TechCrunch spent a while with the $1,119 Vive XR Elite moveable headset that had Meta’s Quest Professional firmly in its sights. The brand new Vive Focus Imaginative and prescient, which was introduced on Wednesday, is a good bit bigger and $1,000 cheaper than that system.
The brand new headset seems to swim in comparable waters as Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional, Microsoft’s HoloLens, and the Magic Leap 2. It’s a combined actuality headset, that means it presents VR and passthrough-style AR experiences. It’s additionally combined use, aiming at each players and enterprise companies.
Very similar to Magic Leap, HTC understands that enterprise is the place the cash is — particularly now that Meta’s loss-leading Quest headsets have come to dominate the informal market. That mentioned, together with its enterprise bona fides, the Vive Focus Imaginative and prescient has sufficient firepower underneath the hood to attraction to PC players tethered through the DisplayPort.
“Vive Focus Vision gives you the best of both worlds, with outstanding standalone capabilities, and DisplayPort mode support for visually lossless PCVR experiences,” says International Head of Product Shen Ye. “Now, PC gamers can bring the same high-end headsets used in VR arcades into their homes. We’re taking everything to the next level with built-in eye-tracking, stereo color passthrough cameras for depth-correct mixed reality, and even an infra-red sensor for enhanced hand tracking in low-light conditions.”
The headset takes a kitchen sink strategy to the class. Together with DisplayPort help, it options built-in eye monitoring, twin 16-megapixel digital camera for full shade passthrough, depth sensing, and a mixed 5K decision. The show has a 120-degree discipline of view and might help as much as a 120Hz refresh price.
The cooling system has been upgraded — a should for the aforementioned lossless PCVR periods. There’s additionally an onboard backup battery that retains it alive when swapping out the principle battery.
Preorders open Wednesday. The system ought to begin transport in mid-October.
