Category: HTC Vive Focus Plus

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Vive Focus Plus Doesn’t Feel Quite Ready For Prime Time

Vive Focus Plus Hands-On

I got to HTC Vive’s booth at 10am on the first morning of Mobile World Congress. My first order of the day was an interview with General Manager Dan O’Brien, which took me to around 10:45am. Then I got my hands on HTC’s 5G demo, which used a Vive Focus Plus to stream PC VR. It was now 11am. The booth had been open for two hours. I was ready to go in search of more Focus Plus demos.

The problem is, they were all out of batteries. All three of them.

I had some pretty conflicting experiences with HTC’s new standalone headset at MWC. The trouble is it’s tough to know whether this speaks more to the quality of the headset or the difficulties of demoing inside-out tracking on a busy show floor.

My 5G demo, for instance, seemed quite positive at first glance. As I wrote about in my preview earlier this week, streaming over HTC’s 5G hub added on some noticeable latency, but tracking overall seemed solid. The redesigned headset, meanwhile, was comfortable to wear. According to HTC, Focus Plus also features improved optics. It was hard to see much difference without the old model right next to me. It felt around the same quality as a Vive Pro, either way.

My experience was considerably worse in my other demo, though. Around 20 minutes after finding out all the headset’s batteries were flat I returned to find medical company SimforHealth with a fresh device. The company was showing a medical training app that teaches nurses to change dressings when in a patient’s home.

Things started off fine, as I busied myself teleporting around the house and gathering requested items. Focus Plus’ new six degrees of freedom (6DOF) controllers feel a little cheap compared to most other VR controllers. Tracking was occasionally wobbly, but usable. However, a short while into the piece things got inexplicably worse. I didn’t start to wobble so much as glide until I was in an entirely different part of the room. I started to wrestle with trying to stay in one place as I performed simple tasks like holding my hands out to wash them. This persisted on-and-off for about five minutes. Then the headset told it me had less than 15 percent of its battery left.

Having seen enough, I took the headset off perhaps to find the source of my woes. A SimforHealth representative was standing right in front of me, helpfully making sure no one bumped into me or that I didn’t walk into a wall. As appreciated as his help was, I’m this is likely what was causing havoc on the headset’s front-mounted sensors. A group of visitors huddled right next to me too. That surely didn’t help.

A reasonable explanation, perhaps, but it brings up legitimate concerns about Focus Plus. This is an enterprise headset. It’s likely to be used in situations where people are trying VR for the first time and need to be supervised just like I did. The tracking is much easier to confuse than that of the SteamVR base stations. If the Vive Focus Plus can’t handle an MWC show booth without being strictly monitored, is it really ready for prime time?

I’m also unconvinced that this needed to be a new headset. The original Focus launched in the west just three months ago. HTC had already engineered an add-on solution for the controllers. I had an interesting chat with O’Brien on the nature of the enterprise market this week. All the same, I can’t understand the reasoning for releasing an inferior headset such a short time ago when a better model was clearly already in the works.

The Vive Focus Plus is due to launch in Q2. We don’t have a price just yet. Seeing as the original Focus is $699, we don’t expect it to be cheap.

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HTC On Why It Sold Vive Pro To Gamers, Why Pro Eye Won’t Replace It

HTC On Why It Sold Vive Pro To Gamers, Why Pro Eye Won’t Replace It

HTC has a lot of new VR headsets. There’s much to learn about the Vive Cosmos, but there’s two new additions coming to the enterprise side too. The upcoming Vive Pro Eye improves on the first Pro with integrated eye-tracking, for example. Meanwhile, the newly-announced Vive Focus Plus succeeds a three-month-old headset with new six degrees of freedom (6DOF) controllers.

Despite surpassing their predecessors, though, neither of these headsets will be fully replacing them. Why is that?

I put that question to Vive General Manager Daniel O’Brien at MWC this week. He told me that it was down to the difference between consumer and enterprise markets. “It’s really about — when you’re talking about enterprise — it’s a very long lead sales times,” O’Brien said. “And you’re also talking about time that you need to service and you need to keep supporting those customers. They’ve built business cases around them, they’re going to deploy them, they’ll ramp in that new hardware when they’re ready to ramp it in.”

Having previously worked in HTC’s phone division, O’Brien said he understands how that may look to a consumer market. “You’ve got to give your customer enough time,” he added. “And sometimes that cycle can be 12 – 18 months. You’ve got to be very respectful of your customers and how they purchase products and not cause friction to their planning process or else you’re out of business.”

Speaking of the Pro, I also spoke to O’Brien about the decision to sell the kit to consumers too. When HTC introduced the Pro at CES 2018 it seemed marketed toward both consumers and businesses. When the hefty $799 price tag was later revealed (for just the headset), it became clear it was focused on the latter audience. The company caught a lot of flak for the price online. So why sell it to consumers at all?

“We just knew on the consumer side if we blocked them out of a higher resolution display and more comfortable headset, we were going to upset them,” O’Brien explained. “And we didn’t want to upset those customers.”

He told me that the company was selling “a lot” of Pros on the enterprise side. “I know it seemed confusing in the messaging, but we were just trying not to upset anyone,” he said.

Vive Pro Eye will be much the same case. Prosumers will be able to buy the headset when it launches in Q2, but it’s more built for business use than gaming. Instead, it’s Cosmos that will be HTC’s next consumer-focused VR headset. The device is due to launch this year. HTC remained tight-lipped about it at MWC, however.

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Is the HTC Vive Family Already Too Bloated and Confusing?

We all love choice when it comes to our purchases. More of it makes us feel like we’re picking something unique to our tastes, even though most of it is mass produced and available to millions of consumers globally. However, in certain industries, choice breeds confusion, especially tech, where it can often be difficult to differentiate one product from another unless you’re particularly clued up from masses of research, or happen to have a Bachelor’s degree in engineering. Virtual reality (VR) is one technology that can do with being simple and straight forward, bringing new customers into the fold rather than scaring them away with baffling jargon. Oculus, for example, has kept things relatively modest, HTC Vive, on the other hand, has gone off the deep end.

HTC Vive Focus PlusBoth companies launched their high-end PC headsets within a week of each other in 2016, but since then have taken ever-widening paths. Currently, HTC offers the standard HTC Vive, the HTC Vive Pro – by itself or in starter kit form – the standalone HTC Vive Focus – a consumer headset in China, enterprise-focused in the west. And then there are the headsets still to be released this year. The HTC Vive Pro Eye (Q2 2019), the HTC Vive Focus Plus (Q2 2019) and then to top it all off the HTC Vive Cosmos (expected 2019).

The Cosmos’ introduction was quite possibly the most confusing yet. Revealed during CES 2019 in January, the headset looked to be a direct rival to Oculus Quest. With inside-out tracking and funky looking controllers, it seemed like a standalone device. Yet HTC muddied the waters by talking about modular design and releasing a trailer with a smartphone overlaid at one point. Only to then go and say the Vive Cosmos would, in fact, be tethered to a PC.

So at the very least – without any weird sales options (HTC Vive Pro McLaren Special Edition anyone?) – HTC Vive will have six head-mounted displays (HMD) available on the market by the end of 2019. Excellent, apart from the slight issue that even if I wanted to buy one I’d be scratching my head for a bit, let alone someone new to VR. Ok, so some of these are enterprise-focused devices that aren’t meant for the everyday consumer. It does all seem a little bit too much doesn’t it?

HTC Vive Pro McLarenFrom my point of view, it looks as though HTC Vive isn’t interested in stepping from generation one to gen-two, rather gently hopping over the lines between gen 1.5,1.6 and so on. Incremental steps that deliver devices with very little disparity. Much in the same way the smartphone industry has been for many a year – now we have folding phones, whoop!

Another issue that’s yet to raise its head is that of price, and therefore where a headset sits in the market. HTC Vive is the ecosystem’s entry-level HMD, retailing for $499USD/£499GBP. If any of the new tech comes in below that price then that effectively kills that headset. Should they all be more expensive most consumers will find Vive’s VR family too expensive.

Let’s look at HTC Vive’s main rival Oculus for a moment, shall we? Currently, there’s the Oculus Rift and Oculus Go (in 32GB and 64GB versions). While no official numbers have been released the Oculus Go seems to have been a massive success for the company. Plus there’s the Samsung Gear VR, whose time in the limelight is now fading. So two core products, with a third on its way, standalone headset Oculus Quest. Quest and Rift might be priced the same yet they offer enough difference to be fairly noticeable, plus they can be used by consumer and business alike. There’s no one device for this area and one device for here. By the way, companies such as Varjo and VRgineers already have ultra-high-end enterprise HMDs available.

HTC Vive CosmosAdditionally, HTC Vive’s old compatriot Valve is working on its own headset and those lovely looking Steam Knuckles controllers. So yay to choice.

Mostly, it just looks like HTC Vive wants to play every position on the playing field all at once, and that’s no use to anyone. There’s nothing wrong with its technology, the Vive Pro’s visuals look great, while the Vive Pro Eye’s eye tracking works a treat, and Steam’s room scale tracking is one of the best. It’s just somewhere in all of that the focus gets lost, and I just hope that trying too hard doesn’t negatively impact one of the most important company’s in VR.

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GDC 2019: HTC To Showcase Vive Hand Tracking And Road Map At Developer Day

GDC 2019: HTC To Showcase Vive Hand Tracking And Road Map At Developer Day

HTC’s Vive Ecosystem Conference is right around the corner but, before that, the company has big plans for GDC.

The company recently announced that it will host a Vive Developer Day at the event on Monday, March 18th. The event will consist of a full day of panels and workshops surrounding the Vive ecosystem. Most notably, HTC plans to lay out its 2019 roadmap for developers within a keynote talk. Hopefully that means we’ll get some more details about the company’s new consumer-focused headset, Vive Cosmos. We know it’s coming this year and that it can be powered by more than just a PC, but that’s about all we know.

Elsewhere you can expect talks on working with Viveport, HTC’s VR store, and working with standalone headsets. HTC just revealed its latest standalone VR headset, the Vive Focus Plus, at MWC. It’s more of an enterprise-focused device, though. Interestingly there will also be a talk on hand tracking, a feature we reported was on the way to Vive Pro some time ago.

That’s not all HTC has in store for GDC, though. Viveport is also sponsoring this year’s VR play area, which is open from March 20th – 22nd. Vive’s work in hand tracking will also be on display here as well as eye tracking (which can be seen in the upcoming HTC Vive Pro Eye). Finally, the company will announce the winners of the third annual Viveport Developer Awards on March 18th.

A busy show for HTC, then. In fact, we’re expecting this year’s GDC to be big for VR overall. We’re also hoping for more news on Oculus Quest and the rumored Oculus Rift S as well as new announcements from Valve.

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Vive Focus Streaming On 5G Is A Fun, Flawed Glimpse Of The Future

HTC Vive 5G Hub

If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard the term ‘5G’ in the past 48 hours. At MWC 2019 you were in constant earshot of someone telling you why it was the future. The same was true for the past two shows, mind you, but this year the buzzwords are actually materializing into something tangible. HTC Vive was one of the companies to prove that.

Vive was showing its newest headset, the Focus Plus, streaming content via its new 5G hub this week. HTC had its hub positioned at the top of a booth, much like you’d have a Vive base station. Locked away in a cupboard below was a huge box of wires that I was told simulated a real 5G network. To showcase its potential? What else other than Superhot VR?

Of course, all of this has to be taken at HTC’s word. They told me that, of all the companies at MWC, they were one of (if not the) only ones to be simulating a “real” 5G network. While others have Wifi networks specced to 5G standards, HTC bought equipment it says enabled a real 5G connection. They showed me a big box with lots of wires that they said was very expensive. Still, I have no way of knowing just how close that network gets to what 5G will really be like when it’s out in the wide world.

What I saw was a shaky foundation for something hugely promising. I was able to fight my way through Superhot’s first level on a standalone VR headset. The experience was streaming from a PC elsewhere on the booth. The very fact that any of it worked at all was kind of amazing. The idea that someone could have that experience by streaming off of a PC elsewhere in the world could drastically lower the barrier to entry for premium VR. Well, it could one day at least.

As great as it is, though, Superhot probably wasn’t the best choice of demo. It’s not the most visually-intensive PC VR game, for starters. You also can’t scrutinize tracking too much before getting a bullet in the head. But perhaps that was the point; when I played the game with the emergency it demanded everything largely worked well. Like many of you, I know Superhot’s levels like the back of my hand by now. I was shooting and punching my way through them just as I do on Rift, Vive or PSVR.

But it was when I slowed down and zeroed in on specific features that the cracks began to show. If I purposefully turned my head as fast as possible, I’d have a black screen for a split second before the experience caught up. If I made snap movements with my arms, I could notice the small amount of latency. At one point I spotted the visual fidelity drop down to a faintly fuzzy quality, much like when a YouTube or Netflix video dips in quality to keep the stream going. The hub’s position also didn’t allow for a full 360 degrees of tracking – turning away from it caused controllers to disappear.

I was told that’s more to do with environment than it is tech, though. If the hub had been positioned directly above me or I’d had a wall behind me it would have apparently worked with 360 degrees. Again, HTC’s words, not mine.

Again, none of this drastically affected my performance in the game. It just felt like I was playing something inferior to the native PC VR or even PSVR experience. The fact that Superhot is already running on Oculus Quest (and quite well, for that matter) suggests native experiences will still be the best way to experience standalone VR for the foreseeable future. There’s still work to be done and HTC knows that. We won’t know just how viable 5G VR streaming is until networks are finally supporting it but with

To quote every marketing executive in Barcelona right now, this demo was billed as an early glimpse of the future and in that respect I came away feeling positive. 5G might be where HTC’s Viveport subscription comes into its own. The idea of instantly jumping from one high-fidelity VR experience to another no matter where I am is exciting. We’re just not there quite yet.

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The HTC Vive Focus Plus is a new Enterprise Focused Headset Coming Q2 2019

HTC Vive’s standalone headset the Vive Focus has yet to see a release on western shores for the average consumer, only available for the business market. Now the headset will be superseded after only a short window of availability as the company has just announced a brand new version, the HTC Vive Focus Plus.

HTC Vive Focus Plus

HTC still isn’t aiming the new standalone device at consumers, solely focusing on the enterprise market with this redesign. Just like the original Vive Focus, the new headset will have everything built in and ready to go with one big exception. Instead of a 3 degrees of freedom (3DOF) controller, the Vive Focus Plus will include two 6DOF controllers.

These controllers are tracked using ultrasonic technology to greatly improve accuracy. Alongside the normal face buttons and trackpad, the controllers include an analogue trigger that gives users the ability to control objects or interactions with pressure-sensitive input.

Keeping with the original Vive Focus, the new HTC Vive Focus Plus is still powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile VR Platform with a single AMOLED display at 2,880 × 1,600 resolution. HTC has said visuals should still see an improvement with reduced ring effects thanks to all-new lenses, and the headset should be more comfortable as it’s been re-balanced to sit easier on users heads. In keeping with its enterprise led design, a new soft, easy-to-clean material has been fitted making it ideal for high-usage environments.

HTC Vive Focus Plus

“At Vive, the announcement of Vive Focus Plus furthers our commitment to rapidly iterate and refine the VR market for both businesses and consumers,” said Daniel O’Brien, General Manager Americas, HTC Vive in a statement. “This rollout of Vive Focus Plus leads the way for deeper immersion, more realistic training and simulation, and easier porting of experiences from PC to the stand-alone category.”

The HTC Vive Focus Plus will support the Vive Wave Platform with content coming from Viveport. Customers will have access to the new Viveport Infinity service, able to use a single account across their portfolio of VR devices when the service launches on 2nd April.

The headset will be available for purchase starting in Q2 2019, across 25 markets worldwide, supporting 19 languages. It’ll ship with several features designed to business including Kiosk Mode, Gaze Support, and device management tools to remotely enroll, monitor, and manage multiple headsets all at once. For further updates on the HTC Vive Focus Plus, keep reading VRFocus.

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HTC Vive Focus Plus: Neue autarke VR-Brille mit 6DOF-Controller

Werbung für Virtual Reality Hygiene

Bereits vor dem MWC 2019 gibt HTC bekannt, dass es eine Neuauflage der HTC Vive Focus geben wird. Die HTC Vive Focus Plus soll mit trackbaren Controllern ausgestattet werden und komplett autark arbeiten. Es wird also kein PC und auch kein Smartphone benötigt. Somit bringt HTC tatsächlich einen Konkurrent zur Oculus Quest auf den Markt.

HTC Vive Focus Plus: Neue autarke VR-Brille mit 6DOF-Controller

controllers1-1024x576

Zwar HTC bereits Controller für die Vive Focus vorgestellt, jedoch sollen die neuen Controller für die Focus Plus nicht mit der alten Vive Focus kompatibel sein. Technisch hat sich jedoch wenig verändert und auch die Focus Plus wird auf einen Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 setzen und ein 3K-Display beherbergen. Dafür soll sich zumindest der Komfort beim Tragen erhöht haben.

Die neuen Controller der Vive Focus werden mit Ultrasonic-Technologie arbeiten. Beim Ultrasonic-Tracking wird ein Geräusch in einer nicht hörbaren und sehr hohen Frequenz abgespielt. Durch eine Zeitmessung an den Empfängern kann die Position dann berechnet werden. HTC sagt, dass das Tracking einen Bereich von 180 Grad horizontal und 140 Grad vertikal mit einer sehr hohen Genauigkeiten abdecken soll.

Die Vive Focus Plus soll in 25 Ländern im zweiten Quartal 2019 erscheinen. Einen Preis gibt HTC noch nicht bekannt, jedoch kostete die Vive Focus zum Start 599 US-Dollar und musste ohne Controller auskommen.

Der Beitrag HTC Vive Focus Plus: Neue autarke VR-Brille mit 6DOF-Controller zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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HTC Vive Focus Plus Is A New Standalone Headset With 6DOF Controls And Improved Comfort

Vive Focus Plus HTC standalone

It’s time to meet yet another new member of the HTC Vive family. Say hello to the Vive Focus Plus.

Announced today ahead of next week’s Mobile World Congress, Vive Focus Plus is the next entry in HTC’s enterprise-level standalone headset series. It’s got everything you need to jump straight into VR, just like the original Vive Focus. You don’t need a phone, PC or even external sensors thanks to inside-out six degrees of freedom (6DOF) tracking. The biggest additions here, though, are the new 6DOF controllers.

The original Vive Focus came with one 3DOF controller that allowed you to point in VR. This pair of new controllers, first announced last year, let you reach into virtual worlds just like on the original HTC Vive. Unlike the first Vive, though, Focus Plus uses ultrasonic technology for tracking. The controllers also sport triggers, grip buttons, a trackpad and home and menu buttons. Like the newly-redesigned Oculus Touch controllers for Oculus Quest, the tracking ring runs over the top of the kit.

We went hands-on with the controllers last year and came away impressed.

HTC introduced these controllers as a developer kit for the original Focus. They shipped out to studios with a mount you needed to fit to your headset for tracking. However, HTC told UploadVR that it currently has no plans to bring the controllers to original Vive Focus owners.

“At this time, the new 6Dof controllers are not compatible with the Vive Focus,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “In working with our partners, they’ve expressed the need for both devices and we’re thrilled to offer a portfolio of standalone products which cater to different developer and company needs.”

The Vive Focus first arrived in China in 2017 but only released in the west in November 2018. That leaves just a three-month gap between Focus’ release and the announcement of this upgraded model.

Vive Focus Plus also improves comfort though you wouldn’t know by looking at it. At a glance it looks identical to the old model. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset powers the kit. That’s the same as the one seen in the original Focus. It’s also got a 3K display, which is what the original included, though HTC also says it has improved optics. It runs on HTC’s Vive Wave platform.

Vive Focus Plus will be launching in 25 countries in the second quarter of 2019. We don’t know how much it will cost yet. That said, the original Vive Focus cost $599 when it launched three months ago. Expect it to be higher than that.

Elsewhere, HTC is also set to release the Vive Pro Eye in Q2. Like the Focus Plus, it’s an upgrade to the original enterprise-level model that won’t replace it. Finally, the Vive Cosmos is also on the way this year. That’s a new consumer headset with 6DOF tracking of its own. We still have a lot to learn about it.

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