HTC has teased that some users may not even need to wear their latest Vive Ultimate Trackers soon thanks to an upcoming AI-powered body tracking update.
HTC’s Vive Ultimate Trackers are capable of inside-out body tracking thanks to the inclusion of two on-board cameras that track its own position in space, requiring you to strap them to your elbows, feet, or hips for full-body tracking.
Now the company has shown off a video about how its Vive XR Elite headset, Face Tracker module, and Vive Ultimate Tracker pucks can be useful in physical therapy. In it, we get a look at a single Vive Tracker pointed at a user doing a sit-up, with the device placed on a nearby tripod, ostensibly making sure the user is executing the right moves.
“In addition, the incoming AI body tracking doesn’t require the patients to wear the trackers,” the company says in the video. “This will lead the rehabilitation experience to a new level.”
While it’s clear the update is being positioned for enterprise use, when the company first showed off is AI body tracking at GDC 2024 back in March the company said the new feature would service “VTube, Arcade, healthcare and more” with the OpenXR-supported device capable of tracking 26 joints, suggesting it will be broadly released as an integral software update.
As shown in the GDC 2024 demo, it seems to be primarily targeting non-VR use cases, working essentially like a webcam attached to an AI pipeline. We’ve reached out to HTC for more clarity on when/how the update will work, so check back soon.
Released in late 2023, the $200 Vive Ultimate Trackers are the company’s first to make use of inside-out optical tracking, departing from the SteamVR base station ecosystem that drives its various PC VR headsets and Vive Tracker 3.0 released in 2021.
Thanks to Antony ‘SkarredGhost‘ Vitillo for pointing us to the news.
HTC has teased that some users may not even need to wear their latest Vive Ultimate Trackers soon thanks to an upcoming AI-powered body tracking update.
HTC’s Vive Ultimate Trackers are capable of inside-out body tracking thanks to the inclusion of two on-board cameras that track its own position in space, requiring you to strap them to your elbows, feet, or hips for full-body tracking.
Now the company has shown off a video about how its Vive XR Elite headset, Face Tracker module, and Vive Ultimate Tracker pucks can be useful in physical therapy. In it, we get a look at a single Vive Tracker pointed at a user doing a sit-up, with the device placed on a nearby tripod, ostensibly making sure the user is executing the right moves.
“In addition, the incoming AI body tracking doesn’t require the patients to wear the trackers,” the company says in the video. “This will lead the rehabilitation experience to a new level.”
While it’s clear the update is being positioned for enterprise use, when the company first showed off is AI body tracking at GDC 2024 back in March the company said the new feature would service “VTube, Arcade, healthcare and more” with the OpenXR-supported device capable of tracking 26 joints, suggesting it will be broadly released as an integral software update.
As shown in the GDC 2024 demo, it seems to be primarily targeting non-VR use cases, working essentially like a webcam attached to an AI pipeline. We’ve reached out to HTC for more clarity on when/how the update will work, so check back soon.
Released in late 2023, the $200 Vive Ultimate Trackers are the company’s first to make use of inside-out optical tracking, departing from the SteamVR base station ecosystem that drives its various PC VR headsets and Vive Tracker 3.0 released in 2021.
Thanks to Antony ‘SkarredGhost‘ Vitillo for pointing us to the news.
HTC is sweetening the pot for VR developers selling content on its VIVEPORT VR storefront, on both PC VR and its standalone Vive XR Elite headset.
HTC announced today that it will be increasing the revenue share of sales made on its Viveport VR platform to 90%. That means the developer keeps 90% of the revenue from apps bought on the platform while the platform keeps only 10%.
Other major XR app stores—like Meta’s Quest store and Valve’s Steam store—generally give developers a 70% revenue share, while keeping 30% for the platform.
HTC says the new revenue split will apply starting on April 1st to new apps sold on both the PC VR and Vive XR Elite versions of Viveport . Existing apps already on those stores will get the improved share for sales going back to March 1st. The company hasn’t announced how long it will honor the new share. We’ve reached out for more info.
HTC says it’s making the change for the benefit of developers and the critical role they play in the XR industry.
“Developers are the heartbeat of the XR ecosystem—when they thrive, the whole industry thrives,” said Joseph Lin, General Manager of Viveport. “That’s why we’re introducing a generous 90% revenue share on purchases of apps and games on the Viveport store for developers to accelerate their growth. By putting more resources directly into the hands of the creators, we’re ensuring Viveport is at the forefront of driving growth for the XR community.”
This isn’t the first time HTC has sweetened the deal for developers using Viveport. The company has temporarily boosted developer revenue at several points over the years, including giving developers 100% of revenue at the tail-end of 2020.
While Meta’s Quest app store takes a fairly common 30% share of revenue for app sales, the company has been criticized for taking the same amount from apps sold on its App Lab store, which hosts ‘unlisted’ apps which can’t be found by browsing the main Quest store. The company has similarly been criticized for the revenue share structure of its Horizon Worlds social VR app, which keeps nearly 50% of digital goods revenue sold through the app.
HTC is running a Vive Pro 2 bundle deal right now in the US that includes the Vive Wireless Adapter, which when purchased separately costs $350.
The deal lasts from now until August 30th, bringing the full bundle price to $1,400. On its own, Vive Pro 2 costs $800, which doesn’t include controllers or tracking base stations (or Vive Wireless Adapter).
Besides a VR-ready PC, the bundle includes everything you need to go wireless: Vive Pro 2 headset, wand-style controllers, SteamVR 2.0 tracking base stations, Vive Wireless Adapter, and all of the bits and bobs in between, like cables, power adapters, mounting kits, etc.
Check out the headset’s specs below:
Vive Pro 2 Specs
Resolution
2,448 x 2,448 (6.0MP) per-eye, LCD (2x)
Refresh Rate
90Hz, 120Hz
Lenses
Dual-element Fresnel
Field-of-view
120° horizontal
Optical Adjustments
IPD, eye-relief
IPD Adjustment Range
57–72mm
Connectors
USB 3.0, DisplayPort 1.2, power
Cable Length
5m (breakout box)
Tracking
SteamVR Tracking 1.0 or 2.0 (external beacons)
On-board cameras
2x RGB
Input
Vive wand controllers, rechargable battery
Audio
On-ear headphones, USB-C audio output
Microphone
Dual microphone
Pass-through view
Yes
Granted, Vive Pro 2 still isn’t the most economical way to get into VR, although if you’re looking for a well-balanced PC VR headset with a better than average display, Vive Pro 2 is a pretty good choice.
Before you buy though, make sure to check out our full review of Vive Pro 2 where we stack it up next to Valve Index and HP Reverb G2, SteamVR headsets that most PC VR users look to first. In short, Vive Pro 2 doesn’t have the FOV of Index, or the clarity of Reverb G2, but it’s comfortable, includes a good slate of ergonomic adjustments, and has pretty great audio, albeit on-ear and not off-ear.
Still, it’s hard to argue with out-of-the-box wireless and the ability to readily bring either Vive or Tundra trackers into the mix—just the thing to launch your VRChat dance battles to the next level.
You can find the deal over on HTC’s website, which lasts from now until August 30th.
With three versions of SteamVR trackers under its belt, HTC has been a leading enabler of full-body tracking in VR. Now the company’s latest tracker could make it even easier to bring your body into VR.
HTC’s new standalone Vive tracker (still unnamed) has a straightforward goal: work like the company’s existing trackers, but easier and on more platforms.
The ‘easier’ part comes thanks to inside-out tracking—using on-board cameras to allow the device to track its own position, rather than external beacons like those used by the company’s prior trackers.
Photo by Road to VR
To that end, things seem really promising so far. I got to demo the new Vive tracker at GDC 2023 this week and was impressed with how well everything went.
Photo by Road to VR
With two of the new Vive trackers strapped to my feet, I donned a Vive XR Elite headset and jumped into a soccer game. When I looked down at my feet, I saw a pair of virtual soccer shoes. And when I moved my feet in real-life, the soccer shoes moved at the same time. It took less than two seconds for my mind to say ‘hey those are my feet!’, and that’s a testament to both the accuracy and latency being very solid with the new tracker.
That’s not a big deal for older trackers that use SteamVR Tracking, which has long been considered the gold standard for VR tracking. But to replicate a similar level of performance in a completely self-contained device that’s small and robust enough to be worn on your feet… that’s a big deal for those who crave the added immersion that comes with bringing more of your body into VR.
Throughout the course of my demo, my feet were always where I expected to see them. I saw no strange spasms or freezing in place, no desync of coordinate planes between the tracker and the headset, and no drifting of the angle of my feet. That allowed me to easily forget that I was wearing anything special on my feet and simply focus on tracking to kick soccer balls into a goal.
While the tracker worked well throughout, the demo had an odd caveat—I had feet but no legs! That makes it kind of weird to try to juggle a soccer ball when you expect to be able to use your shin as a backboard but watch as the ball rolls right over your virtual foot.
Ostensibly this is the very thing that trackers like this should be able to fix; by attaching two more trackers to my knees, I should be able to have a nearly complete representation of my leg movements in VR, making experiences like ‘soccer in VR’ possible when they simply wouldn’t work otherwise.
I’m not sure if the demo app simply wasn’t designed to handle additional tracking points on the knees, or if the trackers are currently limited to just two, but HTC has confirmed the final inside-out Vive tracker will support up to five trackers in addition to the tracked headset and controllers.
Trackers can, of course, be used to track more than just your body, though apps that support these kinds of tracked accessories are rare | Photo by Road to VR
So the inside-out factor is the ‘easier’ part, but what about the other goal of the tracker—to be available on more platforms than just SteamVR Tracking?
Well, the demo I was playing was actually running purely on the standalone Vive XR Elite. To connect the trackers, a small USB-C dongle needs to be connected to the headset to facilitate the proprietary wireless connection between the dongle and the trackers. HTC says the same dongle can plug into a PC and the trackers will work just fine through SteamVR.
The company also says it’s committed to making the trackers OpenXR compatible, which means (in theory) any headset could support them if they wanted.
– – — – –
I only got to use it in one configuration (on my feet) and in one environment (a large office space). So there’s still the question of how robust they will be. For now though, I’m suitably impressed.
If these trackers really work as well as they seem from their first impression, it could open the door to a new wave of people experiencing the added immersion of full-body tracking in VR… but there’s still the lingering question of price, which historically never seems to be quite right consumer VR market when it comes to HTC. Until then, our fingers shall remain crossed.
HTC teased a self-tracking Vive Tracker that doesn’t need base stations.
Vive Trackers are used by businesses in bespoke VR software to track real-world objects, and by VRChat users to track body parts such as their torso, eblow, legs, and feet.
The current Vive Tracker 3.0 shipped in 2021. It’s priced at $130 but requires SteamVR Tracking base stations, available from $135 each.
The new ‘Self-Tracking Tracker’ is set to launch in Q3 of this year. It has two wide field of view cameras and an onboard processor to perform inside-out positional tracking, like a Quest Pro controller without any buttons, triggers, haptics, or sticks. This means it doesn’t need base stations nor to be within view of a headset’s cameras.
It will connect to a specific USB-C dongle, which HTC says will support up to 5 trackers at once. It will support the OpenXR standard, so won’t require a HTC headset.
HTC claims it weighs under 100 grams and is approximately 50% smaller than Vive Tracker 3.0. However, it won’t replace Vive Tracker 3.0 – it will be sold alongside it. Typically camera-based inside-out tracking doesn’t work well in plain rooms with no high-contrast features or in low light, while base stations work in almost any environment.
Like previous Vive Trackers, it will support standard 1/4” threaded screw mounting, the same used by cameras and speakers. There’s also a new magnetically-attaching clip mount, and HTC says it will release the CAD files so people can 3D print their own mounts.
HTC says the Self-Tracking Tracker is still in the development phase and didn’t announce a price.
HTC launched the Vive Flow Business Edition this week, an enterprise version of its lightweight immersive viewer headset.
As we covered in our review, Flow is the lightest VR headset on the Western market at just 189 grams. However, it’s a device with fairly niche use cases and some major caveats.
Flow is controlled by your phone as a rotational laser pointer, but that’s obviously not ideal for business use cases so HTC is now selling an optional $59 controller. The controller isn’t positionally tracked either though, it also just acts as a laser pointer. HTC says the controller can also be purchased by consumers.
Importantly, Flow is a tethered headset — to use the headset, it needs to connect to a USB power source. Flow only supports a very small and specific list of Android phones, with no iPhone or laptop support.
The Business Edition also comes with a two-year commercial warranty and an expedited return and replacement system, if needed. On the software side, there’s also ‘Kiosk Mode’ — this allows content to be queued or started remotely, on behalf of the user, and prevents accidentally closure of an experience.
HTC announced this week it is making available an OpenXR public beta for the Vive Focus 3. OpenXR is designed to make it easier for developers to create a single app that’s cross-compatible with multiple OpenXR-supporting headsets.
OpenXR is a royalty-free standard that aims to standardize the development of XR applications, making hardware and software more interoperable. In the best case scenario, an app built to be compliant with OpenXR can run on any OpenXR-supporting headset with no changes to its underlying code.
And now HTC’s latest enterprise-focused standalone headset, Vive Focus 3, has moved significantly closer to the finish line. The company announced this week that it’s ready for developers to test out the headset’s OpenXR support through a public beta.
“We’re committed to enabling the developer community to build the content and applications that power experiences across the spectrum of reality,” said Dario Laverde, Director of Developer Relations at HTC Vive. “With OpenXR, more developers will be able to bring their content to Vive Focus 3, and users will benefit from an expanded app library and more flexibility in terms of how they consume content. We strongly believe it’s a win for the XR industry as a whole.”
Now that doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to buy Quest applications and run them on Vive Focus 3… but it does mean that developers should have a much easier time porting their apps to run on Vive Focus 3, if they choose to offer their apps on the headset.
Developers interested in using OpenXR on Vive Focus 3 can find instructions for joining the public beta and using the standard in Unity at HTC’s developer forum.
HTC’s Vive Focus 3 standalone headset now has beta support for OpenXR content.
OpenXR is the open standard API for VR and AR development. It was developed by Khronos, the same non-profit industry consortium managing OpenGL. OpenXR includes all the major companies in the space such as Meta, Sony, Valve, Microsoft, HTC, NVIDIA, and AMD – but notably not Apple. It officially released in 2019.
The promise of OpenXR is to let developers build apps that can run on any headset without having to specifically add support by integrating proprietary SDKs. Developers still need to compile separate builds for different operating systems, but all current standalone VR headsets use Android.
Last year Meta deprecated its proprietary Oculus SDK in favor of OpenXR, so Vive Focus 3’s support for OpenXR should make it easier for Quest apps to be ported. HTC still only markets the headset to businesses though – the $1299 price includes a two year business license, extended warranty, and priority support.
There are still barriers to releasing VR apps to other stores however. Platform level APIs like friend invites, parties, leaderboards, cloud saves, and avatars still differ. Porting involves a lot more work than the ideal of OpenXR may suggest.
This week on the VR Gamescast we’re talking Minecraft mods on Quest and that Viverse trailer. You know the one.
Join us at 5pm UK/12pm ET/9am PT!
Harry and Jamie are back in the Upload Studio to break down the week’s news and previews. Kicking things off, we dissect that strange and really rather awful Viveverse trailer from HTC and try to make some sense of it. Do we really want to buy virtual cat art? And how the heck are you meant to taste virtual wine?
Elsewhere we’ve got the latest headlines. There’s more VR mod madness in the form of Minecraft: Java Edition coming unofficially to Quest and a teaser for the Cyberpunk 2077 VR mod. Plus we dive into the news that Coatsink is working on a PSVR 2 launch title, discussing what it could possible be. Finally there’s the full reveal of After The Fall’s Frontrunner season. Is it enough to satisfy fans and bring other players back into the fold?
Over in the impressions, we’ve played the Steam Next Fest demo of Green Hell VR. Is the jungle-set survival game living up to its potential? Jamie gives his thoughts.
The VR Gamescast comes your way every week, usually at 5pm UK/12pm ET/9am PT on a Thursday. Make sure to join the premiered video on YouTube, or head to a podcast service of your choice to listen to the audio version. We’ll see you next week!
