Lynx R2 — specification and verdict
Lynx is claiming 126 degrees horizontal and 103 degrees vertical from pancake optics, which is wider than anything currently sold as a standalone, with 80 degrees of binocular overlap. Behind that sit two 2312x2160 LCD panels at 90 Hz and a peak density of 24 pixels per degree, so a wide scene comes at the cost of fine text: a trainee will read a machine label or a hazard pictogram, but small print on a procedure sheet stays marginal. Colour passthrough runs at 90 fps off two RGB cameras with an iToF depth sensor alongside four monochrome tracking cameras, which is a serious sensor set for mixed-reality work on real equipment. Hand tracking is there, eye tracking and face tracking are not, so no foveation and no gaze analytics. Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 with 16 GB of RAM is more memory than most standalones carry, but storage is a single 128 GB tier.
Nothing can be deployed yet: the headset was announced on 21 January 2026 and Lynx has said it will not take pre-orders or run a crowdfunding round, so it goes on sale only when it can ship. Lynx publishes no price, and the only guidance is the founder's statement that it lands between a Quest 3 and a Galaxy XR. There is no published mobile device management or kiosk mode, which for a fleet means manual provisioning until Lynx or an integrator says otherwise. The pitch is the opposite of the usual one: LynxOS is an Android fork with no Google services and full offline operation, so a site with no outbound internet is a supported case rather than a workaround. EU availability is the one easy part, since the device is built in France and sold through French resellers.
Do not plan a 2026 rollout around it. The specification is genuinely interesting for anyone who needs a wide field of view and a headset that never phones home, but there is no price, no ship date beyond summer 2026, no MDM story and no hardware anyone outside Lynx has run a course on. Keep it on the watch list, and buy a shipping standalone for training you have to deliver this year.
How it compares within its class
The axis runs from the lowest to the highest published figure among the VR — standalone devices in this catalogue. The grey tick is the median of that class.
Median for this class: 103°, from 25 models that publish the figure.
Controllers and hand tracking
Nobody publishes what this device ships with
Bare hands
Full hand skeleton
The application receives a jointed hand pose, so a scenario can check what the fingers are doing and draw the hand as it moves.
Full specification
An em dash means the manufacturer does not publish that figure.
- ManufacturerWho makes it — and who you buy support from.
- Lynx
- CategoryWhich kind of product this is. It decides which rows below make sense at all.
- VR — standalone
- Device typeWhere the computing happens, and therefore what you need to run it.
- Standalone VR
- AnnouncedThe day it was shown, which is not the day it shipped.
- 2026-01-21
- ReleasedYear the model went on sale. Older is not automatically worse in this category.
- Released: not published by the manufacturer
- AvailabilityWhether you can still order it new today.
- Announced for 2026, never released
- Support endsThe date the manufacturer stops supporting it. Decisive for a fleet you are about to buy.
- Support ends: not published by the manufacturer
- PanelThe screen type. micro-OLED gives deeper blacks and higher contrast; LCD is brighter and cheaper.
- LCD
- OpticsThe lenses in front of the panel. Pancake stays sharp closer to the edges than older Fresnel, which decides how much a trainee has to aim their head to read something.
- Pancake lenses
- Eyes coveredOne eye or both. Over a full shift this is a real difference in fatigue.
- Both eyes
- Resolution per eyePixels delivered to each eye. Higher means small text and labels stay readable.
- ≈2312x2160*UploadVR
- Refresh rateImages per second. Higher feels smoother and helps people prone to motion discomfort.
- ≈90 Hz*UploadVR
- Field of viewHow much of your view the image covers. Bigger is more immersive, not automatically better for work.
- 126° horizontal
- Pixel densityPixels per degree of view — the honest way to compare sharpness between a headset and a pair of glasses. Higher is sharper. Only shown where somebody published it; we never compute it ourselves.
- Pixel density: not published by the manufacturer
- BrightnessIn a plant or outdoors, brightness decides legibility more than resolution does.
- Brightness: not published by the manufacturer
- WeightThe device alone. Anything above roughly 150 g is felt within an hour.
- Weight: not published by the manufacturer
- Visible field of viewWhat the eye actually sees through the optics, by axis.
- 126° horizontal · 103° vertical
- Rendered field of viewWhat the device draws. Never smaller than what you see.
- 126° horizontal · 103° vertical
- Binocular overlapWhere both eyes see the same thing — this is where depth happens.
- 80°
- Average pixel densityPixels per degree across the image. More is sharper.
- Average pixel density: not published by the manufacturer
- Peak pixel densityThe sharpest point, usually the centre of the lens.
- 24 PPD
- Subpixel layoutHow the coloured dots sit in a pixel. A stripe looks cleaner on text than PenTile.
- RGB stripe · 3 subpixels per pixel
- Foveated renderingWhether detail is dropped outside where you look, to save performance.
- Foveated rendering: not published by the manufacturer
- PassthroughWhat the front cameras give you: colour, grayscale, or nothing.
- Colour
- Passthrough camerasResolution, density and frame rate of that camera feed.
- 90 fps
- IPD adjustmentMatching lens spacing to the eyes. Motorised is fastest when one headset passes between people.
- Manual
- IPD rangeHow far the lenses travel to match eye spacing. A narrow range excludes part of any group of adults, which matters when one headset is shared.
- 58–72 mm
- Works with glassesWhether people who wear glasses can use it — fits over them, or takes prescription lens inserts.
- Works with glasses: not published by the manufacturer
- Vision correctionHow somebody who wears glasses uses it, and in what dioptre range.
- Fits over glasses
- DimensionsWidth, height and depth of the device itself.
- Dimensions: not published by the manufacturer
- Weight with strapWith the strap it ships with — the weight you actually wear.
- 550 g
- Head strapSoft band or a rigid one. Decides how the weight sits over an hour.
- Rigid halo strap
- MaterialsShell and facial interface, in the vendor’s words.
- plastic
- ColoursColours the manufacturer sells it in.
- White · Black
- Haptics in the headsetVibration in the headset itself, not in the controllers.
- No
- TrackingWhether content stays put in the room (6DoF), follows head rotation (3DoF) or is simply fixed.
- inside-out 6DoF
- Base stationsWhether boxes have to be mounted on the walls before it works.
- Not needed
- Tracking camerasHow many cameras it uses to know where it is.
- 4
- Tracking rateHow often position is recalculated. Higher is steadier.
- Tracking rate: not published by the manufacturer
- Depth sensorA dedicated sensor for distance, on top of the cameras.
- Yes
- Hand trackingWhether bare hands can operate the interface, without a controller or the phone.
- Yes
- Hand tracking detailHow much of the hand reaches the application: a pinch, or a jointed hand pose a scenario can read.
- Full hand skeleton
- Hands and controllers at onceWhether a controller in one hand and a bare hand in the other work at the same time.
- Hands and controllers at once: not published by the manufacturer
- Hand tracking SDKThe SDK an application reaches the hand tracking through, and any named modes that change how it behaves.
- Hand tracking SDK: not published by the manufacturer
- Eye trackingThe headset knows where the trainee is looking. Enables sharper rendering where they look, and attention analytics.
- No
- Face trackingTracks facial expression — for avatars, not for training scenarios.
- No
- Body trackingHow much of the body the device knows about. Estimated legs are not tracked legs.
- None
- Controllers includedWhether motion controllers come in the box, or are bought separately — or the device is hands-only.
- Controllers included: not published by the manufacturer
- Controller tracking6DoF controllers track position and rotation, so a hand reaches in space; 3DoF only point. “None” means hands only.
- Controller tracking: not published by the manufacturer
- Other input methodsWays in beyond controllers and bare hands.
- Other input methods: not published by the manufacturer
- PerformanceHow much the headset can run — sharper scenes, more objects, smoother mixed reality. Higher is better.
- Performance: not published by the manufacturer
- ProcessorThe processor and memory inside. This is what the performance grade above is derived from.
- Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2
- CPUCores and clocks, where the manufacturer publishes them.
- Octa-core Kryo (1 x 3.19 GHz, 4 x 2.8 GHz, 3 x 2.0 GHz)
- GPUThe graphics part of the chip.
- Adreno 740
- MemoryRAM on the device. Together with the chipset it sets how complex a scene can be.
- 16 GB
- PlatformThe platform an application is built against — and what an MDM has to speak.
- LynxOS
- StorageOn-board space for downloaded courses. More matters for an offline library in several languages.
- 128 GB
- SD card slotWhether storage can be added with a card.
- SD card slot: not published by the manufacturer
- BatteryRuntime as the manufacturer states it. A hot-swappable pack matters more than the figure.
- ≈120 min*VRcompare
- Battery capacity (Wh)Energy in the cell. Bigger is longer, given the same power draw.
- ≈28 Wh*VRcompare
- Battery capacity (mAh)The same fact in the other unit vendors use. We never convert between the two.
- Battery capacity (mAh): not published by the manufacturer
- Charge timeFrom empty to full. Rarely stated by the manufacturer, so it usually comes from whoever timed it.
- Charge time: not published by the manufacturer
- ChargerPower of the supplied charger — it decides the charge time above.
- Charger: not published by the manufacturer
- External batteryBattery on a cable or a puck instead of on the head.
- External battery: not published by the manufacturer
- Charging caseExtra runtime carried in the case the glasses ship with.
- Charging case: not published by the manufacturer
- Hot-swap batteryWhether a charged battery can replace the empty one without ending the session. This is what decides if a headset can hold an all-day training station.
- Hot-swap battery: not published by the manufacturer
- Runs Skillsive appsOur own statement about whether Skillsive training applications run on it today.
- No
- Suitable for trainingOur judgement on whether it survives real deployment: comfort, hygiene, fleet management.
- Yes
- Kiosk mode / MDMVendor tooling to enrol devices, push an app and lock the headset to it. Practically required above ten devices.
- No
- Business tierAn official business tier, so devices belong to the company rather than to employees’ personal accounts.
- Business tier: not published by the manufacturer
- Swappable facial interfaceRemovable, wipeable face padding. A consumable, and the difference between shared use and complaints.
- Swappable facial interface: not published by the manufacturer
- CertificationsIndustrial certifications stated on the manufacturer's own page. Empty means unconfirmed, never "probably fine".
- Certifications: not published by the manufacturer
- PortsPhysical sockets and charging contacts.
- USB Type-C
- Wi-FiThe Wi-Fi generation — it decides how well wireless streaming holds up.
- 7
- BluetoothFor controllers, headphones and accessories.
- 5.4
- Video from a computerWhether a computer can drive it, over a cable or wirelessly.
- Video from a computer: not published by the manufacturer
- AudioBuilt-in sound. Matters most where somebody has to hear a remote expert while working.
- Built-in speakers
- MicrophoneBuilt-in microphone — the other half of talking to a remote expert.
- Yes
- MicrophonesHow many. An array picks a voice out of a noisy hall; one does not.
- Microphones: not published by the manufacturer
- Price bandThe band it sits in, rather than a price that goes stale.
- Price band: not published by the manufacturer
- Launch priceThe manufacturer's launch price. Fixed history, so it never goes stale.
- Launch price: not published by the manufacturer
- Price by configurationWhat each configuration cost at launch.
- Price by configuration: not published by the manufacturer
- Price todayApproximate current net price in USD — a general figure, since these barely differ between regions once tax is stripped out. A snapshot from the date shown, not an offer.
- Price today: not published by the manufacturer
- Comfort (from reviews)How it wears over a full session. Scored from agreement between independent reviewers, not from our own testing.
- Comfort (from reviews): not published by the manufacturer
- Edge clarity (from reviews)Sharpness away from the centre of the lens. Scored from agreement between independent reviewers.
- Edge clarity (from reviews): not published by the manufacturer
- Tracking reliability (from reviews)How tracking holds up in poor light and fast movement. Scored from agreement between independent reviewers.
- Tracking reliability (from reviews): not published by the manufacturer
- Hand tracking quality (from reviews)How usable controller-free hand tracking is in a training scenario. Scored from agreement between reviewers.
- Hand tracking quality (from reviews): not published by the manufacturer
Who this device is for
Organisations that cannot put a Meta or Google account into their training loop: defence, healthcare, public administration and industrial sites with a no-internet policy. Also anyone whose scenario genuinely needs peripheral vision, since 126 degrees horizontal with 80 degrees of overlap is well beyond the usual standalone.
What is missing, and what the manufacturer does not publish
Lynx's own site publishes optics, sensors, weight and the OS story but not resolution, refresh rate, chipset, RAM, battery or price, so most of the numbers here come from UploadVR and VRcompare rather than the manufacturer. The 128 GB storage figure, the 28 Wh pack and the two-hour battery life are aggregator figures we could not confirm on a Lynx page. Nothing is published about controllers being in the box, about a headphone jack, about MDM or kiosk mode, or about any IP or MIL certification. Since then the picture has changed decisively: Lynx's parent company went into judicial liquidation in March 2026 and EssilorLuxottica acquired the intellectual property, the code and most of the team, while the founder left for another company. The R2 has no announced future, and the order window Lynx stated in January was never opened.
Lynx R2 — frequently asked questions
- When can you actually buy a Lynx R2, and are there pre-orders?
- No pre-orders. After the R1, Lynx said it would skip crowdfunding and pre-orders entirely and sell the R2 only once units can ship, with summer 2026 as the target. The French reseller Komete XR already lists a Lynx R2 Enterprise Edition, but as sold out with no date and no price shown.
- Does the Lynx R2 work without a Google account or an internet connection?
- That is the whole point of the device. LynxOS is an Android fork built in France with no Google services and no integrated user tracking, and Lynx advertises full offline operation and GDPR compliance by design. For a closed site or a defence context that removes the account and telemetry problem, but it also means no Play Store distribution path for your content.
- Is the Lynx R2's 126-degree field of view worth it for VR training?
- It depends on whether your scenario uses peripheral vision. 126 degrees horizontal with 80 degrees of binocular overlap helps for situational awareness, spotting a moving hazard or working around a machine. It does not help you read: the same panels give 2312x2160 per eye and a peak of 24 pixels per degree, so small text stays soft and instructions need to be sized for it.
Compare this device
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The nearest devices in the same class, ranked by availability and launch price — not by our opinion of them.
Specifications checked against the manufacturer's page on 2026-08-08. Manufacturer's specification
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