Virtual reality is already being used on the ground to help prepare astronauts for the rigors of space, although now HTC says it’s sending its standalone VR headset Vive Focus 3 to the International Space Station (ISS) to help support the mental health of astronauts during their mission.
To help alleviate stress, and maybe even combat homesickness, a specially-fitted Vive Focus 3 will make its way to the ISS starting on November 7th as a part of a resupply mission.
The company says in a blogpost that it will be used by Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Commander of Expedition 70 on the ISS, who will run a mental health initiative created by XRHealth and Nord-Space Aps.
Like all modern VR headsets, Vive Focus 3’s room-positioning system wasn’t built with the microgravity of space in mind, however the company settled on a solution that’s sometimes used in the world of location-based entertainment, such as roller coasters and flight simulators.
Image courtesy HTC
Using a controller as an anchor point allows the headset to orient itself spatially, giving Mogensen a fixed reference point as ‘the ground’, presumably leaving the other controller to operate the headset’s user interface.
The initiative’s main goal is one of VR-based therapy, which is designed to give astronauts a break from the isolating environment and allow them to be transported to another place via immersive 360-degree videos.
It’s set to include videos such as a sunset atop a picturesque hill, a mountain path in Europe, swimming with dolphins, a tour of the western coast of Denmark, and a nature hike through the wetlands.
“Astronauts are essentially isolated during their missions for months and years at a time and are confined to small spaces with limited contact with friends and family,” says Per Lundahl Thomsen, Chief Technology Officer at Nord-Space Aps. “Creating a virtual platform that addresses their mental health needs while in isolation is imperative for them to maintain a healthy lifestyle when they return. We partnered with companies that provide the most advanced technologies that could be adapted for space to provide the most beneficial experience for our astronauts.”
While 360 videos are generally less immersive than dedicated virtual reality simulations—even 3D 360 videos lack support for 6DOF spatial movement—it’s certainly sounds like a well-calculated stab at putting the minimum viable solution in the hands of astronauts to see just how much VR can help alleviate the daily stressors of working and living aboard the ISS.
China Mobile, that country’s largest wireless carier with over 940 million subscribers, has formed a metaverse industry alliance including some of the biggest names in China-based tech.
As reported by Shanghai Securities News(Chinese), China Mobile announced during Mobile World Congress Shanghai what it calls the ‘China Mobile Metaverse Industry Alliance’, something the company says will be “the world’s strongest metaverse circle of friends.”
At MWC Shanghai, state-owned China Mobile announced the first batch of 24 members of the alliance, including Huawei, Xiaomi, HTC Vive, Unity China, NOLO, XREAL (formerly Nreal), AI company iFlytek, video streaming platform MGTV, and cloud streaming platform Haima Cloud.
Image courtesy China Mobile
Main objectives include improving the state of metaverse development in China, sharing resources to deepen cooperation between the companies, and developing a “win-win concept” to share the new dividends of the digital economy. China Mobile additionally announced a member alliance fund that will support outstanding metaverse projects as well as R&D for both hardware and XR content creation.
At the MWC Shanghai press conference, Zhao Dachun, deputy general manager of China Mobile, said that the metaverse represents a new opportunity for trillions of yuan (hundreds of billions of USD) and “an important carrier to accelerate the construction of digital China and realize the digital economy.”
China Mobile isn’t new to the space. In 2018, China Mobile partnered with HTC to “accelerate the proliferation of 5G infrastructure and devices in China” and provide HTC with greater push to get its VR devices into more retail channels.
In 2021, the company launched its own XR interoperability standard called GSXR (General Standard for XR), which included support from many of the companies listed above in addition to Pico, Rokid, Oppo, Baidu, Tencent, China Telecom, and Skyworth.
Migu, China Mobile’s streaming content subsidiary, has also recently built a new ‘Metaverse Headquarters’ in Xiamen, China. There, the company says it will leverage 5G and XR technologies to help build Xiamen into “high-quality, high-value, modern and international” city with digital intelligence, China Daily reports.
HTC today announced a new Vive Tracker accessory which is the first in the industry to use inside-out tracking, meaning it doesn’t require any external beacons. The device can be attached to props to bring them into VR or to the user’s body for enhanced body tracking.
HTC’s existing Vive Trackers are a popular accessory for anyone interested in VR full-body tracking, but they use SteamVR Tracking technology which requires external beacons for use.
Now the company has announced a new Vive Tracker, and while it doesn’t yet have a name, HTC confirms it is their first standalone tracker based on inside-out tracking which uses on-board cameras to track its own position in space. That means no external beacons or cameras need to be set up for use.
HTC says that up to five of the new standalone Vive Trackers can be used at once, which could be used for body tracking in VR by attaching two trackers to the elbows, two to the feet, and one to the hips. Combined with the user’s head and hands (which are already tracked by the headset and controllers), the trackers can be used to represent the user’s movements more fully—which allows people to do some pretty incredible things in VR.
Details are slim right now; HTC hasn’t announced the price or battery life, and the release date is far off in Q3 2023. Though the company says the device will support standalone Vive headsets, PC VR, and a fully self-contained mode for those wanting to use the trackers for non-VR uses such as object tracking. The tracker is also based on OpenXR, and HTC says this will make it possible to use the tracker with other headsets from other vendors.
The base of the tracker has a quick-release system for removing it from its mount, as well as a standard camera tripod thread for connecting various standardized mounts and holders. The units are small too, with HTC saying they come in at just half the height of the latest Vive Tracker 3.0.
Developers interested in experimenting with the new tracker can contact HTC here to register their interest.
Although the device will support PC VR, HTC says it recommends that anyone already using SteamVR Tracking should stick with the existing Vive Tracker 3.0 for its precision and compatibility.
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While this is the first dedicated inside-out tracker to be release by a major VR vendor, the device is fundamentally similar to the Quest Pro and Magic Leap 2 controllers which also use on-board cameras to track their position.
Assuming HTC’s new inside-out tracker works well, the company may not be far off from releasing its own inside-out tracked controller.
After a week of publicity and hype, VIVE held what might have been the least exciting product launch in the history of extended reality (at least, for people who weren’t at the Consumer Electronics Show). But the product that it launched is a potential Quest killer.
Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick
For the last three weeks or so, VIVE has been emailing its lists about “big news coming,” “the big debut,” and “our newest product.” It doesn’t take long memory to recall that the VIVE FLOW launch was a complete cinematic experience, featuring talks from company leaders, presentations of user footage, detailed tech specs, and loads of promotional hoopla.
It also doesn’t take long memory to recall that the device largely underwhelmed consumers. Despite being the most affordable device from the company on the high-end of the consumer market, the headset didn’t seem as exciting as devices like the Quest 2 (review). It has an interesting lightweight form factor but packs less punch in terms of experiences and capability.
If there was a flashy live launch, making it more available might have been a welcome thought as for most people the launch consisted of the webpage refreshing to show the new device and two one-minute YouTube videos. But that new device might be a game changer.
First Look at the VIVE XR Elite
VIVE XR Elite is a stand-alone headset that supports downloadable apps and games as well as wired or wireless streaming from a PC. The headset offers 1920×1920 pixels per eye with a 110-degree field of view and a 90 Hz refresh rate run by a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor. Also on board are dual microphones and built-in speakers.
Four tracking cameras, a 16 MP RGB camera, a depth sensor, a G-sensor, a gyroscope, and a proximity sensor enable all of the industry standard VR abilities including inside-out tracking. The headset is also promoted for passthrough mixed reality but no demo footage and little additional information is available on this feature at this time.
As far as ergonomics, the headset features manual interpupillary-distance adjustment and diopter focus adjustment for use without prescription lenses. Most intriguing in this category is the battery pack, which can be worn for additional power or removed entirely and replaced with arms, apparently turning the headset into a form factor that looks a lot more like (big) glasses.
The headset also comes with two controllers that look alarmingly like Quest 2 controllers. While controller technology has changed a lot in the last few years, including in VIVE devices, these look like a potential step back.
That in mind, the headset is shipping for $1,099 – a solid $400 less than the Quest Pro. That’s also more than $600 more than the Pico 4 which seems to be in a similar ring in terms of hardware but also shows no signs of launching in the States any time soon.
The VIVE XR Elite is available for preorder now and those who order before February 15 get five free titles. Shipping is expected to begin in early March.
Where Are We as an Industry?
This headset raises some questions and shines a lot of light on where the industry is headed. It seems clear that passthrough MR is becoming the industry standard for hardware just like stand-alone functionality became the standard not so long ago.
More intriguingly, the headset shows competitive hardware at a competitive price point. For most of the company’s history, they have been content with releasing more robust hardware with a bigger price tag.
While the VIVE FLOW was arguably a compromise on both price and features, the XR Elite looks to be competitive in both areas, which is also promising for future devices. This, with the exception of the controllers, which may be a step back but are certainly not a step forward like we saw with Meta’s Quest Pro controller redesign.
The main question is about passthrough in the ecosystem. Passthrough wasn’t played up in the XR Elite launch the way that it was for the Pico 4 or Quest Pro, but the feature seems to be one with mixed reviews. Enthusiasts seem interested in its potential, but the technology remains not only challenging in terms of execution but also of less interest to general users.
Passthrough or Bust?
When the industry is so dynamic, it’s easy to wonder what comes next. The company may have been able to release the Quest 2 killer that we hoped VIVE FLOW was going to be, but instead released a Quest Pro killer when the Quest Pro is already burdened with a big price tag and awkward features. But, is it too late for companies to release VR models without passthrough?
HTC officially unveiled its next consumer-focused headset at CES 2023 today. Called Vive XR Elite, the standalone mixed reality device boasts a feature set that positions HTC to go toe-to-toe with Meta’s Quest Pro, but at a notably cheaper price of $1,100.
The moniker ‘Flowcus’, a portmanteau coined by VR analyst and YouTuber Brad Lynch when the headset’s design was initially leaked in November, seems to ring true with Vive XR Elite. The design seems very much like a mashup of Vive Flow, a casual VR content viewer using pancake lenses, and Vive Focus 3, the company’s enterprise-focused standalone.
Vive XR Elite is starting pre-orders today, with shipping slated for sometime in late February. There’s no exact launch date on the books, so in the meantime let’s talk about some of the features HTC announced today, some key specs still in need of clarification, and the headset’s slew of gaming-focused content.
But first, the trailer:
Features
Unlike HTC products in recent memory, Vive XR Elite is specifically targeting gaming, fitness, productivity and on-the-go content consumption, the latter of which is thanks to a convertible battery headstrap that can be unplugged in favor of a glasses-like temple pieces.
It’s an interesting feature that’s a first for any major VR headset, which would hypothetically allow you to lean back in a seat without having a bulky back-mounted battery to contend with.
Of course, you’ll need some other power source to run the Vive XR Elite if you opt to remove the battery, be it a separate powerbank or a USB cable connected to the mains.
What’s more, Vive XR Elite is a mixed reality device, meaning it can switch between standard VR games and those that use color passthrough AR, putting it in the same category as its chief competitor Meta Quest Pro. And like Quest Pro, Vive XR Elite can be connected to a PC via USB-C for PC VR content, as well as wirelessly over WiFi, with support up to WiFi 6E. We’ll talk a little more about content in a bit.
Below, you’ll see the headset has four room-tracking camera sensors, one on each side and one hidden respectively under each faceplate. In the center is a single RGB camera for color passthrough as well as a depth sensor, which in theory would increase accuracy of room-scale tracking and object recognition.
Image courtesy HTC
Vive XR Elite also boasts Android app streaming, letting you interact with Android apps and games on a virtual cinema screen of “300 inches,” the company says. Users can also link Bluetooth gamepads to their phones for a fuller mobile gaming experience. That’s probably the only way you’d catch us playing Fortnite on a VR headset like this, since manipulating controls on the phone’s touch surface probably wouldn’t be effective.
Here’s a top-down look at the headset, which gives you a good view of how the back-mounted battery attaches, a look at the tightening twist knob, a clear look at the battery’s USB-C charging port. It’s also impressively slim, owing to the inclusion of pancake lenses.
Image courtesy HTC
In addition to supporting the same controllers that come with Vive Focus 3, the headset also supports Vive Wrist Tracker, a hand-tracking device that can be attached to the user’s wrist, or to objects like gun controllers, Ping-Pong paddles, or tools.
Here’s a view that shows headset’s diopter settings for its pancake lenses, which ostensibly allows near-sighted users to go without glasses, going up to -6D independently for both eyes. That little slider below the right lens is a mechanical IPD adjuster going from 54-73mm; nope, no eye-tracking here, at least not without the optional eye-tracking module that’s arriving at some point this year.
Image courtesy HTC
Audio is served up via two open-ear speakers integrated into the arms of the headset. We’ve poured over all product images and have yet to see space for a 3.5mm audio jack for external audio. That hole near the bridge of the headset appears to be an attach point for the forthcoming facial-tracking module, which is also slate to arrive sometime this year. We’re currently at CES, so we’re adding that to our list of features in need of clarification.
With a consumer target clearly in its sights, HTC is offering up a slew of gaming-focused content for Vive XR Elite (full list below) that includes what the company says is “100 new pieces of MR and VR content” including Demeo, Hubris, Yuki, Maestro, Les Mills Body Combat, FigminXR, Unplugged, Finger Gun, and more.
Post-launch content will include Everslaught: Invasion, and later in the year full MR games like Eggscape. As you know, a consumer VR headset is nothing without games, so it’s good to see HTC do its due diligence to attract some of the top games to the headset. No Beat Saber, but we wouldn’t expect Meta to prioritize porting the popular block-slashing rhythm game to such a direct competitor.
Image courtesy HTC
The company says Vive XR Elite will also be available for enterprise users at some point, with more information coming later this year.
Vive XR Elite also has connectors for both face and eye-tracking modules, which are set to launch separately sometime in 2023. We’ll be going hands-on at CES 2023, so make sure to check back for our full impressions of HTC’s next big leap into consumer VR. We won’t be able to say just how good a proposition Vive XR Elite truly is until we get our hands on it, and see if it really stacks up to the competition. As it is, it lacks eye-tracking for out of the box social presence and foveated rendering, and we still don’t know how it goes mano a mano with Quest Pro in the passthrough department with its single RGB passthrough camera.
Key Specs
Here’s an abridged spec breakdown. We’re working to get a more detailed list once we go hands-on here at CES 2023. We’ve included question marks (?) where we’ll probe for more detail in-person:
External Battery – removable and hot-swappable, 30W fast charge, 26.6Wh, mAh(?), typical playtime(?)
Price
One of the biggest selling points is HTC Vive XR Elite’s price, which although clearly not near the sub-$500 console price that typically gets us excited, it’s coming in a fair bit cheaper than the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro.
Note: many regions include taxes calculated in the final price above (UK, EU, AUS, etc) but a notable exception is the US. Sales tax varies widely through the US based on each state, so the final price in USD could range from exactly $1,099 in a minority of states with little to no sales tax to around $1,240 in states on the higher end of the range. Here’s the regional price breakdown:
US $1,099 exc. VAT
UK £1,299 inc. VAT
DE/FR €1,399 inc. VAT
NO 15,499 NOK
SWE 16,299 SEK
DK 11,099 DKK
A$ 2,099 inc. GST
NZ$ 2,299 inc. GST
Content
HTC provided a full content lineup, although the company hasn’t made it entirely clear which games are considered launch-day titles and which will come post-launch. HTC is calling the list below “launch window content,” so we’re checking with them now and will update once we know.
In any case, you’ll see a lot of overlap between the latest games on Quest 2 here. Highlights include Demeo, Green Hell VR, Les Mills Bodycombat, Unplugged, Hubris, Ancient Dungeon, The Last Clockwinder, and Ultrawings 2 to name a few.
We have boots on the ground at CES 2023, so check back soon for our impressions of Vive XR Elite and all things AR/VR for this year’s biggest consumer electronics show.
HTC today unveiled the first official image of the headset it’s been teasing over the past few months. The company is also apparently looking to re-enter the consumer XR space with the unnamed device, which it’s set to further detail at CES on January 5th.
As reported in an exclusive by The Verge, HTC is getting ready to stretch outside the enterprise and business sector once again and offer what HTC global head of product Shen Ye calls a “small, light all-in-one headset that promises full-featured virtual and augmented reality.”
Ye calls it an effort to create something “meaningful and that’s appealing for consumers,” further stating that it’s the culmination of lessons learned from making HTC Vive Flow and the Vive Focus 3.
It’s also likely to be more expensive than the $400 Quest 2, which will be a sticking point if it truly wants to be a consumer-first device, and not a prosumer headset like Quest Pro:
“We’re in an era when consumer VR headsets have been massively subsidized by companies that are trying to vacuum up and take personal data to provide to advertisers,” Ye tells The Verge. “We don’t believe the way that we want to approach it is to compromise on privacy.”
Image courtesy HTC via The Verge
Ye also revealed a few specs ahead of the official info dump:
The unnamed standalone headset is said to offer color passthrough MR, making it more similar to Quest Pro as opposed to a see-through AR such as HoloLens. The upcoming headset is said to contain a depth sensor, which would in theory offer more accurate room mapping. It’s also said to feature better dynamic range, making it capable of better passthrough for things like reading text on a monitor or smartphone. The headset also packs two hours of battery life, and supports 6DOF VR controllers along with optical hand tracking.
It’s said to be “one of the lightest that’s on the market,” although there are still a few mysteries to unveil. It’s uncertain whether it will include eye-tracking, although HTC has a track record of releasing eye-tracking modules which it may pursue here as well. Privacy protections is also a concern that HTC hopes to address regarding its externally facing cameras, although they haven’t said anything definite yet.
HTC’s unnamed headset reportedly suffered a leak of its design and some key specs back in November, which showed off the outer shell and alleged dual 1,920×1,920 LCDs clocked up to 120hz, mechanical IPD adjustments, pancake lenses, headstrap adjustment mechanism and back-mounted battery.
At the time, VR analyst and YouTuber Brad Lynch alleged the leak also included some vague info on its chipset being “faster than the [Snapdragon XR2] in Quest 2,” as it’s speculated to possibly be the upcoming Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2.
None of the information from the leak has been confirmed however, so we’ll just have to wait and see at CES 2023, which takes place January 5-8 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
