FOVE Eye-tracking Headset Gets Final Specs and Pre-order Date

FOVE has announced that their first eye-tracking VR headset, the FOVE 0, will open for pre-orders on November 2nd, and has also released the final specifications of the device.

Much like Oculus, FOVE began as a successful Kickstarter which raised $480,000, nearly twice its goal, back in mid-2015. The company went on to raise an $11 million Series A investment in 2016, and now plans to open pre-orders for their first headset, the FOVE 0, starting on November 2nd.

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The headset’s unique differentiator is built in eye-tracking, which the company says is accurate to within 1 degree, and fast enough for foveated rendering (a technique which improves rendering performance by only drawing the scene sharply where the eye can detect high detail).

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See Also: NVIDIA Says New Foveated Rendering Technique is More Efficient, Virtually Unnoticeable

The benefits of eye-tracking are potentially many; FOVE promises that the headset will be able to detect the player’s eye movement and represent it within VR to make their avatar more realistic. They also say that the user’s gaze can be used to make UI selections, target enemies, create depth of field, or trigger context-sensitive events that only happen when the user is looking in a certain location within the virtual world.

FOVE hopes to be the first VR headset on the market with eye-tracking, and we expect other major headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR to add eye-tracking in future product iterations.

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You’ll of course note the zero in the headset’s name. This denotes the FOVE 0 as a sort of precursor headset, which the company tells us is “primarily designed to be for VR hobbiest and developers.” Launching a developer-focused version of the headset first is similar in approach to Oculus who launched two development kit headsets (DK1 and DK2) prior to their consumer VR headset.

Along with the November 2nd release date, the company has announced the final specifications of the FOVE 0 headset.

FOVE 0 Specifications

  • Display: WQHD OLED (2560×1440)
  • Display Refresh Rate: 70Hz
  • Field of View: 90 ~ 100 degrees
  • Tracking:
    • Head Tracking
      • Rotational
      • Positional
    • Eye Tracking
      • 120FPS infrared x2 (accuracy <1 degree)
  • Weight: 520g
  • Audio: 3.5mm audio jack
  • Connections: HDMI 1.4, USB 3.0, USB 2.0
  • Accessories: Positional tracking camera, face cushion

Compared to the 2160×1200 displays of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, the 2560×1440 display of the FOVE 0 has 42% more pixels, on par with Samsung’s Gear VR headset. Unfortunately the display only has a refresh rate of 70Hz, which comes in significantly below the 90Hz of the Rift and Vive (not to mention the 120Hz of PlayStation VR), and slightly lower than the 75Hz of Oculus’ Rift DK2 development kit. A lower refresh rate means more latency and less smooth motion inside the headset. However, with the success of Gear VR, even with its 60Hz refresh rate, 70Hz ought to work fine as a starting point for FOVE 0, though it’s an area we expect to see improve in future versions of the headset.

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Robust positional tracking has historically been very difficult for companies other than leaders in the VR space to achieve, but FOVE says they’ve created their own positional tracking solution based on an infrared camera and (we presume) infrared markers inside the shell of the headset, similar to Oculus’ ‘Constellation’ tracking system. While in previous hands-ons with prototypes of the headset we found the rotational tracking to be on-par with leading headsets, we’ve yet to have a chance to try the company’s positional tracking solution.

For those with glasses, the company says that FOVE 0 will work with clear contacts, but they don’t recommend colored contracts or wearing glasses with the headset as the frames can block the infrared eye-tracking. It’s unknown if the headset has IPD or lens-to-eye distance adjustments, but we’re in touch with FOVE to find out.

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In addition to showing their latest prototypes at the Tokyo Game Show this week in Japan, the company has announced that the Xenko game engine has committed to official support of the FOVE 0 headset. At this time, it sounds like the company will ask developers to build for the headset using their own proprietary SDK rather than tapping into Valve’s OpenVR platform to enable compatibility with SteamVR games. This makes sense of course, because the company needs to give developers eye-tracking data to work with, which isn’t something encountered on other consumer headsets to date.

FOVE encourages those interested to register for the email list on their website to be notified the moment that pre-orders launch on November 2nd. So far the company hasn’t announced a price or final release date for FOVE 0.

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Emteq Aims to Humanize VR by Capturing Your Facial Expressions

As researchers and VR start-ups make great strides in increasing the sense of presence such as larger field of view, lower latency and more natural input, a Brighton based start-up has just announced a new technology that can track a user’s facial expressions without markers.

Emteq, with was founded with $1.5 million of seed funding, hopes their technology will enhance social engagement in the growing social VR space, which combines miniature sensors and artificial intelligence to enable digital avatars to mirror the user’s expressions and mood.

Emteq’s technology called “Faceteq” uses a range of biometric sensor techniques including electromyography (EMG), electrooculography (EOG), heart rate and more in the faceplate of VR headsets, such as Oculus Rift, which track the electrical current generated in the movement of facial muscles.

Unlike camera-based facial tracking systems, it also registers movements in eye, forehead and cheek muscles that are underneath a VR headset. Although this technology has clear applications for gaming and social VR apps such as vTime and the upcoming Facebook VR platform, the founders also plan to use the recorded data to analyse how audiences react to regular films and TV advertising.

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Graeme Cox, the Chief Executive, co-founder of Emteq and serial tech entrepreneur, said: “Our machine learning combined with facial sensor technologies represents a significant leap forward in functionality and form for developers looking to introduce human expression and mood into a digital environment.

“Imagine playing an immersive role playing game where you need to emotionally engage with a character to progress. With our technology, that is possible – it literally enables your computer to know when you are having a bad day or when you are tired.”

See Also: FOVE Debuts Latest Design for Eye Tracking VR Headset
See Also: FOVE Debuts Latest Design for Eye Tracking VR Headset

Emteq joins a small but growing range of companies that hope to bring the user’s facial expressions into VR applications. FOVE VR is able to track a user’s eye movements allowing for people to take actions through eye gaze and blinking. It also goes towards a more natural way of viewing scenes in VR such as shifting focus with our eyes which we do in reality.

In July we reported news that Kickstarter project Veeso was aiming to be the first to market with a mobile VR headset that tracks your face’s movement; a system that uses head-mounted infrared cameras to track both your eyes and mouth for a greater sense of presence in virtual reality. Unfortunately that project was cancelled due to lack of funding, but what is exciting about Emteq is that their technology won’t be restricted to one headset.

What is important is that companies such as Emteq are able to garner enough support from developers and produce the required plugins for game engines such as Unity and Unreal to unlock its true potential.

Road to VR will be visiting Emteq within the next few weeks for a closer look and to try the technology first hand.

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High Res Intel Project Alloy Photos Glimpse IPD Adjustment, Sensors, and More

Since announcing Project Alloy, a self-contained VR headset reference platform built with RealSense technology, Intel has released high resolution renders of the device providing an up close view of ports, buttons, and sensors.

Intel announced Project Alloy last month as an “open hardware platform,” a reference device which could form the basis of headsets created by other headset makers.

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See Also: Qualcomm’s New VR Headset Could the Reference Platform We’ve Been Waiting For

Project Alloy is self-contained, meaning all the computing power and battery is onboard, eliminating the need for a docked smartphone or a tethered connection to a computer. Intel has been tight-lipped about the technical specifications, but we have been able to confirm that it’s running a “PC-class” 6th-generation Intel Core processor. The headset is equipped with RealSense technology (Intel’s computer-vision platform), and we can see that the front of the headset is covered in no less than 10 sensors; Intel says this will enable the headset to do wide area inside-out positional tracking and gesture input.

Further around the headset we can see an IPD adjustment dial on the bottom near what appear to be two USB-C ports. On the side we find two buttons (labeled C1 and C2) next to a volume rocker, with what looks to be a 3.5mm headphone port below. The back of the headset has a purple switch which is presumably power (as the battery is likely to be mounted in the large rear compartment). Another unidentified circular port appears on the top right of the headset (looking similar to the 3.5mm jack on the side).

Photo courtesy Intel Corporation Photo courtesy Intel Corporation

The renders don’t give us a good view of the left side of the headset, but on-stage photos from the announcement appear to show a USB 3.0 port, and possibly a video-out port (maybe micro-HDMI) underneath a cover.

Intel says Project Alloy will launch in the second half of 2017; given the long lead time, we expect the headset may continue to evolve until its release date. There’s no word on what the cost will be or if the headset will be openly available for purchase as a development-kit or restricted to select partners.

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First ‘StarVR’ 210 Degree FOV Headsets Have Shipped to IMAX

Starbreeze, Acer and the StarVR team are celebrating a milestone this week as the very first headsets, sporting a unique 210 degree field of view, have rolled off the production line and are winging their way to IMAX, who’ll be using them to wow customers with new immersive content to be shown at IMAX venues.

We wrote recently about Starbreeze’s plans to supply their high-spec, high-FOV virtual reality headset the StarVR, to IMAX – a company reknowned for premium movie watching experiences – as part of a new on-premise entertainment collaboration.

Now, the company have announced that the headset which began life as bedroom enthusiast project InfinitEye, has finally reached mass production as StarVR and begun shipping to IMAX.

See Also: Hands-on – The New and Improved StarVR Prototype Will Give You Field-of-View Envy

“With this shipment to as important a player in the entertainment industry as IMAX, we are absolutely thrilled that we are well on our way in bringing the virtual reality experience to the next level and to the world” said Jason Chen, President and CEO at Acer. “The realization of the most premium VR experience ever offered isn’t just our dream, but one of an entire ecosystem that encompasses hardware makers, videogame developers, theater companies, filmmakers and many others.”

Starbreeze announced their partnership with Acer, who invested $9 Million to help manufacture the new headset. Speaking to Road to VR’s Ben Lang recently, Starbreeze CTO Emmanuel Marquez, who told us a little more about the firms tracking plans for the StarVR headset going forward – including the possibility of Roomscale Tracking, Eye-tracking and more – although it’s not clear which solution made it into units on these first manufactured units.

The StarVR headset has a monstrous combined resolution of 5120×1440 formed from dual 2160×1200 resolution displays in a canted arrangement, in front of which sit 2 sizeable, custom Fresnel lenses. Starbreeze claim the custom optics allow a “great image quality across the eye’s natural vision”.

All of this allows the StarVR to deliver an impressive 210 degree horizontal field of view. For reference the consumer editions of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are closer to 100 degrees. In theory, this means the headsets much more closely match the human eye’s natural FOV. Of course, these impressive raw specs don’t automatically equal more or better immersion, but having tried the StarVR at E3 last year, the headset’s panoramic is a sight to behold.

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As for IMAX’s planned use for the headset, the device will play host to a new suite of immersive entertainment developed by them and in conjunction with Starbreeze. John Wick VR will grace the platform as will a collection of new, immersive 360 VR films – presumably filmed on IMAX’s recently announced Google Jump compliant custom camera rig.

Just don’t hold your breath for a consumer StarVR any time soon. When asked about the possibility of bringing StarVR into the homes of enthusiasts, Starbreeze Emmanuel Marquez said “for the moment we play pretty firmly in the location-based and enterprise market,” adding that the company has no plans at this time to make StarVR into a consumer headset.

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Qualcomm’s New VR Headset Could the Reference Platform We’ve Been Waiting For

For a while now we’ve been waiting for the industry to coalesce around a standard VR hardware platform. Now Qualcomm, a leading semiconductor company which regularly releases smartphone ‘reference’ platforms from which companies build their products, aims to fill that gap in the mobile VR space.


Guest Article by Anshel Sag

anshel-sagAnshel is currently Associate Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy where he has multiple areas of coverage including a heavy coverage of VR. His areas of expertise expand outwards towards mobility and client computing which include many of the components inside of modern computers. He has been a believer in VR since the DK1 days but became sold on the current iteration of VR with the HTC Vive prototype.


While Samsung’s Gear VR headset has been leading the way in mobile VR, it’s based on a smartphone inside of an HMD which has limited capability and cannot be implemented by anyone other than Samsung. So, naturally many companies have been waiting for something like Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon VR820 reference headset to become a reality so that they have a firm starting point for creating their own VR headsets.

Photo courtesy Intel
See Also: Intel Reveals Project Alloy, an All-in-one VR Headset With Mobile Positional Tracking

The VR820 is arguably a very high-end mobile VR platform with the features that Qualcomm has included. Obviously, not everyone will utilize all of the features of the VR820’s capabilities, but having them available is ultimately what makes a hardware platform a good one. The VR820 is unsurprisingly powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 SoC which is undoubtedly also the most popular mobile chip for many of the latest Android flagship devices. In addition to having a Snapdragon 820, the VR820 includes a 2880×1440 AMOLED display that supports up to 70Hz refresh rate.

Additionally, the VR820 has four cameras both inside and outside of the headset that allow it to both do foveated rendering with eye-tracking as well as ‘inside-out’ tracking to allow for positional movement without need for external sensors. Qualcomm claims a 6DOF tracking system with an 800Hz refresh rate using predictive monocular vision to detect head movement and position accurately. In addition to those features, the Snapdragon VR820 also has a claimed motion-to-photon latency of under 18ms which is designed to significantly reduce motion sickness, a major problem in the mobile VR space.

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The VR820 is an extremely powerful platform for VR because it can harness many of the technologies traditionally used in smartphones and repurpose them for VR. For example, Qualcomm is repurposing their camera ISPs and DSPs for low power functionalities like eye-tracking, hand gestures, 3D reconstruction and passthrough camera visibility.

The Adreno 530 GPU, which is already part of the Snapdragon 820, is capable of running Vulkan and other APIs that can squeeze the most performance and lowest latency out of the hardware. They also have a diverse connectivity portfolio that they can harness including 802.11AC that can make a Qualcomm-based VR solution more quickly connected than other VR headsets. While there was little talk about LTE capabilities, I could see some OEMs possibly pairing the VR820 with a Qualcomm LTE modem for VR media streaming and possibly even mobile gaming.

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See Also: Existing Phones Unlikely to Qualify as ‘Daydream Ready’, Says Google, VR Fans Should Wait to Upgrade

The one big question that is still left unanswered about the VR820 is whether or not it will support Google Daydream. Upon asking Qualcomm that question they deferred to Google who has not necessarily been forthcoming about what exactly makes a device Daydream capable or Daydream certified. Considering how big of an SoC vendor Qualcomm is, it would be pretty safe to assume that they’ve built this platform with Daydream in mind and we may very likely see Qualcomm have some of the first Daydream devices on the market.

Qualcomm has said that the VR820 will be available in Q4 of this year with commercial devices following shortly thereafter. Because the VR820 is a reference platform, there is no price for the device, but I would expect that a fully spec’ed version of a device based upon it would cost in the ballpark of $500-$600.


Disclosure: My firm, Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided research, analysis, advising and / or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry including NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Samsung referenced in this column. I do not hold an equity position in any of the companies mentioned.

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