HTC had some exciting announcements for its PC VR line at CES 2019, but what about standalone? Vive Focus definitely wasn’t the focus (sorry) of this year’s show. Regardless, some cool new 6DOF controllers are currently being sent out to developers. Three new videos give us a closer look at them.
VR developer SkarredGhost recently got his hands on a pair of the Vive Focus 6DOF controllers. He’s since posted a bunch of videos on his blog that give us our best look yet at the kit.
The first video takes you over the basics of the kit. There’s an up-close look at each controller’s trackpad and tracking ring. Interestingly, the developer also shows the face plate you’ll need to fix to the front of the Focus in order to track the controllers.
Next up is a look at how to connect the face plate to the Focus. As the developer points out, the plate actually plugs into Focus’ lone USB-C slot, though it provides a new one in its place. Initially snapping the kit on looks pretty simple but, if you want to, you can put some screws in to make the upgrade a little more permanent.
Finally we have what you’re really looking for; a video of the controllers in-action. This short clip shows them at work in the Focus menu. They seem to have pretty solid tracking. We were pretty impressed when we went hands-on with them, though we haven’t had the chance to truly push their limits yet.
Focus released in the west late last year as an enterprise-level headset. It’s not clear if HTC will ever position it as a consumer device too. Something tells us it’s got its consumer hopes pinned on the new Vive Cosmos right now.
As for the controllers, we’re not sure when they’ll be readily available beyond developers.
Der Hersteller Finch Technologies hat heute seine Zusammenarbeit mit Qualcomm und HTC bekanntgegeben, um einen 6DOF Controller für die Vive Wave Plattform auf den Markt zu bringen.
6DOF Controller FinchShift für Vive Wave angekündigt
Eine bevorstehende Veröffentlichung des Vive Wave SDKs wird einen Support für FinchShift beinhalten, was die Einbindung der Controller für die Vive Focus und weitere Vive Wave-Systeme ermöglicht.
Qualcomm bestätigte ebenso die Kompatibilität mit dem Snapdragon 845 VRDK Referenzdesign, welches schon kurz nach der Vorstellung im letzten Jahr den Vive Wave Support erhielt. Das aktuelle VRDK Headset von Qualcomm bietet zukünftigen Herstellern eine Vorlage, um eigene Headsets zu entwerfen und selbstverständlich eine Anbindung an den Viveport zu erhalten.
Der FinchShift-Controller bietet die Möglichkeit, ohne Basisstationen oder externen Sensoren, die eigenen Hände in die Virtual Reality zu bringen. Im Kit enthalten sind ein Paar Controller und Armbänder, wodurch zusätzliche Tracking-Punkte zur Verfügung stehen. Hierdurch soll eine Berechnung der Position allein durch Beschleunigungssensoren und Gyroskope funktionieren, jedoch wird die Latenz mit knapp 27ms deutlich spürbar und die Präzision mit 2mm – 25mm nicht besonders gut sein. Im Vergleich: Die Controller der Oculus Rift und HTC Vive haben eine Latenz von ca. 2ms und die Genauigkeit hat eine Abweichung von unter einem Millimeter. Sollte der FinchShift-Controller jedoch mit einem VR-Headset mit Kameras verwendet werden, können zusätzliche LEDs an den Controllern das Tracking verbessern.
Der Controller und das Armband sollen bis zu 18 Stunden aktive Nutzung ermöglichen und dabei soll der Controller weniger als 100g wiegen, das Armband sogar weniger als 50g.
Die Veröffentlichung der FinchShift-Controller (erhältlich als Touchpad- oder Stick-Variante) und Armbänder als Entwicklerkit erfolgt direkt über die Website der Firma. Der Preis für das gesamte Kit beläuft sich auf 250 US-Dollar. Bereits in diesem Monat möchte der Hersteller mit der Auslieferung beginnen.
Finch Technologies announced today that it partnered by HTC to allow their 6DoF controllers to be compatible with any VIVE Wave headset. Qualcomm also tested the controllers and confirmed their compatibility with its VR845 reference headset.
VIVE Wave is HTC’s platform (OS, runtime & SDK) for standalone VR headsets. It has already been adopted by 15 hardware manufacturers (mostly in China). That means that these controllers should work with HTC’s $599 Vive Focus standalone headset.
What’s unique about the FinchShift controllers is that they can work without any cameras at all, even on a 3DoF headset. The controllers mainly rely on their accelerometer and gyroscope (collectively called the IMU) rather than an optical solution. Normally, pure IMU 6DoF tracking is not possible. But Finch utilizes dual armband straps which also have IMUs. The tracking from the headset and the four devices combined with a skeletal model is used to derive an estimate of the positions.
Finch claims that their controllers have 2mm – 25mm accuracy and 27ms latency. These are not impressive numbers. Controllers like Oculus Touch and HTC Vive wands boast sub-mm accuracy and around 2ms latency.
However, if the headset does have cameras, the LEDs on the controllers will activate and be tracked by them. This should improve tracking quality, although the positioning of the LEDs on the main handle rather than on a tracking ring will likely mean they are often occluded.
The FinchShift controllers can currently be preordered for $249. This is a steep price given that competitor Oculus Quest will include controllers at $399, but perhaps it will come down over time.
We have an appointment to try the FinchShift controllers at CES. We’re skeptical of some of the company’s claims, but excited to see what they have to show. We’ll post our detailed impressions after the demo.
Open source software ALVR provides similar functionality, but it only works with NVIDIA GPUs. AMD’s solution brings this functionality to the RX 470, RX 480, RX 570, RX 580, RX 590, and Vega GPUs. Earlier/weaker GPUs will not work. You’ll also need Windows 10, as earlier versions aren’t supported either.
To set up the software, download the Radeon ReLive For VR app from Google Play or Viveport M. Then enable VR streaming in Radeon Settings on your PC and launch a SteamVR app. AMD’s direct control over the GPU driver allows them to make this a much easier process than alternatives like Trinus.
AMD claims they made driver-level optimizations to provide lower latency than any alternatives. The company recommends using a router which supports the 802.11ac (‘WiFi 5’) standard, which should include almost any released in the past 4 years. It’s also recommended that you use the 5 GHz channel rather than 2.4 GHz.
However, it’s important to note that Radeon ReLive isn’t a full PC VR alternative, and nor are any of the other streaming solutions. Current mobile and standalone VR headsets have rotation-only 3DoF controllers. The Daydream controller even lacks a trigger. Most of SteamVR’s content really needs positionally tracked input to be playable. Thus, this software really only works well as a solution for playing gamepad games or non-interactive experiences. But for those kind of apps, this will offer standalone headset owners a glimpse into what’s possible in VR with the power of a PC.
Musical apps have gone down well with virtual reality (VR) gamers, with the likes of Beat Saber and Electronautsbeing two of the best known. Last year Beamz Interactive in conjunction with Vive Studios released interactive music performance app Jam Studio VR, followed by an Education & Health Care Edition in October. Now the studio’s have announced that both VR titles are available for standalone headset, the HTC Vive Focus.
In Jam Studio VR users can compose and play musical scores, with over 20 interactive songs from a host of music genres to help unleash their inner musician.
While the Jam Studio VR Education & Health Care Edition is much more focused on learning and therapeutic exercises, which includes detailed Lesson Plans, an Overview Therapy Guide, a Professional Therapy Protocols Guid, Music Instrument Discovery, Music Appreciation, Music Fundamentals Education Series for all ages and much more. All designed family, friends, schools, special needs organizations, therapy and rehab facilities, and professionals.
Bringing these two apps to HTC Vive Focus will mean users have a lot more freedom when it comes to enjoying them in an open, unrestricted environment.
“Our goal is to create a whole new category of interactive music and gaming applications that takes advantage of Virtual Reality technology as well as HTC’s new leading-edge standalone VR Products. Jam Studio VR delivers just that!” said Charlie Mollo, Beamz Interactive’s CEO in a statement. “We also plan to create a whole new category of education & health care music applications and content that take advantage of Virtual Reality and Beamz technology and platform to bring a new learning and therapy approach for a wide range of individuals.
“We believe the Jam Studio VR’s Education & Health Care Edition delivers the first instalment on this potential! Using our advanced triggering and synchronization technology and IP position, we’re able to create a truly unique interactive music experience that makes it easy and exciting to engage people of all ages and skill levels and provide a broad variety of learning and therapy benefits while they are just having fun.”
“Jam Studio VR is at the forefront of creating a new category of interactive music, Education, and Health Care Apps for VR. We are very excited to partner with Beamz and develop these leading-edge interactive music performance applications for Focus”, said Joel Breton, VP of Vive Studios. “These family-friendly Apps will lead the way for how users create and experience music in VR as well as receive a variety of learning and therapeutic benefits.”
Currently, HTC Vive Focus is only available for purchase in China. The company did state earlier in the year that a 2018 launch for the standalone headset was on the cards, but with just over two weeks to go, that’s looking less and less likely. HTC might now wait until CES 2019 in January to make the big announcement.
At any rate Jam Studio VR and Jam Studio VR Education & Health Care Edition are available now for the HTC Vive Focus for $19.99 and $24.99 USD respectively. For further updates on the HTC Vive Focus, keep reading VRFocus.
A couple of weeks ago at an HTC event in San Francisco, CA I had the chance to talk with Dan O’Brien, General Manager at HTC. In addition to alluding to the company’s positive VR hardware sales, he also elaborated on the announcements surrounding the Vive Focus launch, the Vive Wave SDK, Viveport store, and specifically, their consumer-focused strategy for the budding standalone VR headset market.
The Vive Focus is a standalone VR headset with inside-out tracking (similar to Windows VR and Oculus Quest) that allows the user to walk around the room without cords, a PC, or even a smartphone powering it. It comes with a single 3DOF controller (which means you can rotate and move your wrist but can’t reach into the digital space like you can lean with your head) and is based on the Vive Wave SDK. There is a dev kit for two 6DOF Vive Focus controllers I got to try, but who knows how far off that is and it won’t be standard.
Interestingly, given the relatively premium price for Vive Focus (either $599 or $749 depending on the service package you purchase) it’s targeted specifically at the Enterprise market — not consumers.
“Right now, customers that will find [Vive Focus] valuable are typically early adopters that buy all the new tech, we’re fine with that, but the Wave SDK really enables us to talk to consumers with other hardware partners,” said O’Brien. “So Shadow Creator and Shadow VR, which is launching at a price point of $399, is a very consumer friendly price point. And with that, we have the ability to enter the mobile space at different price points with partners and not just putting the burden on ourselves.”
Naturally, as the discussion expanded and mentions another headset, powered by the Vive platform, at the same $399 price point as the upcoming Oculus Quest standalone, things got interesting. Clearly that’s their main competitor here, right?
“I haven’t [tried Quest], but I think it’s great for the community, it’s great for the VR industry, and I think we’re gonna learn a ton about price points and adoption levels,” said O’Brien. “We’re still talking about an early adopter consumer mix, we’re not at early mass yet. Products like Quest and some of the Wave platforms like Shadow VR will teach us a lot about those price points and adoption levels. We’re really focused on the products that we are delivering, like Focus, on giving a complete Enterprise solution and answering a lot of the problems we see out there.”
So it seems like a major piece of HTC’s strategy going forward, especially in the realm of standalone consumer VR, is partnerships with other hardware manufacturers that they can get to use the Wave SDK and access Viveport as their primary marketplace.
“The Wave SDK serves as two pieces: the backend for developers, to actually bring their content in and make it work with our standalone product, but it’s also the run time,” said O’Brien. “So we provide that run time to the hardware partners so that they can access that. The front-end is the actual store and the content distribution piece, so Viveport is the default store for all Vive Wave SDK hardware OEMs…We can’t go into the contractual details, but we are an open platform. We want to go work with other hardware partners that want to get into the space. But it’s not like just making one product and putting it into the market, you actually need a lot of content to support that.”
In September web browser developer Mozilla launched its dedicated virtual reality (VR) browser to facilitate seamless movement between the 2D web and the immersive web, Firefox Reality. Today, the company has announced the first major update to the app, adding new features whilst improving others.
With the release of Firefox Reality 1.1 new features included are 360 video support with a new dedicated theatre viewing mode, additional language support in the form of Chinese (Mandarin – simplified and traditional), French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese and Korean, plus expanded voice search support to the new localised languages.
Local bookmarks have also been added (cross-device syncing is coming soon) alongside automatic search and domain suggestions in URL bar. The 2D UI performance has been improved as well.
In an expansion to the Firefox Reality content feed, Mozilla has added cult director/designer Keiichi Matsuda’s video series, including his latest creation, Merger.
“Keiichi’s work explores how emerging technology will impact our future lives,” a press statement explains. “His earlier video HYPER-REALITY presents a provocative and kaleidoscopic new vision of the future, where physical and virtual realities have merged, and the city is saturated in media. His new film Merger is about the future of work. Set against the backdrop of AI-run corporations, a woman finds herself caught between virtual and physical reality, human and machine. As she fights for her economic survival, she finds herself immersed in the cult of productivity, in search of the ultimate interface. This short film documents her last 4 minutes on earth.”
Firefox Reality 1.1 is now available for download in the Viveport, Oculus, and Daydream app stores, supporting Vive Wave devices, Oculus Go and Google Daydream View respectively. You’ll find the full release notes on Github, and for further updates keep reading VRFocus.
While the Vive Focus initially launched with a single 3DOF controller, HTC recently announced a dev kit add-on which brings a pair of 6DOF controllers to the standalone headset. We got our first chance to try out the system today at an HTC press event in San Francisco.
The 6DOF controller add-on is comprised of a pair of new controllers and a shell attachment which connects to the front of the Focus headset. The shell includes necessary hardware for the tracking system which is based on ultrasonics. Ultrasonic tracking uses soundwaves at frequencies above the audible human range for triangulation, typically using a series of receivers to identify differences in timing between ultrasonic sounds emitted by the tracked object. We don’t have confirmation from HTC at this point, but there’s strong hints that system is based on ultrasonic technology by Chirp Microsystems.
The tiny holes seen on the controllers and the headset shell are the points where ultrasonic sound waves are emitted or received (it’s unclear at this point which functions as the emitter and which is the receiver, though I’d guess the controllers are the emitters).
Today at a press event in San Francisco we got our first chance to try out the 6DOF controller dev kit.
Photo by Road to VR
The controllers themselves have a large bulbous portion up top (covered in holes for tracking), but were remarkably light regardless. Each controller has a trackpad, trigger, bumper (an awkwardly placed second trigger on the back), and two buttons below the trackpad. Considering the poor bumper usability, hopefully the controller form factor will evolve before it leaves dev kit status. The shell that attaches to the front of the Focus seems to add notable extra weight, putting more pressure on your face than without it.
Unfortunately the quite noisy demo environment wasn’t the ideal place to test the performance of the system, as the chaotic sonic environment may impact the tracking, and the performance I saw today might not represent best-case performance. That said, HTC offered no such caveats for the system or the demo setup when handing over the headset and controllers for a demo, which was all about their Vive Sync collaborative VR space.
After strapping on the headset and picking up the controllers, I saw my virtual hands floating in front of me. My hands responded with full 6DOF movement as I moved them around, but it was quickly noticeable that the positional latency is not at the same bar as leading controller tracking systems like those used with the Vive or Rift, or even Windows VR or PSVR.
That said, latency in hand tracking is not as critical as with head tracking, so ‘good enough’ can in fact be good enough for casual input use-cases. Whether or not the system would be tight enough for something like Beat Saber is still up in the air.
Accuracy (how close the virtual position of the controller is to its actual actual position) seemed good. Unlike 3DOF controllers, which can get out of whack after a lot of movement and need regular recalibration, the 6DOF Focus controllers were always where I expected them to be, and made it easy enough to do simple tasks like like making a selection on a menu or drawing in 3D in the air.
Precision (how much movement there is even when the controller is perfectly still, AKA jitter) was noticeably not at the ‘sub-mm’ bar set by high-end tracking systems. In practice that means when holding the controller still you can see it shake around a bit as it continuously evaluates its location with some degree of error. Again, probably fine for casual input, but if you’re doing a task which requires small, high precision movements, it could be a frustrating experience.
Photo by Road to VR
I didn’t get a good chance to test the size of the tracking volume in relation to the headset; ultrasonic requires line of sight like most standalone 6DOF controller systems, which means if you put your controllers behind your back they’re likely to get lost by the system and fall back to IMU estimation until being brought back into the tracking volume.
We’ll need to spend more time testing the 6DOF Focus controller dev kit to better feel out their performance, and understand where that performance becomes a limiting factor for certain use-cases, but at this early stage, it feels like it should work fine for most casual input cases.
Considering that HTC is now positioning the Vive Focus as a professional/enterprise focused product, there’s probably many ‘casual input’ cases where the current performance will be good enough. For some use-cases though, like creating 3D models or making precise changes to design-focused content, users might opt for something more accurate and precise.
And finally, I’ll head off this question now because it’ll definitely crop up in the comments below: From my (limited) testing so far, Quest’s optical controller tracking is currently setting the bar for 6DOF standalone headsets, and seems significantly further ahead across all performance factors (latency, accuracy, and precision) compared to the Focus 6DOF controller dev kit. I’m doubtful that an ideal demo environment would make a substantial difference, but hopefully I’ll have a chance to test it in such a setting soon.
At an Enterprise-focused HTC Vive press event in San Francisco, CA today we learned about the western release of the Vive Focus across North America and Europe, as well as the price point. But those will only release with a single 3DOF motion controller similar to the ones that come with the Oculus Go and Daydream View. HTC has opened dev kit applications for 6DOF motion controllers like the ones that come with the upcoming Oculus Quest headset (or the ones already out with the Vive and Rift) and HTC had a pair of those controllers available today for demos.
Hands-On With 6DoF Vive Focus Controllers
My demo was with Vive Sync, a professional collaboration platform. I’ll save details on the particular app for a separate story because I want to focus on the controllers themselves here.
To be clear, this is a developer kit. They aren’t finished and there is no timeframe on commercial availability at all. Now with that being said, I was very impressed.
Since Vive Sync is primarily a meeting app there wasn’t a whole lot of movement required. The ideal use case is just standing around, pointing, and talking, so I had to invent some movements to test the controllers and their tracking. First, rapid movement.
There was definitely some latency. If I were trying to play Beat Saber, for example, on this device with the 6DOF dev kit controllers, I think I would have had a ton of trouble. This might be fixed in time, but right now it felt almost as if my in-VR hands were a half second behind when moving very quickly. I never tried the Oculus Quest dev kit (Santa Cruz) but I’d imagine those controllers improved as well over development, as is usually the case.
Where they impressed me is with the accuracy of the positional and rotation tracking. No matter where I held the controller (even when I grasped the tracking ring itself) they never lost tracking. The only time it was an issue is if I put them behind my head or behind my back and then quickly put them back in front of my body. After a second or so delay they would be located again.
As a test of something I have done often in VR apps I tried reaching behind my back to teleport around. Vive Sync didn’t have smooth locomotion, just teleporting, so while I was speaking with a developer he asked me to back up so he could show me a 3D model inside the meeting environment. So, I instinctively reached behind my back, pointed, and clicked the trackpad to teleport like I’ve done in a million VR apps before and it worked just fine. To test this out more, I grabbed the laser pointer tool from the interface, reached behind my back, and could still point the laser through my VR body accurately. I don’t think I could accurately reach behind me and down to a table to grab something, but I also haven’t tried it.
One area the Oculus Quest controllers lacked is in tracking when you’re not looking at the ring itself. So if I rotated the controllers over in my hand like you would to bounce a ball on a tennis racket, they disappear. I wasn’t playing a game in real-time with the Focus 6DoF controllers but when I tried to replicate that movement they didn’t lose tracking. The latency and slight movement delay was still noticeable though, much more than with the latest Oculus Quest demo I tried at OC5.
In order to use the 6DOF controllers you have to clip on a faceplate on to the front of the Vive Focus that plugs into a port on the top.
Physically they’re extremely similar to the Windows VR controllers, although smaller, lighter, and without a control stick. They’re very comfortable and felt easy to use. The buttons below the trackpad seemed a little awkward, it was strange having two buttons below the trackpad instead of one above and one below like the standard Vive wands.
We’ll have more to report soon from the latest Vive update.
At a special event today in San Francisco, HTC announced that Vive Focus, the company’s standalone 6DOF headset, is launching for enterprise customers starting today in 37 markets, including North America and Europe.
Vive Focus previously launched in China back in January as a consumer device. Now the company is launching the standalone headset internationally as an enterprise-focused device.
Two specific offerings are on the table; Vive Focus and Vive Focus “Advantage”, the latter of which comes along with a professional services program providing commercial licensing, dedicated support, and service utilities for hardware support. There will also be an “Advantage+” program which presumably offers a more lengthy hardware warranty.
The standard device without additional services is priced at $600, while the Vive Focus Advantage starts at $750. Despite the focus on enterprise, regular consumers won’t be turned away, as it appears the enterprise emphasis is just that at the lower end of the pricing spectrum. It’s stated that it’s for enterprise, but anyone can buy it direct from HTC’s enterprise-facing site.
Image courtesy HTC
The Vive Focus is a standalone headset which means it has everything needed for a VR experience built directly into the device—including the battery, processor, graphics, and display—rather than relying on a docked smartphone. Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chip, the headset boasts a 1,600 × 1,440 OLED display for each lens, 6DOF headset tracking, IPD adjustment, and a single 3DOF controller.
HTC North Americas General Manager Dan O’Brien reinforced that Vive Focus 6DOF controllers are coming, although there’s still no ETA on when these will be available to anyone besides developers at this time.
Vive Focus is launching internationally running Vive Wave SDK, the company’s mobile platform developed specifically over the Vive Focus’ tenure in China. Content will be sourced from the mobile version of Viveport.
Vive Wave SDK is an open platform that offers interoperability between several classes of mobile VR headsets and accessories, something the company calls a “clear step forward in bringing together the highly fragmented mobile VR market.”
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