During HTC’s Mobile World Congress 2015 keynote late last night, where the One M9 flagship and Grip fitness band were announced, the company also took everyone by surprise with the introduction of their very own virtual reality headset, named the Vive, or ‘RE Vive’ as shown in its logo. Vive is made in partnership with Valve, who teased us about showing off this headset at Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2015 what will take place in just a couple of days in San Francisco.
The Developer Edition of Vive has two 1200 x 1080 lenses has has a rather high refresh rate of 90 hertz. To compare, the Oculus Rift DK2 has 960 x 1080 pixels per eye, while the Samsung Gear VR has around 1280 x 1440 (through the Note 4’s Quad HD display). HTC claims it has a wide field of view, with a new system called “Full Room Scale 360-Degree Solution with Tracked Controllers”, that lets you get up and walk around a 15 x 15 feet space. I’m guessing this solution is similar to the Virtuix Omni platform that pairs with the Rift.
The Vive headset itself contains over 70 sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, laser positioning sensors) not only for head tracking, but for hand tracking as well. HTC said the sensors could track head tilts as accurately as one-tenth of a degree. There will be two wireless HTC VR Controllers and the hand-tracking sensors could be used to track the controller movements directly. So far, we haven’t seen the platform nor the controllers yet.
Currently the Vive Developer Edition has a headphone jack on the side, but apparently the final consumer edition will have built-in audio headphones/speakers.
HTC and Valve are already working to produce VR gaming contents with game developers like Vertigo Games, Bossa Studios, Fireproof Games, Dovetail Games, Wemo Lab, Steel Wool Games, and Owlchemy Labs. Besides gaming, VR can be applied to other experiences, and both HTC and Valve are also working with with content creators Google, HBO, Lionsgate, and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, to expand the virtual reality opportunities.
Virtual reality is so much more than just a headset with two lenses that spew out 3D images. A self-contained VR headset like the Samsung Gear VR is wireless and very portable, but it doesn’t have positional trackers nor does it track your hands. Oculus Rift, on the other hand, relies on its third party partners like Virtuix for the Omni platform, and Leap Motion for hand tracking. The Rift DK2 does positional tracking, but it is not self-contained and the tracking sensor is a webcam-like device you put on top of the computer monitor facing you. I understand that the HTC Vive is still vaporware at this point, but if all its claims are true, we’re looking at the most feature-complete VR system here. The headset itself seems to have self-contained positional-tracking sensors, hand-tracking sensors, and it even has built-in audio output the Rift DK2 lacks. If HTC and Valve are able to deliver the platform and controllers, you could imagine yourself walking freely on the platform using the controls to interact with your surroundings, while the headset tracks where you’re looking at, giving you accurate feedback in both visual and audio outputs.
HTC CEO Peter Chou holding the Vive
HTC Vive Developer Edition will be dropping this Spring, with the consumer edition arriving by the end of 2015. This is a bold claim considering that none of its competition can currently give us a specific timeframe on when their consumer VR headsets are ready. If HTC and Valve kept to their promise, the VR space is going to get a lot more interesting in the next few months.
For more information on the HTC Vive visit http://www.htcvr.com/.
Update (March 14th): It turns out that the ability to walk around the 15 x 15 feet space is not like the Virtuix Omni. HTC Vive has lasers installed around the 15 x 15 feet room and the sensors on the headset could track where you are. If you were about to walk on to a physical wall, a virtual wall will appear in the virtual world so you could know where the limits are.
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