Earlier this year, HTC teased a new standalone device that would allow users to enjoy virtual reality (VR) without having to use a separate mobile phone. This week, the company finally revealed the all-in-one VR headset, the Vive Focus.
HTC made the announcement for the new VR device during the Vive Developer Conference in Beijing, China. The new device sports an inside-out six degrees of freedom (6DoF) world-scale tracking. This means that the headset will be able to sense the user's movements even without external base sensors. The state-of-the-art tracking system will also work even when the user is on a train or an airplane.
"In the past, standalones have always kind of represented a mediocre balance, where you don't have much content and you can only do rotational, and it's not that much different than Cardboard except now you have one individual machine," said Alvin Wang Graylin, president of HTC Vive China. "Now you can essentially do most of the things that you could do on a high-end machine on a standalone."
The 6DoF system has been advertised by other Chinese manufacturers, saying future devices will be including the feature. However, according to HTC, the Vive Focus is the first device with 6DoF to be sold in the market.
The Vive Focus is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and comes with a three-degrees-of-freedom controller. The headset has a high resolution AMOLED screen with a rotational head strap whose design takes cues from the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap. The headset itself comes in a bright blue shade and includes an unusual, yet simplistic design.
Lenovo also took the opportunity to announce the Vive Wave VR open platform. The new software platform has already partnered with 12 hardware manufacturers. This will allow app developers a more seamless process when porting titles to enable compatibility with various VR devices.
