@Troll on a good day…
(sorry mate - couldn’t resist) 
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Im still trying to picture you trudging through that early May snow to get your raindeer leather.
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The math of aging.
The older you get, the more birthdays you celebrate. More birthdays, more birthday gifts. Every tenth birthday is evidently considered as special and there’s usually a bigger party with even more gifts. 
I turned 50 this summer, and had a fantastic party with a bunch of friends and family. I got a lot of cool gifts as well. One was a gift card that I used to buy the Apple AirPods Max headset with. My old Bose QC 35 started acting up and sending horribly loud screeching noises all of a sudden, so I needed a new active noise cancelling headset.
I really like the AirPods Max and the noise cancelling is absolutely fantastic. It also has a sound enhancement mode, meaning I can wear the headset and listen to music, but the noise cancelling system pics up on external sounds instead of cancelling them.
I thought this would be a nice feature in VR, as I have been scared 
-less when someone comes up to me and breaks my immersion. With the sound enhancement I can now hear them approaching or calling me, while still hearing the VR game on full volume.
It’s like using external speakers blasting at full volume, but the rest of the family can’t hear any of it and they can address me in a normal voice which comes through all the mayhem, clear as a bell. 
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cool stuff! and all the best (to your b-day)! 
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That’s pretty cool. I had no idea Apple even made a headset like that. I love the Airpod Pros (or whatever they’re called, I can’t keep up with the models anymore) my wife got me for Christmas way more than I ever imagined I would.
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Nice mini review Troll. I’ve got the AirPods Max to filter second and third row chaos during long drives with the family. If I detect someone yelling at me, as in “Dad! The truck next to us is on fire!*”, a simple touch of a button instantly redirects my focus from the latest zombie apocalypse novel on Audible.
I hadn’t thought to use them with a VR headset, but that makes perfect sense.
Disaster avoided
We were driving on the Riverside Frwy (91) from Redlands to Manhattan Beach during the 6AM rush hour, when my kids started yelling. To my left, I saw a flatbed truck pulling a trailer with a medium sized tractor and backhoe passing us at a pretty high rate of speed. The trailer’s axle was on fire, spewing lava-like chunks from its core onto the freeway. I began blowing the horn and waving frantically to get the passenger’s attention. Fortunately for everyone around, the driver began slowing and moving gradually to the side of the road, before the whole thing began a swirling mess of carnage.
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The Varjo Aero is finally getting Motion Prediction, which is Varjos take on making extra frames to boost the smoothness of the image rendering.
VR Flighsimguy got invited to Varjo HQ to test it…
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Okay, so I’ve watched this guy’s stuff off/on long enough such that my filter is active…but, I may be able to justify this one IF it’s built well enough to last me several years.
Rationalizer: ON
I mean, hey, I bought the wife a quality car that costs as much as my first HOUSE!, cus I figure it will be hassle-free, within reason, for at least 15 years (my usual auto purchase interval). Been doing well with that methodology so far (my truck’s 20th is coming up soo). So, maybe…
Need to see if there’s any issues with connecting it; display port vs USB; compatible with my 3080ti, etc.
Kinda reminds me of burgers (a USA thing): I can still get a fast-food hamburger the size and quality I did in high school - it just costs $10 bucks now, not $1.50.
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How are you getting along with the AERO lately?
Quite well…
I mean, the usual VR caveats apply and I had to stop thinking about the pricetag.
It works really well, but I have missed the ability to have reprojection, so very excited about that.
I like the Varjo gang. Quite active with us gaming users too.
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Good to hear.
Now the important bit. How does one pronounce “Varjo”?
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varjously I would guess 
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As an Australian it would be Var-Jo with a hard J. I speak a bit of Spanish so it could be Va-Ho with a soft H, I have spent a bit of time in Sweden so it could be Vah-Yo with a soft Y… But I speak zero Finnish, so ???
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Var-no lol
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Varjo means shade or shadow, in finnish.
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Black Friday deal coming for Varjo Aero!
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I am a bit surprised there is not much news when it comes to new VR hesdsets that would be above Reverb G2 category (resolution wise). Something might be coming up (Cristal, Somnium) but the rest of the new kids on the block is rather uninspiring.
This is leaving Varjo as the king of simming VR headsets, I’d say.
So what do you say @Troll after more than one year of using Varjo? Are you happy about it? Would you buy it again? How did it evolve over the last year? How is the Motion Prediction? …?
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Well, I bought the Aero at release because I felt that I wanted to be on the cutting edge, for once, instead of waiting and seeing what was next… As it happens, it turned out to be a good decision, for the reasons you mention. Nobody has the Aero beat, yet.
But when it comes to hardware, you never know what’s around the corner.
Varjo, as a company, have adapted to gamers and flightsimmers in a good way. They were used to a strictly professional customer base (and a few very enthusiastic private users). But they have managed the transition, or should I say addition, very well. Interaction with the non-pro users is mostly handled on their Discord channel. Not my favourite comms tool, but it works. They have a good beta test and release cycle going, although it took them a while to set it up.
As I have stated before, the Aero is all about resolution and lenses. The image looks great, no doubt about that. But the FoV is rather narrow. The headband comfort isn’t made for me, but I have managed to find settings that work but I needed counterweights.
The VR experience is better now than a year ago and when I used the G2. Some of that is due to OpenXR, no doubt. The G2 worked very well, when you got it to work. There were some connectivity and power issues, and problems which probably came from WMR to SteamVR interactions. I’ve had no such issues with the Aero, but that could also be because it didn’t have motion prediction, which I suspect has been the problem with the G2 (WMR) and SteamVR.
Motion smoothing (prediction) has been enabled now and is still developing at a rapid pace, is all I want to say about that, since I am testing the betas
Would I buy it again? Knowing what I know today, definitely yes. But today, over a year later, the competition is gearing up… How much longer and how will they score, remains to be seen. Knowing when to go all in is part of the gamble. 
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Thanks for a thorough recap. It looks like it is a great piece of HW.
I am OK with my G2 for the moment but would not mind a bit more resolution, better lenses and higher FOV. I’d expect the competition to be there already as opposed around the corner but yeah, that’s what we have
I am happy the Varjo works well for you
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