Lynx claims that the production pace for its R1 Mixed Reality headset is “an absolute mess”.
If this headset was not known to you, it’s a French stand-alone headset announced first in 2020. It has an open peripheral design. If it had shipped in time for 2022 it would have become the first standalone consumer headset to feature color passthrough mixed-reality. Stan Larroque claims that his company’s inability to pay its manufacturer, Compal, resulted in produced headsets not being delivered. He also says this situation was caused by intended investors who did not follow through with their funding. He claims his company’s inability to pay its manufacturer, Compal, resulted in produced headsets not being delivered, and says this situation resulted from intended investors not following through with their funding.
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Here’s the full section of the post, featuring shocking claims:Kickstarter update post“So far, we delivered the first backers with the first batches at the end of 2023 and we are looking forward to deliver 400 additional Lynx-R1 headsets between July and August.
The pace of production has been an absolute mess for the R1, and 100% of the constraints we had were related to financial issues.
These 400 headsets were part of our
batch (500 units). These 400 headsets were assembled in February and March. However, our partner Compal held them until we paid for manpower. It was a very bad situation, but we were able to resolve it and pallets are on the way next week. Nothing related to the headset.
We spent so much time and effort raising money that it is ridiculous. We have nothing today to show from our May 2022 fundraising. There was so much that I cannot write it all down, but let me give you two examples. It didn’t happen because the European Investor lied and didn’t have the funds. It was the worst possible thing to happen to a start-up. We spent hundreds of man-hours with them on this case (they were to invest 15MEUR). They took over 6 months to complete a due diligence. In July 2023, they issued a letter of intent. Then we found out that they had been badmouthing us to potential co-investors behind our backs. This is just the tip of the problem we faced when raising funds in Europe, in XR and in Hardware. The impact of these situations on R1 and the impact they had on me personally were the most frustrating moments in my career. This is it for the year. Our work will continue with the help of a major financial US partner. I believe we are still doing the right things. I believe we are still doing the right things.PVTThe partners we talk with are US-based and actually understand XR and why it’s important to have a company such as Lynx in the landscape
We still have a huge demand even for the R1 (10k+ purchase orders mainly for Defence, Industrial and Medical use-cases)
It’s interesting to be the only OEM in Europe to build standalone headsets. Our company is small, but it has a great deal of experience. We often see things before big companies (like
at Hypervision). I am still optimistic about Lynx, and the future for our company. We are standing strong in the XR market consolidation. The big players are buying up (or killing off, they have tried to kill) smaller companies. Even if Larroque’s revised timeline is correct, Lynx has a way to go before it can satisfy its customers. By the end of August, only 500 of over 1000 Kickstarter backers and over 10,000 total orders should be satisfied.
The story of Lynx is a bitter reminder that for startups without the war-chest of big companies, mass producing XR headsets at scale is incredibly hard, and fraught with unpredictable issues along the path from impressive prototypes to shipping to customers.