HTC has announced the Vive Focus Plus, a new version of its Vive Focus standalone headset that includes a pair of its updated motion controllers, which were first announced as developer hardware back in October. Whereas the Vive Focus’s sole original controller supported three degrees of freedom, these new controllers support six, meaning they can be tracked as they move around, rather than just as they rotate on the spot.
HTC announces new Vive Focus with two updated motion controllers
The Vive Focus Plus will be available in Q2 of this year
The Vive Focus Plus will be available in Q2 of this year
Image: HTC
The addition of these two controllers puts the Vive Focus Plus in direct competition with the Oculus Quest, a standalone headset that’s due to be released in spring this year and also includes a pair of controllers. A proof of concept demonstration produced by Facebook showed how the headset could be used for “arena-scale” tracking, allowing you to walk around as much as 4,000 square feet of space, but it’s unclear whether this will ever come to the consumer device.
Outside of the new controllers, the headset portion of the Vive Focus Plus is very similar to the original Vive Focus. It still supports six degrees of freedom tracking, it’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, and it’s equipped with a 3K (read: 2880 x 1600) AMOLED display. The Vive Wave platform powers the Vive Focus Plus, and you can download new content and apps from the Viveport online store. However, the design of the headset has been slightly tweaked to create more forehead contact area, which HTC claims allows the its weight to be better distributed.
The Vive Focus Plus is aimed primarily at business customers, and will be available in 25 countries including the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, and China. HTC has yet to announce any pricing for its new headset, but it has said that it expects it to be available in the second quarter of this year.
Update February 21st, 11:15AM ET: Added more details about the design of the headset and the countries of release.
Correction: A previous version of this article claimed that “arena-scale” tracking would be coming to the Oculus Quest headset. In fact, this was a proof of concept demonstration, and the company has not confirmed whether it will be available for the consumer device. We have updated the article to reflect this.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
