OSVR is today launching the HDK 2, the latest in the organization’s series of ‘Hacker Development Kit’ VR headsets.

The new HDK 2 will be nearly identical to the prior most recent HDK 1.4, save for a new and improved display which increases the resolution and frame rate to 2160×1200 and 90 FPS, respectively, matching the paper specs of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Crucially, the HDK 2’s new display also brings with it low-persistence functionality, allowing for a major reduction in blur seen during head movement in VR.

osvr logo 13 new partners academia program 2
See Also: Razer Earmarks $5 Million to Encourage OSVR Content Development

Like its contemporaries (the Rift and the Vive) the HDK 2 achieves its resolution through the use of two individual displays, one for each eye. The custom multi-element lenses include both individual diopter and IPD adjustments. The lenses will retain the same “diffusion film” which the company says reduces the screen door effect visible from the headset.

Other than the upgraded display, the HDK 2 is nearly identical to the HDK 1.4, although the 1.4 will continue to be sold alongside the HDK 2. The OSVR HDK 2 release date is July with the price set at $399.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • mellott124

    OLED or LCD?

    • Jason Cardoso

      Dual Display 2160×1200 low persistence OLED silver screen with 441 PPI running at 90 fps. You can find the full specs here. ://www.osvr.org/buy/

      • mellott124

        Great, now that they’re dual displays we can also stop combining the resolution from both eyes. HMD resolution is stated per eye. This is a 1080×1200 resolution HMD. Same for Oculus and Vive.

        • Jim Cherry

          1080×1200 doesn’t market well. So users will have to do the math themselves.

          • mellott124

            Yes, Marketing is the real reason. Like when HMD manufacturers used to count the subpixels.

        • Different information is sent to each eye so it’s quite pertinent what the total pixel count is; this will be the resolution driven by the source. In a traditional old school 2D HMD it makes perfect sense to state resolution per eye as that is also the total effective resolution.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Same displays as the Vive/Rift are using…

  • Room Scale?

    • Harry Hol

      No it’s small enough to wear on your head.

      • JoeD

        Bu dump – ching!

      • WillyWonka248

        The funny haha comment of the day award goes to this guy!

  • Tama

    In his web it doesn’t appear to buy yet. http://www.osvr.org/buy/
    I don’t find any official info about release date.

  • Pete

    So it’s a Rift copy for $200 less.

    • John Nemesh

      Yup, without Room Scale…so no playing Vive games…and without the Oculus Store, so no Rift games. Have fun with that.

      • Jim Cherry

        I recommend waiting for reviews when osvr launched last year it didn’t have working positional tracking. Also the hdk2 is still a dev kit so one should really compare it to dk2 in terms of customer unfriendliness.

        • John Nemesh

          Nah, I don’t have to wait, I have a Vive now. This…thing…is going to be a failure. Just watch.

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            Vive is current like an apple phone, you cant compare it with other devices on the market.
            Vive is also the most expensive one at this moment.
            I own a vive too , but this one will be added too as its a good device for a good price, just no roomscale but not all need as standing/seated games can also be fun.
            Just look at the demos in Vive bow shoot and spaceship shooting demo from the labs, not needed to move in a lot of space for them to play.
            Racing games also fun in VR.
            Roomscale is for sure awesome, but not most games in VR will be having it immersive.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            this thing doesn’t have any tracking at all, except the internal gyroscopes, which aren’t good for decent VR..

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            Faceplate Module

            Default for v1.4

            IR Faceplate providing positional information with 360 degree tracking for responsive, multi directional input.

            Comes with an IR Camera operating at 100hz.

            Other variations include:

            OSVR Faceplate with Leap Motion offering embedded Leap Motion
            technology to support natural interaction using physical hands.

            It uses IR tracking just as Rift, see more detail on their website.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Yep you’re right, it was my error, as i presumed it was mentioned separately, but it seems OR positional tracking faceplate OR leapmotion faceplate.. with my dk2 i have both..

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            One very good thing is that this HMD is modular as you see on the website, you can replace parts so you dont need to buy a new one to improve it, which makes it a unique one.

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            you could still buy the leap motion module from leap motion itself.

          • EvilScrooge

            IR tracking doesn’t automatically equal positional tracking, right?

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            R Kit
            IR Faceplate providing positional information at 100hz with
            360 degree tracking for responsive, multi directional input.

            *Comes with an IR Camera for positional tracking.

          • EvilScrooge

            I hope that’s the case but I will wait for reviews to be certain. $400 is definitely enough. I hope they wont go overboard with it. Head tracking, Positional tracking and 1200p is obsolutely enough for me. They don’t have to bundle it with any stupid controller :)

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            No controllers with it, yeah some people only like to play racing game with a steer or just a gamepad game, the tracked motion controlers are only usefull in certain games as in others they are not, problem however is to find the controler if your wearing the HMD, im more hoping some other controlers would come out which also can see when you wear HMD.
            It is what OSVR is a very basic HMD device for high end PC and flexible as you can even add or remove components to you liking (upgrading)

          • EvilScrooge

            I don’t need any games that will force me to use any controller. For me the perfect way to use VR is to treat it as a screen. Just more modern way to display games. I had a chance to test Quake 2 Vr on DK2 and I loved how it controlled. Moving my gun separately from the eye sight was incredible idea and it felt like I was using my hand as they gun moved the way my hand was moving a mouse. That was absolutely enough. We just want to immerse ourselves into some giant world and explore every nook and cranny of it. I personally am not interested in petting a cat in a virtual room with a plastic stick. We just have to get used to walking in VR without our body moving. I was trying these weird HTC vive sticks and it was horrendous. I was constantly tripping over, hitting walls and falling flat on the ground with no reason. (not to mention exploring worlds was out of the question) I prefer to just sit on my butt safe in my chair.
            So in other words, we need any good game to play with. Current stuff reminds me waaaaaay too much of Nintendo Wii and its weemote. Theres a reason we are PC players and not some wiimote groping nintendo wankers…

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            Its different as a nintendo controller, i played them too, there are other things these controllers can do which others cant, just as a racing steer for racing games and a flight stick for flight games.
            It just depends on what you want to do ofcourse, i think eventualy some ppl will use leap motion driven games.
            It depends just on what kinda game you want to play to fit your own personal needs for it.
            Yes PC players like to have freedom of choice for what controller they want to play their favorite games with ;)

          • EvilScrooge

            For now we need these games. Sadly as for now VR headset devs want all the exclusivity which creates a mess and isolates potential indie devs and Vr mod makers. I do hope we will be able to play more modded, already existing games in VR. For now I will probably buy OSVR for some racing and flight games (and ofcourse replay Quake2 countless times).
            I do hope full motion tracking is actually there. Still wonder though, Is it even worth for 2 games?

          • Lionel Townsend

            Racing games are the reason I’m interested in VR. Tickets, upgrades, tires, and track time are expensive… not to mention down time due to late night shenanigans. VR is an investment that’s more affordable and safe (to you and by standers) to enjoy on nightly basis. I’ll be picking up an HDK 1.4 or 2.0 and an RX 480 (non reference) or a 1060 GTX. Plus Vireo and my Steam library….Fallout 4 and a paper bag. I’m in heaven… or a paper bag.

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            Yes true, although not all racing games are designed good in VR, it also depends on how they did the development.
            Keep in mind to see current titles released on VR, not every game works on any HMD some just work only on a few or even only 1.

      • DonGateley

        I think I shall. A good development platform for attaching to other reality models. An enabling opportunity. Just happen to have one of those in progress. See the real universe your way with it. :-)

        • John Nemesh

          Well, honestly, I hope it DOES succeed. There is definitely room in the market for more players. I just hate the “budget” approach. VR should be approached as a SYSTEM and not just a headset with the controls being an afterthought. In any case, I look forward to seeing your work!

          • DonGateley

            The Razer version is due on my doorstep tomorrow. :-)

            Gotta shelve it for now but have a definite task for it.

      • WillyWonka248

        I am not impressed by the Oculus rift or the store and their locked down DRM. Headsets like the OSVR will be the future. Maybe the vive will survive as well, at the higher end. Death to Oculus, Death to the rift! Long live open source VR. Forget Lucky Palmer, FB, and their DRM BS!

        • Andrew Jakobs

          Only their store is DRMed, the headset itself isn’t.. Just like Steam is DRMed, but then again, Steam might be your favorite digital store, so you don’t care..

          • WillyWonka248

            If DRM was only being used to prevent illegal copies of the software at Oculus that would be no big deal. Oculus appears to be using DRM to lock other headsets out of Oculus games, something Steam is not doing with Vive games. Oculus fears the flood lower priced headsets from competitors that is sure to come.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            But you’re wrong, only if a headset supports SteamVR it will work on steam, just like any headset will work on the Oculus platform if they correctly support the Oculus SDK (and certify it with Oculus).. At this moment the Rift is the only certified headset, HTC doesn’t want to support the Oculus SDK, so point a finger to them..

          • WillyWonka248

            Steam already allows this, yet Oculus won’t now because of DRM. There are a few notable headsets that no longer work with Oculus games, but will with Steam VR. OSVR, Deepoon’s E2. Those both cost 1/3 of what a rift costs. The OSVR is soon to release a headset as good as the rift for 75% of the cost of a rift and 50% of the cost of a Vive. If Oculus does not intend to shut these other headsets out, it certainly appears that way. Oculus would have been better served refusing Facebook’s buyout and partnering with Steam to release a headset and still be open source, and this will no doubt end up being the future of PC VR gaming, as most people will play through Steam. Lucky Palmer saw the flash of quick cash from Facebook and sold out. No shame in that, but don’t damage the progress of the entire industry by creating these stupid wall gardens.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Deepoon doesn’t even have positional tracking, and what I’ve read, it’s even worse than the current OSVR HD1 or DK2..
            And if Oculus hadn’t been bought by Facebook, the DK2 with only a few enhancements would have been the CV1 (and yes, then they would have hit that pricepoint the wanted and said back then)..
            And a lot of games already didn’t work with other headsets, due to them implementing the OculusSDK and not OpenVR (which isn’t opensource or actually really open as the name suggests)..
            So yes, with those cheap headsets you get a headset that’s much cheaper than the Rift or the Vive, but you also don’t get any controllers and the quality is much less (OSVR HD2 is still open for debate) than the Rift and Vive..

          • WillyWonka248

            If the quality can be matched at $400.00 for CV1 quality, instead of $600.00 – $800.00, Oculus is going to have a hard time unless they lower their prices. I would say that by Summer of 2017, they will either be the past of VR, or at least offering cheaper headsets to survive against mounting competition from Sony and Razr.

        • DiGiCT Ltd

          (un)Lucky Palmer, just a little kiddo with a good idea but no business wise skills.
          Yes you are right OSVR and Vive and not to forget Google Daydream devices will be the future.

    • DiGiCT Ltd

      Not a copy but similar device yes, you could add your own motion tracked input controllers with it.
      It’s a better buy as a rift at this moment IMO, as the only thing that makes it different will be the motion traccked controllers , which are still not for sale for rift.
      It saves money after all for a similar device !
      The good thing is also its OPEN platform and no locked down Oculus device, so devs can distribute freely.
      UE4 already support OSVR out of the box, unity will follow.

      • GuyInkognito

        You have no idea knowing if it is a better buy than the rift without having tied it first.
        The rift is the best and most polished HMD as of now. I still sold it and kept the Vive because I don’t want to miss out on room scale until touch arrives. So only time will tell if they are able to achieve a high end headset for that price.

        • DiGiCT Ltd

          Touch is not 100% roomscale as vive, vive is just the leader in it as its designed for that feature since the beginning due to lighthouses.
          With IR tracking you can do limited roomscale and standing, which i think most games will be using that at the end.
          As i said similar as rift without controllers, its $200 cheaper and for sure a good HMD for people which want to step into VR with a small budget.

          For a good polished product who cares, its about being usefull or not.
          I dont see anything of it when i am wearing it.
          For the weight its easy to solve by using balances on the back of the straps, as balancing weight makes it nearly neutral and will not pull much force on the face.
          Although over 100 persons tested the vive for use and they had no issues at all with anything, only exception the wire, but thats something they could live with.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        uhh.. Oculus devices aren’t locked down either, you can freely distribute your game/application without the need for the Oculus Store, you CAN use the Oculus Store as an extra store though… So don’t go telling nonsense.. The Oculus Store itself is ‘locked down’ to only certified devices, which at this moment is only the Rift (but HTC could have actual support if they wanted to, but HTC doesn’t want to do it)..
        And I’d rather wait the actual reviews on how the lenses are in comparison to the Vive or Rift. And as far as I know, the OSVR doesn’t have positional tracking, which is a major part for good VR.
        Adding good positional tracking and at least a simple xbox controller, will ramp up the price to that of the Rift, but the Rift is much more comfortable..

        • jesse ficarra

          >but HTC could have actual support if they wanted to, but HTC doesn’t want to do it)

          Implying you believe Palmer Luckey, who has been telling a lot of lies recently. There is no reason Oculus needs HTCs permission to support the Vive, Valve didn’t need permission to support the Rift.

          >And as far as I know, the OSVR doesn’t have positional tracking, which is a major part for good VR

          While the HDK1 was pretty shitty, but it had positional tracking. I doubt they are going to remove a feature for their second gen device, so you’re mistaken on that.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            My error, the osvr hd2 does have positional tracking, it is mentioned with the faceplate..
            But supporting the rift is very much in the best interest for valve, as they don’t make money on the vive, but on the sale of software, also the rift was the first device that was actually publicly available and supported by steamvr.. oculus might support the vive themselves, but just like sony with their psvr, the first want to make sure their own headset works perfectly.. Why not point the finger at HTC, they should put their resources into supporting the oculussdk if they really are thinking of their customers…

        • DiGiCT Ltd

          Faceplate Module

          Default for v1.4

          IR Faceplate providing positional information with 360 degree tracking for responsive, multi directional input.

          Comes with an IR Camera operating at 100hz.

          Other variations include:

          OSVR Faceplate with Leap Motion offering embedded Leap Motion
          technology to support natural interaction using physical hands.

          It has a tracker based on IR just as oculus.

          Valve is the one that made it possible to make Rift work on other platforms more easy as they released OpenVR / SteamVR which work with both HMD, if it was up for Oculus they would just have prefered all on their own platform.
          I see no point in having an oculus shop for end users or dev perspective, only for own profits, HTC vice also have their portal but at least what i buy from steam also automatically show up in the Vive Portal.
          Checking if you bought the device is just a locked down IMO and even a stupid one too, who cares you bought one or not, its about selling your apps even when the buyer has no Rift, but thats an other story afterall.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            OH PLEASE! Valve is only supporting the other headsets because it also will sell more games through their steam platform, only for THEIR PROFITS… so go please get your head out of your ass if you really think valve does it for the benefit of the community, oh please… everything valve does is for getting more sales through their steam platform.. And because you already love the steamplatform you don’t have any problems with it (and it also has DRM and also sends data to the valve servers)..
            As a developer you are completely free to use the OculusSDK without needing to sell your game through the Oculus platform, but if you also want to sell your game through the Oculus platform you must implement the OculusSDK, just like if you want to support the steamVR platform completely, you’ll have to implement the SteamVR (DRM), OpenVR (which isn’t open at all) is not enough..

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            OpenVR is on github, if you know what that is.
            Adding an extra sdk for just a HMD hell no, redicilous and insane.
            BTW im not putting my head in places where you like to put it yourself, thank you.

          • EvilScrooge

            They did say the only difference is the new display so I wouldn’t trust that.
            Maybe they use IR tracking for better head tracking. They did say its 360 degree and not much on the site of calling it “positional tracking”

    • WyrdestGeek

      about OSVR:
      Pro: easier to hack (at least according to what the internet tells me)
      Con: not really all that complete– in either the software or the hardware.

      Still, I’m hoping Razer can bump up the quality on the hardware because I think good things can come from a very open piece of hardware.

      —
      Furry cows moo and decompress.

  • Charles

    No positional tracking? No thanks. Also, they didn’t talk about whether or not it’s more comfortable than the Rift or Vive – that would be a major selling point.

  • Mateusz

    OSVR is great if you just want to watch adult movies with it. They are already compatible with virtualrealplayer + some other 3rd party players. Unfortunately I don’t see any mass market appeal outside of this segment. As others have pointed out OSVR is not SteamVr nor Oculus Home compatible.

    • DiGiCT Ltd

      They are also compatible with the latest UE4 engine.
      It’s supported out of the box.

  • This is Great! I personally see OSVR as what Oculus stared as, but ultimately went away from because of it acquisition by Facebook and its goal to use Oculus as a Social weapon. The Price is unbeatable! Hell It’s cheaper then a used sweat filled DK2 on ebay and lets face it, It’s a damn handsome head set. Reminded me of the first PS3’s, they where Gorgeous! I Hate that Oculus has set themselves up as a Private steam of VR for Oculus only, DON’T get me wrong they have every right to, This is a free market and the beauty of capitalism, That being said I will not participate in the Oculus store for the same reason I stopped playing Most Ubisoft / All EA games, For a “few” extra bucks “I” have to fragment my gaming library just so Ubisoft can save a buck or two and not use steam… Psych!, Thanks to Steam VR and OSVR for breaking down the walls Oculus tried and is still trying to put up around VR, Much like Windows 10 App store / Private Steam crap! I refuse to log in to 5 different sites, Download clients ‘n all that BS. Oculus has a head start no doubt, But Oculus is not really about games and gamers like it was at its inception, OSVR and Vive are!

  • I have worked with both Sensics and Razer and can say they are very serious of making this more than a hacker/developer HMD after working with their latest beta driver/desktop console for Windows. If you have used their drivers and Server/Client tools in the past (HDK 1.2 – 1.4). It was up to you to make sure things were unzipped and the proper configurations (JSON files) were set up using a text editor. Then launching the server and the finally installing the client demos. Now you just run an installer like OVR and then go to the new taskbar icon to change settings, start/stop/restart the server, etc. The Render Manager is now built in with Direct Mode. Another thing I found interesting is that I could run it on my 2 year old ASUS laptop with a NVIDIA 870M with pretty good results. Sure having a GTX 1060 and above would be much better, but that fact you don’t need the latest is kind of nice. Also, there SteamVR plug-in is more stable now which means you a number of Oculus VR games in the Steam store work as well.