Finnish virtual reality (VR) headset manufacturer Varjo announced on Wednesday it had teamed up with Chinese tech giant Lenovo to sell VR-3 and XR-3 virtual and mixed reality (MR) devices in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), months after deepening ties in a strategic sales alliance last year.
The partnership will create a point of purchase for customers to buy workstations and VR/XR headsets in a bid to reshape their professional use across numerous industries in the UAE.
The news comes as the medical, oil and gas, research, education, training, aviation, entertainment, remote working sectors have increasingly begun to adopt XR solutions for their operations.
According to Varjo, UAE firms can order the VR-3 and XR-3 for roughly $3.195 USD/EUR and $5,495 USD/EUR, respectively.
Seppo Aaltonen, Chief Commercial Officer of Varjo, said in a statement,
“Current global circumstances have accelerated the need for high-fidelity immersive tools. Together with our local resellers, Varjo can now support advanced virtual, augmented and mixed reality use cases in UAE”
Mohammed Hilili, GULF General Manager at Lenovo, added Lenovo’s professional workstations and Varjo’s VR/XR headsets were “specifically engineered” to work in the “most sophisticated and demanding professional use cases.”
He added,
“We are excited to expand our partnership with Varjo to bring its human-eye resolution headsets, matched with the processing and computing power found in Lenovo’s workstation portfolio products, to our customers in the United Arab Emirates”
Varjo’s headsets include resolutions of more than 60 pixels per degree (ppd), integrated Ultraleap hand tracking, eye tracking, and many others to facilitate immersive environments for professionals.
The announcement comes ahead of the World Expo 2020 in Dubai, which was delayed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and will take place on October 31 at the Finland Pavilion.
A second event, the GITEX Conference, will open October 17 to 21.
Dubai’s Emirates airline allows customers to view numerous products such as cabins, seats, lounges, and other amenities via an app on the Oculus store.
Lenovo Inks Deals with Varjo, Qualcomm, RealWear
The announcement comes after Lenovo and Varjo joined forces to work with UK automaker Aston Martin, who recently purchased their MR solution to design luxury vehicles using XR-3 headsets.
The world’s largest PC manufacturer also inked two strategic deals with US tech giant Qualcomm and XR firm Realwear, with the former designed to provide Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 smart glasses with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 870 processor and XR-1 SmartViewer.
The latter deal reached a partnership with RealWear to provide assisted reality solutions for frontline industrial workers using the latter’s HMT-1 devices to boost usage amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
