Chinese tech startup TPCAST started by designing a wireless solution for HTC Vive before turning its attention towards Oculus Rift. For CES 2019 the company has now revealed its second generation wireless solution, TPCAST Air, designed for multi-user industrial and enterprise VR applications.
With more companies looking towards location-based entertainment (LBE) and enterprise to make money for virtual reality (VR), TPCAST Air is primarily designed for multi-user applications.
Able to display PC VR applications wirelessly on standalone VR headsets by utilizing regular Wi-Fi networks, the solution is based on TPCAST’s real-time codec technology (RTCodec and RTCIP). Currently supporting headsets like Oculus Go, in the future TPCAST will add support for Oculus Quest.
Michael Liu, CEO of TPCAST, said in a statement: “TPCAST Air achieves our vision of TPCAST 2.0 – it provides wireless VR transmission in the short, medium and long-range distances. TPCAST Air for Enterprise combines the best of both worlds, which is the lightweight and low-cost standalone headset with the power of PC graphics. By that, it delivers lightweight mobility and high-performance rendering.”
Due to TPCAST Air’s ability to be used with standalone headsets, LBE and VR arcades won’t need backpack computers to achieve mobile VR, helping reduce capital and operational investment. And when you remove the need for backpack PC’s which can be difficult to set up and run, the whole system becomes easier to manage and run, plus there’s a nice reduction in cables.
TPCAST Air for Enterprise utilizes the same software infrastructure as Unreal Engine and Unity so there’s no lengthy migration process for developers. Plus, the system runs SteamVR and supports all SteamVR applications. Companies employing TPCAST Air will find the system is provided with an enterprise VR management suite that enables system administrators to manage multi-user solution easily, optimize the wireless performance and more.
TPCAST Air will be on display at CES 2019 all week. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.