Throughout 2024, standalone mixed-reality headset buzz has largely been a tossup between the Meta Quest 3, a standalone gaming headset with stable mixed-reality capabilities, and the Apple Vision Pro, a full-blown wearable laptop that integrates into the complete Apple ecosystem. With that in thoughts, HTC’s new Vive Focus Vision – a PC gaming-focused headset that takes a number of concepts from each the Apple Vision Pro and the Quest 3, might appear like one thing of a Frankenstein’s monster. That’s as a result of, although it technically has standalone performance and might technically be used to create media and play mixed-reality video games, it’s so a lot worse at doing these issues than the Quest 3. And but, because of its noticeably sharper 5K decision, it manages to be a tad extra competent at establishing a digital workspace with an enormous ultrawide show. However, not like each the Quest 3 and the Apple Vision Pro, the HTC Vive Focus Vision is overwhelmingly geared towards conventional PC VR gaming with a wire – benefiting from its distinctive lossless DisplayPort-to-USB-C streaming characteristic by Vive Hub.
Don’t get me flawed. There are a lot of goodies on this bag. A 5K mixed (2,448 x 2,448 pixels per eye) decision introduced by twin Fresnel lenses gives a near-120-degree horizontal FOV at as much as 90hz – or 120hz in PC streaming mode after an eventual replace. Two half-rings of eye-tracking cameras surrounding each lenses help motorized auto-IPD adjustment and foveated rendering. Meanwhile, 4 inside-out monitoring cameras give it pristine hand and controller monitoring – which works nice when the controllers aren’t bugging out. Official help for facial monitoring and extra exterior trackers means you’ll be able to rig it to make your avatar’s digital face and limbs mimic your real-life options in social apps like VRChat.
For these causes, the Vive Focus Vision narrowly beats the PlayStation VR2 for the most effective devoted SteamVR headset I’ve ever owned – albeit by a skinny margin. I’ve spent the previous couple of weeks utilizing it to play video games like Blade & Sorcery, H3VR, Pavlov VR, and Half-Life: Alyx – although, for this use case, it doesn’t do something tremendous in another way than the HTC Vive Focus 3 except for being DisplayPort-compatible; a primary for HTC’s Vive Focus collection. Its standalone OS is straightforward however navigable, and its boundary-setting and room-scanning software program is practical because of its respectable full-color passthrough and built-in depth sensor. However, Viveport’s extraordinarily restricted number of out there video games, only a few of which use blended actuality, makes it appear to be HTC hit all of the standalone MR checkboxes simply to say it might. At the least, at $999.99 the Vive Focus Vision is extra inexpensive than its predecessor – which stays primarily enterprise-focused at its authentic $1,300 worth – however once more, it’s most clearly geared towards PC VR energy customers and location-based leisure companies, each of which is able to make nice use of its handy hot-swappable battery and magnetically-detachable, easy-to-clean facial interface.
HTC Vive Focus Vision – Design and Features
The HTC Vive Focus Vision has an all-black design that’s each snug and visually pleasing. Its shiny entrance faceplate has a cool cyberpunk edge to it, and its standalone versatility makes it able to masking each spatial computing want – kinda like a VR Swiss Army Knife – making it a viable choice for these steering away from each Meta and Apple.
It has built-in eye-tracking cameras, two 16MP full-color passthrough cameras, a depth sensor for mixed-reality room scanning and gaming, and an IR flood mild for low-light hand monitoring – all enhancements over its 2021 predecessor, the Vive Focus 3. It’s additionally the primary Vive Focus headset to supply lossless DisplayPort visuals through USB-C. Both gadgets use the now-outdated Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 platform additionally utilized by the four-year-old Meta Quest 2, however a minimum of the Vive Focus Vision will get an inner efficiency bump over its predecessor, pushing its RAM up from 8GB to 12GB.
One of the most effective components of the Focus Vision being a member of the Vive Focus household is that it’s powered by a common hot-swappable 7000mAh battery. I exploit the time period “common” as a result of its battery can also be appropriate with earlier Vive Focus gadgets, and, even higher, it may be charged individually from the headset through a 30W AC charger – getting as much as round 50% in 35-45 minutes in my very own expertise. As quickly as you pull it out from behind the magnetic rear gasket, you might have about 20 minutes of inner battery life to interchange it – and when you do, the sport merely goes on like nothing occurred. If you’re utilizing the Focus Vision whereas plugged into a pc, the battery life is prolonged a lot additional – as much as round seven hours. This is a big deal for VR arcades and different companies that cater to lots of totally different potential customers on the identical day, but it surely additionally means the Vive Focus Vision stays usable for a for much longer time.
Both the facial interface and the rear gasket (which shops the hot-swappable battery) might be simply pulled off and changed through magnetic attachment, and so they’re each fairly snug to put on for hours at a time, affording ample pleather padding for my face and the again of my head. That mentioned, the Focus Vision is noticeably heavier whereas taking part in bodily intense video games than the Quest 3. But hey, a minimum of they’re simple to wash and substitute.
The Vive Focus Vision’s adjustable head strap might be described with one phrase: “cozy”. It stays put during times of bodily exercise, which isn’t the case for the Quest 3 and Quest 3S’s default Y-style strap. Both the Focus Vision’s head strap and adjustment knob are simple to configure on the fly because of a launch button on the again. There’s additionally a handy auto-IPD operate layered throughout the Focus Vision’s settings menu that takes – at most – a few seconds to set your show’s IPD (interpupillary distance) anyplace between 57 and 72 mm utilizing these fancy eye-tracking cameras.
I commend the Focus Vision for offering a ton of area throughout the facial interface, which has remained snug without having a ton of fixed adjustment, and hasn’t left fairly as seen a mark on my face after hours of utilization as different headsets sometimes do. With the packed-in glasses spacer, this show is in all probability excellent for many glasses-wearers even when utilizing the preinstalled mild bleed guard, which sits comfortably beneath the lenses and blocks out all exterior mild. For the file, that’s an enormous praise, and I can’t say the identical factor in regards to the PS VR2 – which is certainly one of my favourite VR headsets of all time.
On the opposite hand, the fan on the highest of the Focus Vision’s visor can also be fairly large – and loud – making a racket even after I’m doing primary duties like opening the headset’s inner web browser. It can get distracting sufficient to remind me of the jet engine noises the bottom PS4 makes when it’s in misery, and that doesn’t evoke an excellent feeling when it’s coming from one thing hooked up to my face.
It’s cool that there are USB-C 3.2 ports in two locations – one sitting on the proper facet of the headset whereas carrying it (subsequent to the Aux-In jack) and a second one within the entrance part of the visor, hidden beneath a detachable cowl. According to different customers, the second jack is usually solely helpful when including USB-C equipment like exterior facial and physique trackers, although I didn’t attempt these out throughout my assessment interval, so I can’t converse to how properly they work with the Focus Vision.
The solely drawback with this configuration is that, as soon as a USB-C cable is plugged into the proper facet of the show, it usually will get in the way in which. And with out the wired connection, the headset’s Wi-Fi 6E driver doesn’t do an excellent job of staying related to SteamVR through Vive Hub with out displaying important artifacts and compression. That’s with ~200MB/s add speeds – greater than ample for a constantly steady expertise with Virtual Desktop on the Quest 3 and 3S.
A nifty contact within the Focus Vision is the microSD slot that’s appropriate with as much as 2TB exterior storage. It’s cleverly hidden behind the removable facial interface, although with 128GB built-in storage and a comparatively small library of apps and video games through the official Viveport retailer, I didn’t really feel any compulsion to develop my storage – particularly with a superbly good VR-capable gaming PC at my fingertips.
The Vive Focus Vision contains two built-in directional 3D audio audio system on its left and proper sides, sitting roughly round the place my ears sit when the headset is comfortable to my face. This is one other space the place the Focus Vision beats different trendy PC VR shows, the PS VR2, and even the Quest 3; the sound high quality has been constantly crystal clear (when the fan wasn’t working on overdrive), and at instances, peripheral sound sources coming from the left and proper encompass channels had been so convincingly punchy that if I didn’t know higher, I would’ve been satisfied that Half-Life’s extraterrestrial invaders had taken over my real-life residence.
It additionally comes filled with twin microphones enhanced by a built-in echo-cancellation characteristic hidden throughout the headset’s settings, and so they sounded fairly good as soon as I obtained them working in Windows. Meanwhile, much like the current Quest 3S, there’s a quantity button on the underside and a neat motion button on the left facet which comfortably switches between immersive mode and full-color passthrough after a few fast faucets.
HTC Vive Focus Vision – Setup and Controllers
Setting up the HTC Vive Focus Vision is basically the identical course of as with most different VR headsets. HTC requires you to create an account and arrange the Vive Manager cellular app, a course of that mirrors Meta’s course of for establishing any Quest headset. But in all, it was a reasonably easy train that solely took round 25-Half-hour to get sorted earlier than I might start taking part in video games in my SteamVR library. That mentioned, there’s an additional set of steps to observe – and about 15-20 further minutes of setup time – if you’re utilizing the Vive Wired Streaming Kit to hardwire the Focus Vision into your gaming PC or Mac – both straight by USB-C or by utilizing the Focus Vision-exclusive DisplayPort-to-USB-C adapter.
Setting up Vive Hub on PC can also be fairly easy because it simply requires an installer obtain from HTC’s web site. After a fast set up course of, the software program plugs and performs seamlessly into SteamVR with a number of tweaks. There’s additionally further downloads for the Vive Streaming service, Vive Hub app, and Vive Desk service, the final of which is critical when you’re planning on utilizing it as a digital workspace. Finally, for PC VR gaming, it’s all the time a good suggestion to show off Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling for a smoother expertise.
One of the larger downsides of the Vive Focus Vision is its controllers. They use a typical dual-stick structure that’s in step with the fashionable Touch Plus and Sense Controllers, which is nice, however they’re prolonged, cumbersome, and unwieldy, usually getting in the way in which of gameplay. Their points are particularly obvious after I’m bodily unable to reload unconventional weapons in video games like H3VR or swing a sword with out hitting my face in Blade & Sorcery. The first instance occurred a number of instances, whereas the second is extra of an exaggeration – however the level is, it’s painfully awkward to play with these after being spoiled by the Quest 3’s far nimbler Touch Plus controllers.
All that bulkiness is dangerous sufficient, however they don’t appear to have a comparatively lengthy battery life both – staying alive for about three or 4 hours on a single cost. They additionally depend on USB-C to recharge, which runs counter to the hot-swapping functionality of the headset’s major battery. They additionally merely stopped engaged on a number of events, forcing me to restart each SteamVR and Vive Hub, kicking me out of all the pieces I’m doing in VR. Not nice.
That mentioned, it’s good that the controllers don’t require an arduous setup course of involving connecting them to Windows’ onboard Bluetooth. Instead, they join wirelessly to the headset, which is a significant step up from my expertise hooking up my PS VR2 to my PC through the PS VR2 PC Adapter.
HTC Vive Focus Vision – Gaming Performance
If you’re planning on shopping for the Vive Focus Vision primarily for standalone VR or mixed-reality gaming, you may wish to maintain off – a minimum of till HTC fills up its content material library. Right now, the software program framework is all there – the inner GUI is easy to navigate, with well-structured menus, helpful tutorials, easy-to-set-up digital boundaries with an preliminary cap of 10×10 meters, and so forth – although it’s all noticeably slower than I’m used to as a Quest 3 energy person. For occasion, reorienting my view within the Vive Focus Vision takes an extra few seconds to kick in after holding down the Vive’s equal of the “Home” button for 2 or three seconds, whereas the identical characteristic is near-instant on the Quest 3.
The Vive Focus Vision additionally simply feels behind when working standalone video games and experiences. That’s as a result of it depends on a years-old Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 processor to push outdated content material by Fresnel lenses at 2,448 x 2,448 (5K) per-eye decision – making a worst-of-both-worlds state of affairs. After all, not solely are these previous video games’ visible wrinkles magnified at larger resolutions and with god rays typical of Fresnel lenses, however they’re simply gradual – giving inconsistent efficiency and jittery frames. Oh yeah, and so they’re loud, no because of that pesky onboard fan I discussed earlier.
But nonetheless, on paper, it has all of the encompasses a typical person may need for a contemporary standalone headset – like mixed-reality room-scanning that remembers the geometry of every object in a given playspace, and fairly handsome full-color passthrough. Once they get working, they work nearly in addition to on the Quest 3. The greatest drawback is that the Viveport retailer betrays a a lot emptier content material library, with solely barebones choices in comparison with Meta’s abundant-by-comparison ecosystem. There’s no Supernatural nor PianoVision, however hey, a minimum of there’s Les Mills Bodycombat and a port of Google Tilt Brush, known as Open Brush. Those actually aren’t dangerous, however I haven’t even gotten to the video games but. The lack of choice is instantly obvious and bodes poorly for these hoping to make the Focus Vision their major standalone VR headset.
Once you plug it right into a gaming PC is the place the Vive Focus Vision lastly, really shines. Jacking it in by my Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti’s DisplayPort on my desktop (through HTC’s Wired Streaming Kit, bought individually), my expertise skyrocketed. I used to be instantly struck by the show’s outstandingly wealthy colour depth, surprisingly deep blacks, and a few of the crispest graphics I’ve skilled on any of my headsets. Somehow, HTC managed to attain this with plain previous Fresnel lenses. All I wanted to do was set the graphics to Auto in Vive Hub on my desktop and the Focus Vision gave me true 5K PC VR at 90hz, supported by foveated rendering. By the way in which, the latter makes all the pieces look gorgeously detailed with no efficiency dip, even with out having the advantage of infinite distinction from OLED lenses or the inherent readability of pancake lenses.
The draw back right here is that, if I wish to fiddle with my system settings or alter my IPD whereas utilizing SteamVR, I’ve to fully exit Vive Streaming mode and return to standalone mode, jarring me away from no matter I’m doing on my PC. This component of the Vive Focus Vision’s standalone OS appears like a piece in progress, which is baffling since SteamVR is the system’s bread and butter. Speaking of, HTC guarantees an eventual replace unlocking a 120hz mode on PC, but it surely’s not out there but. That’s much less of an enormous deal, nonetheless, since although I used to be caught at a cap of 90 frames per second, the Vive Focus Vision pumped out constantly steady framerates in SteamVR all through my complete two-week testing interval.
Even higher, the Focus Vision’s show gives a near-120-degree horizontal viewing angle that beats each different headset I’ve not too long ago examined. I can lastly see all the pieces occurring round me when trying straight in entrance of me (although the black edges of the show are nonetheless seen when intentionally trying left and proper). The vertical viewing angle isn’t fairly as proportional, and there may be generally a slight seen fish-eye impact when trying straight at a topic up shut. But even so, there’s a lot much less of a sense of carrying VR “goggles” and it’s far simpler to get pulled deeper into atmospheric video games like Half-Life: Alyx. The Focus Vision’s wider FOV (paired along with its 3D-accurate spatial audio audio system) is an apparent boon for aggressive avid gamers who don’t wish to be simply jumped by enemy gamers in on-line video games like Pavlov VR, and finally, 120hz mode will assist on the market too.
Vive Desk transforms the Vive Focus Vision right into a digital workplace with as much as three digital screens or one 21:9 ultrawide, talking on to a related PC or Mac. This is the place passthrough turns into particularly helpful for work, as you’ll be able to designate a selected space of your real-life desk to seem inside the digital atmosphere always, and it’s cool that you should use your PC’s mouse to govern the dimensions and site of Vive Desk’s digital shows.
Disappointingly, there may be nonetheless no officially-supported strategy to play exclusives from Meta’s again catalog of PC VR video games – like Lone Echo or Asgard’s Wrath – on non-Meta headsets just like the Vive Focus Vision. At least, not with out going by outdated and doubtlessly unsupported third-party software program. This is a big missed alternative for these previous video games that might profit massively from the Vive Focus Vision’s {hardware}.
