On Monday, HTC announced a permanent Vive price reduction to $599, bringing the VR headset down from its original $799 launch price. The now-$599 standard HTC Vive kit includes the headset itself, two wireless controllers, two base stations, link box,…
This morning at the ChinaJoy expo, HTC is announcing their first shipping VIVE standalone VR headset, specifically for the Chinese market. The aptly named VIVE Standalone is based on Qualcomm’s recently launched Snapdragon 835 SoC, and for the first time brings the Viveport store and its content to the Chinese market.
The HTC VIVE Standalone VR headset is a yet another device of this kind to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 SoC, which is one of the highest-performing mobile processors available today. The VR headset does not require a PC or a smartphone, is completely standalone and will get content from the Viveport store in China. Since Google’s Daydream content is not available in China due to national regulations barring Google’s services, HTC had to design a separate headset for the country rather than to sell its Daydream-compatible VR hardware.
HTC is not disclosing much in the way of details about the specifications of the VIVE Standalone VR headset for China, but its design and some other factors indicate that the product has quite a lot in common with HTC’s previously-announced Daydream VR-compatible headset. The dimensions of the product hint that we are dealing with a device featuring a 5” or better panel, though it’s anyone’s guess on whether the resolution is FHD or higher at this point. Finally, content developed for the HTC VIVE Standalone VR headset will be created using tools compatible with Qualcomm’s VR platform.
Meanwhile, for customers outside of China who will have access to Daydream content, HTC is also making it very clear that this headset has no bearing or impact on their previously announced standalone Daydream headset. That product is still being developed and will be released to the market later this year.
HTC did not specify pricing of its VIVE Standalone VR headset, but said that the device was designed to enable “a more affordable, yet high-quality VR experience”.
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HTC’s doing a little Spring cleaning, and it’s starting with all the wires protruding from its headsets. The company announced today at Computex 2017 that it has partnered with Intel to create a “wireless VR accessory” for the Vive HMD. That accessory will rely on WiGig, the wireless tech Intel created to let you connect basically everything to your PC without having to plug in a single wire, and is expected to work with existing Vive HMDs.
This is how HTC described the accessory in its announcement:
The WiGig technology, based on 802.11ad standard, works solely in the interference- free 60GHz band, and enables high throughput and low latency in both directions, from the PC to HMD and from HMD to PC. This means pristine video quality with <7ms latency in any environment, supporting multiple users sharing the same space. All of this results in the seamless wireless VR with the Vive!
The extent to which the wireless VR is “seamless” depends on how much lower than 7ms latency HTC manages to get. Low latency is crucial to VR–too much can hurt your sense of immersion at best and make you feel sick at worst. The good news is we might not have to wait long to find out how well this accessory works: HTC said it’s going to show off a proof of concept when it heads to E3 from June 13-15.
In the meantime, we can take comfort in knowing HTC isn’t the only company that’s chasing that wireless VR dream. AMD acquired an Austin startup called Nitero for its wireless XR technology in April, and we recently went hands-on with Sixa’s Rivvr wireless VR system. Oh, and Oculus is also working on a self-contained, untethered HMD with Project Santa Cruz. Hopefully we can bid adieu to all these wires sooner than later.
Nathaniel Mott Contributed to this Report
HTC’s doing a little Spring cleaning, and it’s starting with all the wires protruding from its headsets. The company announced today at Computex 2017 that it has partnered with Intel to create a “wireless VR accessory” for the Vive HMD. That accessory will rely on WiGig, the wireless tech Intel created to let you connect basically everything to your PC without having to plug in a single wire, and is expected to work with existing Vive HMDs.
This is how HTC described the accessory in its announcement:
The WiGig technology, based on 802.11ad standard, works solely in the interference- free 60GHz band, and enables high throughput and low latency in both directions, from the PC to HMD and from HMD to PC. This means pristine video quality with <7ms latency in any environment, supporting multiple users sharing the same space. All of this results in the seamless wireless VR with the Vive!
The extent to which the wireless VR is “seamless” depends on how much lower than 7ms latency HTC manages to get. Low latency is crucial to VR–too much can hurt your sense of immersion at best and make you feel sick at worst. The good news is we might not have to wait long to find out how well this accessory works: HTC said it’s going to show off a proof of concept when it heads to E3 from June 13-15.
In the meantime, we can take comfort in knowing HTC isn’t the only company that’s chasing that wireless VR dream. AMD acquired an Austin startup called Nitero for its wireless XR technology in April, and we recently went hands-on with Sixa’s Rivvr wireless VR system. Oh, and Oculus is also working on a self-contained, untethered HMD with Project Santa Cruz. Hopefully we can bid adieu to all these wires sooner than later.
Nathaniel Mott Contributed to this Report
Today at its annual developer conference, Google made several announcements about what augmented and virtual reality projects it and its partners have been working on. Google just launched its Daydream VR platform 6 months ago, but already there are o…