Lucid VR announced that it has raised $2.1 million in seed funding and signed a partnership with Wistron Corp., a top original design manufacturer (ODM) based in Taiwan.

Lucid VR is the company behind the pocket-sized virtual reality (VR) camera, LucidCam, which captures 3D 180º videos that can be instantly watched on mobile phones with the use of Google Cardboard or any other VR headset.

Aside from Wistron, other investors participating in this funding  round include S2 Capital, Lab360, TEEC Angel Fund, 17 Miles Technology and angel investors. The fresh capital will be used to scale the LucidCam for mass production. Of note, the team up with Wistron will help LucidCam overshoot its original device capabilities and expectations.

The LucidCam device features dual lens wide angle cameras to create immersive 3D images and videos. With the LucidApp, content created can be viewed and uploaded over Wi-Fi, and shared with phone contacts. Yet Lucid VR hopes to do one better. Han Jin, co-founder and CEO of Lucid VR, details the upcoming improvements:

“With our relationship with Wistron we will be developing a beautifully designed and engineered camera that is going to surpass our original plans. We are very excited to announce that we will be upgrading our backers with a first production version of the LucidCam with double the resolution and frame rate, in addition to extended battery capacity. The viewing experience in VR headsets will be so much smoother with 2K and 60 frames per second.”

LucidCam is available for pre-order for $429.

VR market needs a 360-degree view

According to Technology Business Research, Inc.’s (TBR) 4Q15 Devices and Platforms Benchmark, VR is expected to become a transformational, disruptive force in the devices market in 2016 and vendors who fail to implement a VR strategy will risk losing their share in the market, which is expected to reach $20 billion by 2020.

“New form factors will quickly emerge from the brisk pace of innovation, and a winning strategy will anticipate how VR will shift use cases as VR becomes more pervasive,” said TBR Devices and Internet of Things Senior Analyst Jack Narcotta in a statement sent to SiliconANGLE. “The onset of VR indicates the era of the single-track computing device vendor is nearing an end as this ‘new normal’ takes shape. As this new PC customer segment emerges, leading Original Equipment Manufacturers’ (OEM) priorities will shift to boosting profitability of their traditional PC customer base, adding services and peripherals to traditional PC sales that allow them to go all-in on VR.”

LucidCam is not the only consumer VR camera aiming to disrupt this emerging market.  When LG Electronics, Inc. introduced its flagship LG G5, the company also introduced a complimentary line of connected devices called LG Friends, including the 360 Cam. The 360 Cam features a dual 13MP wide angle camera and is simple to operate – push a button to take a 360º photo, long press on the button to take a 360º video. For $199, it already has a leg up on the LucidCam, not to mention the device is able to take a 360-degree photo or video, while the LucidCam can only span 180 degrees.

Another consumer VR camera is HumanEyes Technologies’ Vuze VR camera which features eight FHD lenses which takes a 360-degree photo or video with a simple push of a button. Though Vuze device has stunning good looks, it comes at the high price of $1,000 – not a very consumer-friendly price tag. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. also has a VR camera, the Samsung Gear 360, also able to take 360- or 180-degree photos and videos. And the newest contender, though it’s not really a VR camera, is GoPro, Inc. which unveiled the GoPro Omni VR camera rig. Its cube holds six Hero4 Black cameras and at the heart of the rig is proprietary hardware that synchronizes all six cameras to get the 360º shot. Though GoPro cameras are directed at consumers, this could set consumers back more than $3,000, but pricing and availability has yet to be announced.

Even Facebook, Inc. has expanded its VR reach with the introduction of the very expensive Facebook Surround 360 which costs about $30,000. Facebook is setting the bar high for VR cameras with a 17-camera array, 14 of which are wide-angle cameras capable of shooting 30 or 60 frames per second simultaneously. Another high end VR camera is Nokia Corp.’s OZO, which features eight 2K x 2K sensors and comes with a hefty $60,000 price tag.

As LucidCam is still in its pre-order stage, we can only hope that the company tweaks the device so that it can take a stunning 360º photo or video with a single push of a button. However, users can take multiple LucidCams in order to create a 360-degree photo or video, a bit of an expensive shortcoming given its price tag.

Images courtesy of Lucid VR