HTC recently said that it will host an online Vive event next week, but has only teased minimal hints about what it plans to announce. Regulatory filings spotted by Road to VR suggest a new standalone HTC Vive headset will be revealed.
It’s been less than five months since HTC launched its most recent VR headsets—the Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3—but it looks like they’ve got another up their sleeve.
Just ahead of next week’s HTC Vive event, a new “HTC Vive headset” has appeared in regulatory filings submitted by the company to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The FCC is tasked with certifying products with electromagnetic emissions to be safe and compatible with regulations. Products utilizing radio, WiFi, infrared, etc. need certification before they can be distributed for sale. Certification by the FCC marks one step closer to the launch of consumer electronics product.
The new headset is identified by the model number 2Q7Y100, which doesn’t match any known Vive headsets thus released. Although the company has requested confidentiality of key filings which would clearly identify the headset, there’s some clues in the available information which point toward a standalone headset.
For one, the device’s FCC label—which all consumer electronics devices are required to have—is an ‘e-label’, which means instead of being printed on the device it’s accessible through the device’s software. Specifically, the user can access the FCC label by going to Settings → About → Regulatory Information. In fact, this is the same labeling approach that HTC’s Vive Focus 3 uses.
Further supporting the likelihood of this new Vive headset being standalone is documentation detailing Wi-Fi test reports which measure to ensure that the device’s Wi-Fi broadcasts are within the legal ranges. It appears the device uses a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) radio. Most dedicated PC VR headsets use some form of Bluetooth for controller connectivity, but none of them use Wi-Fi.
HTC has kept its teasing for next week’s event pretty minimal thus far. The company has been using the phrase, “Go with the Flow,” (notable emphasis on “Flow” as a proper noun), in its promotions which have included photos with a cylindrical case of some sort. Ostensibly the headset will be small enough to fit inside the case, which would suggest a headset much more compact than most of what’s on the market today (if the scale of the photoshopped images can be trusted, anyway).
That certainly falls in line with the Vive Proton headsets that the company initially teased way back in early 2020; though they haven’t talked about them much since. If this new standalone is based on Proton, the headset seems likely to have been rebranded to Vive Flow, which the company trademarked in late August.
A pretty attractive new HTC deal bundles the Vive Wireless Adapter in the Cosmos Elite headset in the UK just ahead of the company’s Vive Flow announcement.
The deal, live from today on the Vive website until October 14, applies to the full Cosmos Elite package only, and not the headset-only option. We also don’t see the deal listed in the US yet but will update this article if that happens. The overall package gets you the headset, two Vive wands and 2 SteamVR base stations as well as the Wireless Adapter for £899. Usually the adapter is a hefty £359 itself, so you’re saving quite a lot there even if the headset itself is pretty expensive.
The Elite version of the Cosmos swaps out the base version’s inside-out tracking for the more reliable Lighthouse system from Valve. It’s essentially an upgraded version of the original Vive, though it’s also a step behind the recently-released (and even more expensive) Vive Pro 2 on the specs front.
Still, if you’ve been looking for a wireless PC VR setup and don’t want Facebook’s Oculus Quest — which has a built-in PC VR streaming option — then this could be a good choice. We reviewed the setup back in 2018 with a Vive Pro, which we thought offered a great but expensive experience. The Elite version of the Cosmos, meanwhile, was a solid upgrade, if not enough to make a real dent in the PC market.
It’s possible HTC is trying to sell off adapters and Cosmos units before its announcement later this month. The company’s teased an event for October 14 — the same day this deal ends — and we uncovered trademark filings for something called Vive Flow. Could Flow perhaps represent a new wireless solution? Or does HTC have other plans?
HTC is gearing up to hold what seems to be a new product unveiling on October 14th, or just ahead of Facebook Connect on the 28th of that month. The company says we’ll be hearing about some “big news in a small package.”
HTC announced the event on Twitter, saying it will take place on October 14th at 11 AM ET (local time here) in the company’s online event space, which is hosted by social VR platform Engage.
There’s still little indication what it might be, although we have some ideas. In February 2020, the company showed off a concept XR headset called Vive Proton, which was touted as a small form-factor device in the making, albeit in its early stages.
Image courtesy HTC
Presented in two flavors—a standalone model and a tethered model—it was suggested at the time that Vive Proton achieved its small form-factor via ‘pancake’-style optics, or the type we saw in the compact Pico VR Glasses prototype at CES 2020 right before in-person events were cancelled. Maybe a more refined version of the goggles fits into that thermos-looking thing as a protective charging case?
The company’s RSVP form for the event and tweet above also features a graphic with what appears to be the outside faceplate of Proton, although that may just be wishful thinking.
Image courtesy HTC
The graphic’s headline ‘Go with the Flow’ may hold a more concrete clue, as a new HTC trademark for a product called ‘VIVE FLOW’ was filed on August 26th, 2021, which refers to a “[h]ead mounted display for computer simulated reality, namely virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality.”
In any case, it’s a pretty safe bet that whatever HTC unveils it will be squarely targeted at prosumers and businesses, although we’re always happy to be wrong. There’s really only one way to find out though, and that’s to tune in on October 14th and see what HTC has in store.
HTC Vive is back at it with the announcement teases. The company is now hinting at a reveal next month in predictably cryptic ways.
The announcement takes place inside the Engage platform at 8am PT on October 14 and anyone can attend on VR platforms or flatscreen devices. HTC accompanied the news with an image (below) of… well we can’t quite tell what. It looks like a flask or Bluetooth speaker. Some have speculated it could be a case for some kind of foldable headset. There’s a little more to the story, though.
The sign-up page includes the message ‘Go with the Flow’. We’d take bets that the reveal is for something called ‘Vive Flow’, then. Vive China President Alvin Wang Graylin also teased the event will have “big news in a small package“.
Now, fair warning, this next one is a big bit of speculation on our part. Taking a look at the event key art, there are two shapes at the bottom that do look just a little like lenses, or perhaps even the front of the Project Proton concepts HTC revealed at the beginning of last year.
Proton was designed to be a lightweight headset powered either by a phone or onboard compute. Could that fit the message of something big in a small package? Or perhaps the company has something on the AR side to show?
But that’s just speculation. Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves just yet. HTC has already launched two VR headsets this year – the upgraded Vive Pro 2 for PC and the enterprise-focused Vive Focus 3 standalone headset. Though Pro 2 can be picked up by anyone, it’s still an expensive high-end device. Whatever the company announces next month — two weeks before the Facebook Connect conference — it’s likely to follow that high-end trend.
We’ll of course bring you the latest on the Vive announcement as soon as we can.
Looking for some free PC VR games to play on Quest? Viveport, HTC’s storefront for VR games and apps, is throwing out free promo codes to owners of Oculus Quest and Quest 2 which will let you play all of the games enrolled in its Infinity program for a whole month.
Viveport really has come a long way in the past few years by streamlining its interface and making it more attractive to developers financially so they’ll list their games there. To get more Quest users on board with Infinity, HTC is throwing out a limited-time promotion starting today to both new and existing Viveport Infinity members which lets you play for free for a month. The promo ends on August 30th, so make sure to act fast.
Right now there’s over 500 games available through Infinity that support Quest over link, some of which are definitely worth your time. Highlights include The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, Superhot VR, Moss, Until You Fall, Stride, I Expect You to Die, and Gun Club VR.
Viveport Infinity normally costs $13 per month when billed monthly, or $9 when billed annually—and typically includes a free 14-day trial. There’s no obligation to pay after the trial is up if you decide to opt-out. As it is, that’s a pretty great deal considering the list of titles on offer through the Infinity subscription service, but extra time never hurt.
Image courtesy HTC
To redeem, you’ll need to download and update the Viveport desktop app and connect your Quest to a USB 3.0 port or a Type-C port on your VR-capable computer. You should then see a pop-up message like the one above. The code, which you can redeem via the ‘Redeem Code’ dropdown in the app, must be used by December 31st, 2021, at 23:59pm PST, or it will expire.
If you don’t see the message above for whatever reason, or can’t because you’re using Air Link, you can also submit your Quest headset S/N (the 14-digit alphanumeric serial number) and your Viveport account email to Viveport Support to get the code.
Check out our hands-on with Viveport from 2019, a majority of which still rings true if you’re hesitant to download yet another store front on your PC. It’s a great way to play a good chunk of the top PC VR games, especially if you’re a ‘one and done’ type of gamer and rarely revisit games you’ve already beaten.
Is your PC capable of playing VR games? Check if your PC is VR ready and we’ll walk you through the process.
It’s also important to note that the Pro headsets listed in the sale are the older Pro models. The newer Pro 2 model was announced in May alongside the enterprise-focused HTC Vive Focus 3. Those newer headsets remain at full price, with the headset-only model of the Pro 2 available for £659 and the full Pro 2 kit available for £1299.
HTC’s new enterprise-focused standalone headset, the HTC Vive Focus 3, launches pre-orders this week.
The headset will be up on HTC’s official site on June 10 for and £1,272/€1,404 in Europe. We’ve asked HTC if this is the same date for the US, where the kit costs $1,300. HTC previously told us that it will sell the headset via some commercial channels so that smaller businesses can pick up the headset too, but no details on that today.
The Focus 3 is impressive on paper – it boasts Qualcomm’s XR2 platform just like the Oculus Quest 2 but also delivers 2.5K per-eye resolution and a 120-degree field of view. There’s also four-camera inside-out tracking and built-in audio. You can get a full spec rundown right here. But, while these specs may indeed be impressive, the headset is strictly aimed at business use – it will launch with an app store of generalized apps including Vive’s own B2B software, but don’t expect any games or entertainment experiences.
When we asked earlier this year, HTC declined to confirm if there will ever be a consumer version of the Vive Focus 3.
The news comes as the first shipments of the HTC Vive Pro 2 started arriving. The PC VR headset is aimed at both enterprise and high-end consumers. We’re hoping to have impressions of the device with you as soon as we can.
Three years after the original Vive Pro, HTC’s Vive Pro 2 is here. With a class-leading price, the “Pro” branded headset is clearly positioned to one-up its contemporaries. Unfortunately the headset’s performance doesn’t quite justify the Pro price.
Before we dive into the full review, here’s a recap of the headset’s specs:
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
HTC Vive Pro 2 Summary
Photo by Road to VR
As is tradition, our full review goes into significant depth, so we’ll start with a summary.
HTC’s Vive Pro 2 brings some serious specs that, on paper, make it look like the headset will deliver an unbeatable experience compared to its competitors. And that ought to be the goal to justify the steep asking price of $800 for the headset by itself or $1,400 full kit price. Here’s a quick look at how this stacks up to the headset’s two nearest competitors:
Vive Pro 2
Valve Index
Reverb G2
Headset Only
$800
$500
–
Full Kit
$1,400
$1,000
$600
With regards to fitting in with the competition and justifying its price, the key goal for Vive Pro 2 would be to offer customers the wide field of view of Valve Index with the clarity of Reverb G2—or at least one or the other. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite get there, and also has a few other oversights that belie the “Pro” branding.
While the resolution and field-of-view are good on paper, ultimately the headset doesn’t achieve either of those goals—it doesn’t have a field-of-view that’s as large or larger than Index, nor does it have as great or greater clarity than Reverb G2.
Photo by Road to VR
Part of the issue seems to be that the lenses can’t escape the historically tight sweet spot we find on HTC headsets. Even though the field-of-view is wider than the original Vive Pro, much of that added field-of-view gets blurry quickly. Rotate your eyes just a bit and text becomes difficult to read. Combined with the usual god-rays plus additional outer glare from the new dual-element lenses, and the headset’s tight sweet spot makes the view feel oddly cramped at times. This is furthered by a surprisingly small vertical field-of-view which makes feel like the top and bottom of the view has been cropped down.
Personal Measurements
Vive Pro 2
Vive Pro
Valve Index
Reverb G2
Horizontal FOV
102°
94°
106°
82°
Vertical FOV
78°
102°
106°
78°
The displays otherwise are fairly good, even if the lenses seem to limit their sharpness somewhat. The headset has no visible screen-door effect, and other artifacts like mura, chromatic aberration, and ghosting are very minimal.
Even if Vive Pro 2 doesn’t beat out Index and Reverb G2 in key areas like field-of-view and clarity, it could still be a great headset worthy of the “Pro” name (and price). Unfortunately it falls short of that in other areas too.
For one, the pass-through cameras on Vive Pro 2 are very low quality, as is the microphone. While the headphones themselves are quite good in audio quality, the off-ear approach is increasingly the more convenient and preferred way to do audio on a VR headset. While you could opt to remove the headset’s on-ear speakers in favor of your own audio solution, the bulky strap would make it hard to work with anything but earbuds.
Photo by Road to VR
With SteamVR Tracking built in, you can expect the same gold standard tracking accuracy, latency, and coverage that you’d find with other headsets with SteamVR Tracking, though you’ll have to put up with external beacons mounted somewhere in your room. Thankfully SteamVR Tracking also opens the door to some options, such as choosing if you want to use the old school Vive wand controllers or opting for something else like the Valve Index controllers. You can also use the headset with tracking pucks which are used to track other accessories or for adding more tracking points to yourself for full body tracking.
Vive Pro (left), Vive Pro 2 (right) | Photo by Road to VR
From an ergonomic standpoint, Vive Pro 2 is exactly the same as the original Vive Pro, which means it’s a fairly comfortable headset with a pretty good set of ergonomic adjustments. Notably, the headset has a physical IPD adjustment which ranges from 57–72mm and an eye-relief adjustment, both of which allow the headset to adapt to a wider range of users. Two things I also would have preferred but aren’t included: springs in the headstrap which make it easier to put on and take off without adjusting the tightness each time, and a wider range of rotation for the display housing.
HTC Vive Pro 2 In-depth Review
Photo by Road to VR
Let’s first talk about the bread and butter of any VR headset: the visuals. With a whopping 2,448 x 2,448 per-eye resolution and a purported 120° horizontal field-of-view, Vive Pro 2 would seem to be perfectly positioned to bring the best of Valve Index and Reverb G2 into one headset. Unfortunately the reality is a little more blurry.
Clarity
Although the paper specs would suggest that Vive Pro 2 and Reverb G2 could have quite similar resolving power, a quick side-by-side with the headsets reveals Reverb G2 to have an obviously sharper image, even before running any objective tests. To some extent, this would be expected given that Reverb G2 packs its pixels a bit more densely into its smaller field-of-view; even so, while Vive Pro 2 is clearly sharper than Index or the original Vive Pro, it still seems less sharp than it ought to next to Reverb G2.
This is very likely a result of the optics, which is one of the biggest changes on Vive Pro 2 compared to the original Vive Pro. While both headsets use Fresnel lenses, Vive Pro 2 adopts the Valve Index approach of moving to a dual-element lens, apparently in an effort to expand the field-of-view. Users of Valve Index will know that the dual-element approach risks introducing additional glare around the outer edges of the lenses (on top of the usual Fresnel god-rays), and we see the same thing happening on Vive Pro 2, more or less to the same extent as Index.
This additional glare, combined with the classically weak edge-to-edge clarity of HTC lenses, creates a sweet spot that at times feels oppressively small. Rotate your eyes just a little bit and the world is blurry until you move your head to recenter your eyes.
This small sweet spot unfortunately detracts from Vive Pro 2’s improved field-of-view. While it is indeed wider than the original Vive Pro by a good margin, the edges become blurry which can give a sense of tunnel vision even when in your periphery.
Field-of-View
Speaking of field-of-view, Vive Pro 2’s theoretical 120° horizontal seems to be just that: theoretical. At least for my personal measurements, I found the Vive Pro 2 to have a notably smaller field of view than Valve Index:
Personal Measurements
Vive Pro 2
Vive Pro
Valve Index
Reverb G2
Horizontal FOV
102°
94°
106°
82°
Vertical FOV
78°
102°
106°
78°
Vive Pro 2 might indeed have a 120° horizontal field-of-view, but only if you could get your eyes close enough to the lenses. Although the headset has an eye-relief adjustment, it doesn’t seem to have the range of motion necessary to maximize the field-of-view, at least for my head. The eye-relief adjustment on Valve Index, on the other hand, makes it easier to squeeze the most out of the headset’s displays.
Photo by Road to VR
You’ll notice a surprisingly small vertical field-of-view on Vive Pro 2. From the shape of the lenses alone you might expect this to be the case; rather than being circular, the top and bottom of the lens are flat. When looking through the headset, it looks like your vertical view has been cropped down, which furthers that feeling of tunnel-vision that ultimately works against the headset’s field-of-view.
Displays
The Vive Pro 2 displays themselves seem quite good, even if their resolution is hampered by the optics. The headset uses an LCD display per-eye, which run up to 120Hz. Unfortunately the switch to LCD on Vive Pro 2 means losing out on the rich colors and deep contrast from the Vive Pro’s OLED display, but in return you’re getting much higher resolution, better pixel fill, and less ghosting.
Like Reverb G2, Vive Pro 2 essentially has no screen-door effect (the visibility of unlit spaces between pixels). The display density is simply too great to make out individual pixels.
In general use, the displays have almost no visible artifacts. I had to search carefully to find some minor ghosting against certain colors. Mura (the consistency of brightness and color from one pixel to the next) is similarly hard to spot and will probably go entirely unnoticed during normal use. Looking carefully against flat colors I could spot some faint splotchy mura, but it’s impact on the overall clarity is very minimal.
When it comes to visual performance, Vive Pro 2 is good, but it doesn’t feel “Pro”, given that it’s bested by Index in field-of-view and sweet spot, and by Reverb G2 in clarity, both of which are less expensive headsets.
Neither the HTC Vive Pro 2 nor the Vive Focus 3 feature integrated eye-tracking, but support will apparently come via an add-on device in the future.
As announced by Vive China President Alvin Wang Graylin, both headsets will be compatible with the new Droolon F2 Eye-Tracking module that’s set to ship later this year. You may have heard that name before – in 2019 we reported that the first generation of the device, created by Chinese startup 7invensun, would support the Vive Cosmos.
Vive Pro 2 And Focus 3 Eye-Tracking Confirmed (Kind Of)
Don’t hold your breath for a big western launch, though. Both the Droolon F1 and even the add-on the company made for the original Vive in 2017 were promised as worldwide releases but we never really saw them reach North America or Europe in a meaningful way. HTC itself didn’t mention the device in any of our pre-briefings, so we’re not likely to see the kit make a big splash in the west.
That said the device does have US pricing – Droolen F2 is shipping in Q3 for $299. That’s double the price of the F1.
It’s curious that Vive Pro 2 itself doesn’t have integrated eye-tracking given that the previous version of the device, the Vive Pro Eye, did. Eye-tracking has several uses for VR headsets, including foveated rendering that can improve performance by only fully rendering the part of the display you’re directly looking at. That said, it’s also true that there’s little in the way of consumer-level software that integrates the feature right now.
As expected, HTC announced not one but two new VR headsets at its ViveCon virtual event today: the HTC Vive Pro 2 and the HTC Vive Focus 3.
The Vive Pro 2 is a PC VR headset aimed at both enthusiast consumers and enterprise use, while the Vive Focus 3 is a standalone device aimed squarely at the enterprise market. Both are launching in the coming weeks.
HTC Vive Pro 2
Vive Pro 2 looks much like the original Pro, which itself was an update to the first Vive. Its shell features a mix of the original Vive’s black and the Pro’s navy but, otherwise, the design is essentially the same, with an adjustable headband and built-in speakers. The kit features LCD displays offering 2448×2448 per-eye resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 120 degree field of view (FOV). There’s also adjustable IPD and support for existing Vive and SteamVR peripherals, though no eye-tracking support as seen in the Vive Pro Eye. You can see a full spec run down right here.
As with the original Vive Pro, HTC is selling Vive Pro 2 in two different forms. The base headset alone will be available for pre-order for $749/£659 and HTC plans to start shipping on June 3rd, when the price will increase to $799. This option is designed for people that already have the essential SteamVR kit: at least two base stations and either a pair of Vive wands or even the Valve Index controllers. The device is available to everyone.
A full kit, meanwhile, includes two 2.0 base stations and the Vive wands. It will launch on August 4 for $1399/£1299.
HTC Vive Focus 3
The Vive Focus 3, meanwhile, builds upon the original Focus and Focus Plus with an all-new design. Running on Qualcomm’s XR2 chip (the same used in the Oculus Quest 2), the kit’s display specs are largely comparable to the Pro 3 – 2448×2448 per-eye resolution and 120 degree FOV but with a 90Hz display. The headset features four-camera inside-out tracking and new controllers that look much like the Oculus Touch devices.
Interestingly, the device has a swappable battery at the back of the headset and features a magnesium alloy frame. Focus 3 will also come loaded with enterprise-focused software including access to the Vive Business AppStore, a marketplace for generalized enterprise applications. Again, you can find a full spec run down right here.
Unlike Pro 2, Vive Focus 3 will be sold to businesses, though HTC says it will also be available on “some consumer channels” for smaller outlets to purchase. It will cost $1,300/£1,060, which includes a 24 month warranty and services suite. The company would not confirm if a consumer version of the device might be in the works for the future.
HTC confirmed to us that it will continue to sell its Cosmos consumer headset too, as well as the original Pro and Pro Eye for now.
What do you make of the Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3? Let us know in the comments below!
Further supporting the likelihood of this new Vive headset being standalone is documentation detailing Wi-Fi test reports which measure to ensure that the device’s Wi-Fi broadcasts are within the legal ranges. It appears the device uses a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) radio. Most dedicated PC VR headsets use some form of Bluetooth for controller connectivity, but none of them use Wi-Fi.
HTC has kept its teasing for next week’s event pretty minimal thus far. The company has been using the phrase, “Go with the Flow,” (notable emphasis on “Flow” as a proper noun), in its promotions which have included photos with a cylindrical case of some sort. Ostensibly the headset will be small enough to fit inside the case, which would suggest a headset much more compact than most of what’s on the market today (if the scale of the photoshopped images can be trusted, anyway).
