Siemens and Sony claim immersive metaverse ‘breakthrough’
7 January 2025 
Siemens Digital Industries Software and Sony have announced a head-mounted display (HMD) for industrial metaverse applications, describing it as a “breakthrough” for immersive engineering. The XR HMD (SRH-S1) headset incorporates 4K OLED microdisplays, and a technology that allows real-time, high-definition and realistic rendering of 3D objects. It comes with a pair of controllers for precise pointing and interaction with the objects.
The head-mounted display is optimised for extended use, and designed with comfort and stability in mind. The $4,750 HMD and controllers are expected to start shipping in February.
“We embarked on this collaborative project with Sony to deliver the power of the industrial metaverse to our community of designers, engineers and manufacturers directly in our flagship product engineering software,” says Bob Haubrock, senior vice-president for product engineering software at Siemens Digital Industries Software. “Our collective teams have built a set of tools that revolutionise how mixed reality is used in the engineering space – to not only support global collaboration based on high-fidelity 3D models, but to enable co-creation directly on vital 3D CAD data in a managed, secure environment.”
Siemens has developed a set of immersive engineering tools to work with the headset. These are designed to bring the power of mixed reality to product engineering and manufacturing, enabling high-resolution mixed reality and 3D-focused collaboration. The tools include:
- NX Immersive Explorer, which allows designers and engineers to conduct informal design reviews and to collaborate using 3D CAD data derived from Siemens’ NX product engineering software.
- NX Immersive Designer, which takes advantage of the capabilities of the HMD to allow designers and engineers to interact, manipulate and collaborate around 3D product models, without needing additional preparation or software. The HMD’s ring and pointer controllers allow users to interact with objects and to manipulate 3D geometries. They can interact directly with product prototypes, NX commands and menus. The software supports augmented, mixed-reality environments to place virtual objects in the real world, conduct design sessions in a high-fidelity virtual design review space, and/or use large high-resolution virtual monitors to extend the virtual design session. Using another tool called NX Voice Command Assistant, designers and engineers can navigate multiple levels of menus and clicks by speaking keywords.
- NX Immersive Collaborator, which builds on the capabilities of the first two tools to allow organisations to take advantage of both co-located and remote design reviews with multiple participants. It uses Siemens’ cloud-enabled NX X design software to host collaborative and review sessions, with participants using local VR or desktop views.
The collaboration between Siemens and Sony was first announced at last year’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in the US. User feedback since then has been fed into the new system which was unveiled this week at the 2025 CES.
One of the early users has been the UK-based motorsport manufacturer BAC (Briggs Automotive Company), whose founder and head of design, Ian Briggs, reports that the immersive engineering technology has been helping BAC’s designers and engineers to “see, design and edit parts more easily with the unique controllers, enabling our customers to experience their car at human-scale before it is built, and helping stakeholders from production to collaborate easily with designers and engineers to validate parts before manufacturing”.
