HTC’s Vive has excellent VR headsets at several price points – the high-end Vive Pro 2, the mid-range Vive Cosmos Elite and most recently the Vive Flow. None of these do AR, but the company has plans to catch up to the likes of Meta’s Quest Pro.
The program features an as-yet-unnamed VR and AR-capable headset that will be unveiled at CES on January 5th. Shen Ye, head of HTC’s global products, accepted an interview with The Verge and revealed some details about the headset.
There will be front and side cameras and support for controllers (with six degrees of freedom) and hand tracking. The camera will provide color passthrough, which enables mixed reality applications.
Headphones will be self-contained with 2 hours of battery life. The focus during design was to make it small, light and comfortable. Ye said the headset will be used for gaming, entertainment, exercise and even business tools.
Since it starts at $1, 22 Quest Pro, this will be a flagship product. The company says its headset will outperform the Meta, with advantages such as a camera’s higher dynamic range, which would allow users to read text from a laptop or phone, for example.
It’s not clear there will be an inward-facing camera for eye-tracking, but it seems more of a question of whether it’s built-in or offered as an add-on. HTC is also taking a cautious approach to privacy, which is a growing concern with these headsets (and could be an advantage for the Meta offering).
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