With Viveport shedding the barriers between HTC Vive and Oculus Rift by offering greater support this week, today marks another event in the life of the HTC Vive, official wireless support. Pre-orders have now gone live for the Vive Wireless Adapter, helping remove the issue of cables once and for all.
This has by no means come as a surprise as HTC originally announced the news last month. While HTC Vive users have been able to go wireless for sometime thanks to TPCAST and its third-party adapter – helped in part by the Vive X Accelerator – the new Vive Wireless Adapter is the collaborative effort between HTC Vive, Intel and DisplayLink.
Supporting both HTC Vive and HTC Vive Pro – there are two different adapters – the system supports up to three units in a single-room-scale environment with a maximum play area of 6m x 6m (20ft x 20ft). The standard Vive Wireless Adapter retails for £299 (GBP) while the Pro version retails for £364 (this includes VIVE Pro clip for Wireless Adapter, foam cushion, and VIVE Pro short cable). The price for both kits includes a HTC QC3.0 PowerBank, if you’re after any more they cost £59.99.
The also comes with a PCI-e WiGig card as part of the connection setup, so a spare PCI-e slot is required to make the whole thing work.
After that it should be plain sailing to enjoy complete wireless gaming at home. VRFocus has demoed the Vive Wireless Adapter on a number of occasions, the most recent being Gamescom 2018 where Vertigo Games were using it to demo their latest project, Arizona Sunshine LB VR Edition.
While you can pre-order the Vive Wireless Adapter today shipments won’t begin until 24th September. For any further updates on the latest HTC Vive developments keep reading VRFocus.