stan Larroque

01:03:32

to best way is for links we have a we have a website links are that calm with a hyphen between the RN names. We also have a YouTube channel. If you type like links VR in YouTube, you can check out some of our videos we are trying to give, update and show some of the experiences you will get with the headset. And for me, I don't have social media. I don't even have a WhatsApp account. But I have four links. I post on Twitter and LinkedIn sometimes so you can also follow follow me and our page on

Jason McDowall

01:04:04

this social net. Awesome. Stan, thank you so much for the conversation.

Stan Larroque

01:04:07

Yeah, thank you very much, Jason for hosting that.

Jason McDowall

01:04:12

Before you go, I'm going to tell you about the next episode in I speak with Ohto Pentikäinen and Jamin Hu. Ohto and Jamin are the co founders of Port 6, a company creating Human Computer Interaction technologies. initially focused on the sense of touch. We'll discuss the origins of the company the unique perspective they bring to the technology and their early entrepreneurial experiences. I think you'll really enjoyed the conversation and please consider contributing to this podcast@patreon.com/theARshow. Thanks for listening.

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