Open Source Hack Lets The Razer Nari Headset Work With Linux

October 21, 2025 by Lewin Day 20 Comments

The Razer Nari is a decent wireless headset, but it’s a little oddball—because it uses a bespoke USB dongle for pairing. This is all well and good if you’re using a supported configuration; plug it into a Windows PC, run the utility, and you’re good to go. If you’re a Linux user, though, you were out of luck—but [JJ] has just solved that problem.

The tool was created by reverse engineering the pairing protocol used by Razer’s own proprietary software. [JJ] figured out the necessary pairing command, and how to send it to both the dongle and the headset. The headset itself must be connected by a USB cable when initiating the pairing process.

[JJ] believes the tool should work with any Razer Nari and dongle variant. However, the Nari Ultimate and Nari Essential models are yet to be tested, with verification still required. However, the pairing commands were extracted from Razer’s own tool and don’t appear to differ so it should probably work across the board. Setup is still a little fussy, particularly to get both the Game Audio and Chat Audio outputs working under Linux. However, [JJ] has helpfully provided the necessary detail to get everything up and running with PulseAudio and PipeWire setups.

Proprietary hardware can be frustrating to work with at times, but that’s never stopped hackers from reverse engineering their way to success before. If you’ve got your own projects in this vein, don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline!

3D Printing A Cheap VR Headset

October 4, 2025 by Lewin Day 22 Comments

The modern era of virtual reality really kicked off in earnest just over a decade ago, when the Oculus Rift promised 3D worlds beyond your wildest dreams. Since then, nobody’s been able to come up with a killer app to convince even a mild fraction of consumers to engage with the technology. Still, if you’re keen to tinker, you might like to make your own headset like [CNCDan] has done.

The build is based almost entirely on 3D-printed components and parts sourced from AliExpress. It offers 2880x1440p resolution, thanks to a pair of square 1440×1440 LCD displays, one for each eye, paired with a couple of 34 mm lenses. The headset has adjustable interpupiliary distance so you can dial the view in to properly suit your eyes. The 3D-printed housing is designed to be compatible with headrest pads from the HTC Vive Pro for comfort’s sake. Head tracking is also available, with the inclusion of an IMU and an Arduino onboard. [CNCDan] apparently put the build together for under $150, which is not bad compared to the price of a commercial off-the-shelf unit. Files are on Github for the curious.

[CNCDan] reports good results with the DIY headset, using it primarily with his racing simulator setup. He has had some issues, however, with his LCD screens, which don’t properly run at a 90 Hz refresh rate at full resolution, which is frustrating. It’s an issue he’s still looking into. We’ve seen some other neat VR builds over the years, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “3D Printing A Cheap VR Headset” →

VR Headset With Custom Face Fitting Gets Even More Custom

September 28, 2024 by Donald Papp 7 Comments

The Bigscreen Beyond is a small and lightweight VR headset that in part achieves its small size and weight by requiring custom fitting based on a facial scan. [Val’s Virtuals] managed to improve fitment even more by redesigning a facial interface and using a 3D scan of one’s own head to fine-tune the result even further. The new designs distribute weight more evenly while also providing an optional flip-up connection.

It may be true that only a minority of people own a Bigscreen Beyond headset, and even fewer of them are willing to DIY their own custom facial interface. But [Val]’s workflow and directions for using Blender to combine a 3D scan of one’s face with his redesigned parts to create a custom-fitted, foam-lined facial interface is good reading, and worth keeping in mind for anyone who designs wearables that could benefit from custom fitting. It’s all spelled out in the project’s documentation — look for the .txt file among the 3D models.

We’ve seen a variety of DIY approaches to VR hardware, from nearly scratch-built headsets to lens experiments, and one thing that’s clear is that better comfort is always an improvement. With newer iPhones able to do 3D scanning and 1:1 scale scanning in general becoming more accessible, we have a feeling we’re going to see more of this DIY approach to ultra-customization.

Hackaday Links: February 18, 2024

February 18, 2024 by Dan Maloney 17 Comments

So it turns out that walking around with $4,000 worth of hardware on your head isn’t quite the peak technology experience that some people thought it would be. We’re talking about the recently released Apple Vision Pro headset, which early adopters are lining up in droves to return. Complaints run the gamut from totally foreseeable episodes of motion sickness to neck pain from supporting the heavy headset. Any eyeglass wearer can certainly attest to even lightweight frames and lenses becoming a burden by the end of the day. We can’t imagine what it would be like to wear a headset like that all day. Ergonomic woes aside, some people are feeling buyer’s remorse thanks to a lack of apps that do anything to justify the hefty price tag. The evidence for a wave of returns is mostly gleaned from social media posts, so it has to be taken with a grain of salt. We wouldn’t expect Apple to be too forthcoming with official return figures, though, so the ultimate proof of uptake will probably be how often you spot one in the wild. Apart from a few cities and only for the next few weeks, we suspect sightings will be few and far between.

Continue reading “Hackaday Links: February 18, 2024” →

Why VR As Monitor Replacement Is Likely To Be Terrible For A While Yet

August 9, 2023 by Donald Papp 26 Comments

Putting on a headset and using virtual monitors in VR instead of physical ones is a use case that pops up, but is it really something feasible? [Karl Guttag], who has long experience and a deep understanding of the technical challenges that face such devices, doesn’t seem to think so.

In his writeup [Karl] often focuses on the recently-unveiled high resolution Apple Vision Pro, but the issues he discusses transcend any particular product. His article is worth the read for anyone with an interest in these issues, but we’ll summarize some main points here. Continue reading “Why VR As Monitor Replacement Is Likely To Be Terrible For A While Yet” →

Making Your Own VR Headset? Consider This DIY Lens Design

August 1, 2023 by Donald Papp 11 Comments

Lenses are a necessary part of any head-mounted display, but unfortunately, they aren’t always easy to source. Taking them out of an existing headset is one option, but one may wish for a more customized approach, and that’s where [WalkerDev]’s homebrewed “pancake” lenses might come in handy.

Engineering is all about trade-offs, and that’s especially true in VR headset design. Pancake lenses are compact units that rely on polarization to bounce light around internally, resulting in a very compact assembly at the cost of relatively poor light efficiency. That compactness is what [WalkerDev] found attractive, and in the process discovered that stacking two different Fresnel lenses and putting them in a 3D printed housing yielded a very compact pancake-like unit that gave encouraging results.

This project is still in development, and while the original lens assembly is detailed in this build log, there are some potential improvements to be made, so stay tuned if you’re interested in using this design. A DIY headset doesn’t mean you also must DIY the lenses entirely from scratch, and this option seems economical enough to warrant following up.

Want to experiment with mixing and matching optics on your own? Not only has [WalkerDev]’s project shown that off-the-shelf Fresnel lenses can be put to use, it’s in a way good news that phone-based VR is dead. Google shipped over 10 million cardboard headsets and Gear VR sold over 5 million units, which means there are a whole lot of lenses in empty headsets laying around, waiting to be harvested and repurposed.

Closing In On A PC Enabled PSVR2

July 23, 2023 by Donald Papp 25 Comments

When the PlayStation VR2 headset was released, people wondered whether it would be possible to get the headset to work as a PC VR headset. That would mean being able to plug it into a PC and have it work as a VR headset, instead of it only working on a PS5 as Sony intended.

Enthusiasts were initially skeptical and at times despondent about the prospects, but developer [iVRy]’s efforts recently had a breakthrough. A PC-compatible VR2 is looking more likely to happen.

So far [iVRy] is claiming they have 6 DOF SLAM (Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping), Prox sensor, and stereo camera data.

Most of the juicy bits are paywalled behind [iVRy]’s Patreon. We’re hoping the jailbreak process will eventually be open-sourced.

The PS VR2 headset is quite unlike a PC VR headset in a number of ways, and it has not been historically easy to work with Sony’s products from a reverse-engineering perspective, whether it’s an attempt to improve the user experience of an annoying headset, or an attempt to understand the not-even-remotely-sanely-designed protocols behind the Sony Memory Stick. Getting the PS VR2 headset to work in a way it wasn’t intended was expected to be an uphill battle.

It’s not a finished job, but judging by the progress regularly shared on [iVRy]’s Twitter account, it might only be a matter of time.