TechCrunch spent a while with the $1,119 Vive XR Elite transportable 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 inexpensive than that system.
The brand new headset seems to swim in related 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 affords VR and passthrough-style AR experiences. It’s additionally combined use, aiming at each players and enterprise corporations.
Very like 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 bonafides, the Vive Focus Imaginative and prescient has sufficient firepower underneath the hood to attraction to PC players tethered through the DisplayPort.
“Vive Focus Imaginative and prescient offers you the very best of each worlds, with excellent standalone capabilities, and DisplayPort mode help for visually lossless PCVR experiences,” says International Head of Product Shen Ye. “Now, PC players can carry the identical high-end headsets utilized in VR arcades into their properties. We’re taking all the things to the subsequent stage with built-in eye-tracking, stereo colour passthrough cameras for depth-correct combined actuality, and even an infra-red sensor for enhanced hand monitoring in low-light circumstances.”
The headset takes a kitchen sink method to the class. Together with DisplayPort help, it options built-in eye monitoring, twin 16-megapixel digital camera for full colour passthrough, depth sensing, and a mixed 5k decision. The show has a 120-degree subject of view and may 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 primary battery.
Preorders open Wednesday. The system ought to begin delivery in mid-October.
