It’s the first day of the Mobile World Congress 2019 show in Spain, with a great deal of the news focusing on the upcoming launch of 5G, with plenty of companies making preparations for it. The includes HTC, which has unveiled its new 5G mobile smart hub for both home and business use. The company has also teased that the hub would be capable of streaming virtual reality (VR) content to standalone headsets like the Vive Focus in the future.
Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform with the Snapdragon X50 5G Modem and antenna modules, the HTC 5G Hub features a 5-inch HD touchscreen for ease of use, smooth 4K video streaming, low-latency gaming, and 5G mobile hotspot features for up to 20 users.
Due to the speed of 5G in the future HTC plans on streaming VR content from the cloud directly to headsets via the HTC 5G Hub, for a mobile, high-end VR experience in real time.
“HTC is proud to bring to market the world’s first 5G mobile smart hub,” said Cher Wang, Chairwoman and CEO of HTC in a statement. “5G will be the game-changer for VR and AR, and the new HTC 5G Hub will seamlessly deliver the great bandwidth of 5G to our devices, driving our vision of Vive Reality—a boundless, immersive environment where human experiences will come to the forefront.”
There is one small caveat, HTC does note on its website: “The above scenario will depend on development of MEC technology and 5G infrastructure.”
“With the HTC 5G Hub, many consumers enjoy for first time the transformative experiences that 5G and advanced Wi-Fi capabilities can bring to their lives,” said Durga Malladi, senior vice president and general manager, 4G/5G, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Our long-standing collaboration with HTC has a proven track record in delivering mobile innovation. Our efforts helped deliver the first Android smartphone, we worked closely together to accelerate the transition to 4G, and we are now ushering in the age of 5G with one of the first mobile devices to take advantage of 5G and next generation Wi-Fi capabilities of the Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform.”
The HTC 5G Hub will be available through select retailers beginning in Q2 of 2019. For the latest updates from MWC19, keep reading VRFocus.