hi I'm going to learn with iFixit and
today we're tearing down the arco the
oculus rift the first consumer version
of the oculus rift is finally here after
tearing down two previous development
units we can't wait to see what's been
changed
of course the hardest part of any oculus
rift teardown is getting it away from
all of our co-workers who've been dying
to try it out before we hand it over our
oculus to our teardown engineers we
decided to try to get a look at one of
the coolest features of the rift that
also happens to be invisible
using our infrared camera we're able to
see all the IR lights in the front of
the device these tiny LEDs are what make
the oculus head-tracking work as well as
it does and in this newest version of
the headset there's more on the back of
your head making spinning in circles in
a virtual landscape a reality after the
release of a few clips the front plate
was free this plate is covered in
stretchy black lycra fabric that allows
the adjustable lenses freedom to move
and speaking of those lenses look at
them go the development kit - of the
oculus rift used a single 1080p display
the same one found in the galaxy note 3
as a matter of fact but the C v1 has
opted for two displays mounted right on
the lenses removing the cowl reveals the
meet of the oculus including the
motherboard that is home to a 4k HDMI -
MIP dual DSi converter a proprietary 2.4
gigahertz nordic semiconductor
system-on-chip
and 64 megabytes of serial flash memory
for the complete list of chips we've
identified check out the teardown at I
pick sitcom separating the weird looking
lenses reveals the displays these OLEDs
measure in at 90 millimeters for a
resulting pixel density of 456 pixels
per inch which means the average user
would have to be eight inches away from
the displays for the pixels to become
indistinguishable since these are mere
inches away from your eyes during use
how does the RIP deal with it it's all
in those weird lenses where prior oculus
rift kits came with interchangeable
circular lenses the cb1 uses a single
set of non removable asymmetric lenses
also known as a Fresnel lens the Fresnel
lens has the same large viewing angle
and short focal length in a fraction of
the weight which is exactly what virtual
reality needs
but it looks like oculus took it a step
further and manufactured hybrid Fresnel
lenses these lenses are made up of
concentric prisms like any other Fresnel
lens but an extra sloping layer is added
to the back of the lens creating a shape
that mimics a traditional curved lens
and allowing the focus to vary along the
vertical axis of the lens that's why the
rift instructs you to focus the headset
by simply pushing it higher or lower on
your face we had to test these lenses
out so with the help of our spooky
Halloween bubbler and green laser we got
to see how the ripps lenses make up for
your eyes and the display shortcomings
by making you think you're looking at an
endless and distant display for the
virtual reality experience to be
realistic and not be uncomfortable you
need the optics to do two things
magnify the display so that you can't
see the edges and focus the display at
optical Infinity these lenses do just
that we've come to the end of our
teardown and now we turn our thoughts
towards repairability
how did the oculus rift cv1 score it got
a 7 out of 10 and here's why on the
upside cable management is much improved
from the development kits with a sturdy
connector for easy removal
the earpiece speakers are super easily
removed thanks to spring connectors and
the face pad is held in with plastic
clips and pulls out easily but on the
downside replacing the head strap is
impossible without cutting through the
fabric on the headset and finally
intricate design and delicate ribbon
cables make it very difficult to remove
the lenses displays and the motherboard
and that's our teardown for the complete
teardown including tons of beautiful
high quality images head on over to
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