Vive Focus 3 Announced with Snapdragon XR2, 6MP Resolution, $1,300 Enterprise Price & June 27th Launch

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HTC today revealed its latest standalone VR headset, the Vive Focus 3. The enterprise-oriented headset will bring Snapdragon XR2, a whopping 6MP per-eye resolution, 120° field-of-view, new controllers, and more for $1,300. The Vive Focus 3 release date is set for June 27th.

HTC today also announced the Vive Pro 2, full details here.

HTC is going all out with its latest standalone VR headset, seemingly aiming to position the product as the high-end standalone VR headset choice for enterprises. The Vive Focus 3 will be priced at $1,300 (including a two year business warranty), a significant increase over its predecessor, the Vive Focus Plus, and the Quest 2 business edition, both priced at $800.

Along with the increased price, the Vive Focus 3 will also bring a brand new design and an impressive leap in specs. Here’s the rundown:

Vive Focus 3 Specs
Resolution 2,448 x 2,448 (6.0MP) per-eye, LCD (2x)
Refresh Rate 90Hz
Lenses Dual-element Fresnel
Field-of-view 120° horizontal
Optical Adjustments IPD
IPD Adjustment Range 57–72mm
Processor Snapdragon XR2
RAM 8GB
Storage 128GB (expandable via MicroSD to 2TB)
Connectors USB-C (2x)
Battery Life 2 hours
Tracking Quad on-board camera (no external beacons)
Controllers Vive Focus 3 controllers, rechargeable battery
Audio In-headstrap speakers, 3.5mm aux output
Microphone Dual microphone
Pass-through Cameras Yes

Resolution & Lenses

Image courtesy HTC

Certainly one of the highlights of Vive Focus 3 is the class-leading resolution of 6MP (2,448 x 2,448) per-eye. That’s compared to 2.3MP on the Vive Focus Plus and 3.5MP on the Quest 2. It even beats out the Reverb G2 at 4.7MP. Those pixels will be spread across the Vive Focus 3’s two LCD displays and a 120° horizontal field-of-view, HTC says. The dual displays also make way for a physical IPD adjustment which will range from 57–72mm.

Processor, RAM, & Cooling

Powering the headset is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2, paired with 8GB of RAM. Vive Focus 3 also includes an active cooling system with a 15W heat-pipe for keeping the system cool even as the processor starts cranking.

Rear-mounted Battery & Magnetic Pads

Image courtesy HTC

Another move which will help with cooling (and balance)—HTC has placed the Vive Focus 3 battery in the back strap of the headset. With two hours of claimed runtime, it’ll surely be appreciated that the battery is swappable, allowing users to quickly change out for an already charged battery (though the headset must be powered down to change the battery).

HTC sees this as an essential feature for some use-cases, especially commercial settings where user-throughout is important. To that end, the company says it’s also working on a multi-battery charging dock, and says the Vive Focus 3 battery can quick-charge to 50% in just 30 minutes. The headset also has magnetically attached face and rear pads which can be quickly swapped, allowing one set to be cleaned while another is in use.

Inside-out Tracking & New Controllers

Image courtesy HTC

Alongside moving to quad-cameras for the tracking on the Vive Focus 3, HTC is also ditching the ultrasonic controllers of the Focus Plus in favor of brand new controllers tracked via the headset’s cameras. Unlike Vive Cosmos, which used visible light tracking for its controllers, the new Vive Focus 3 controllers appear to be using an infrared tracking solution (similar to Rift and Quest).

Image courtesy HTC

The Vive Focus 3 controllers definitely have a similar vibe to the Oculus Touch controllers, and fortunately match the inputs that have become the norm for VR controllers in recent years: two thumbsticks, two triggers, two grip triggers, four buttons, and two menu buttons. HTC says the Vive Focus 3 controllers include capacitive finger sensing, though we don’t know exactly which areas of the controller will be able to track fingers just yet.

While they might look a good bit like Oculus Touch controllers, the Vive Focus 3 controllers differ in a welcomed way: integrated rechargeable batteries. Charged via a USB-C port, HTC says the controllers will last for 15 hours on a single charge.

PC VR via Tether or Wireless

HTC says the Vive Focus 3 will also join in on the hybrid approach by offering PC VR usage via a tether or a wireless method. The company says it will sell an optional Vive streaming cable for this purpose, though it isn’t clear if this will be a generic USB cable or something proprietary. The cable is expected to be available at launch, but the wireless streaming feature will be available at a later date.

Software, Enterprise Device Management, & App Store

Image courtesy HTC

Built atop Android, HTC says Vive Focus 3 will be running an interface it calls Vive Reality 2.0, which is designed to be a user-friendly menu for enterprise users who may be using VR for the first time.

HTC is also launching an enterprise-focused app store for Vive Focus 3 (and its enterprise-focused PC VR products) called Vive Business AppStore. The company hopes it will be an avenue for enterprises to discover VR software that’s useful for their business. HTC says that 20 apps will be available at launch and 50 developers have signed up so far.

HTC is also touting the Vive Business Device Management System, an ISO-certified MDM which allows mass setup and management of Vive headsets, including managed access rights with the ability to integrate into an organization’s existing user management system. HTC says the Vive Business Device Management System can even manage headsets from other vendors, and also offers Android Enterprise support and support for other MDMs.

Hand Tracking Expected in Q3

Similar to Quest headsets, Vive Focus 3 will also offer controllerless hand-tracking. HTC says the feature will be available only in beta at launch, but it expects to release hand-tracking widely in Q3 of this year.

Vive Focus 3 Price and Release Date

Image courtesy HTC

Vive Focus 3 will be available on June 27th, priced at $1,300, which includes a two year business warranty and Vive Business services.

Update (May 12th, 2021): HTC clarified that the Vive Focus 3 field-of-view is 120° horizontal. This was previously reported as the diagonal, which has been corrected above.

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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."
  • MosBen

    For the people inclined to say that the price is too high, please include an explanation for why this price is too high for businesses who are otherwise inclined to use XR headsets in their business and also compare to comparable competing enterprise headsets. If your feeling basically comes down to the price being higher than consumer-targeted headsets, then you’re not really thinking about the issue in a reasonable way.

    • John

      We want/need a Q2 competitor. Its all that matters to move the hesitant mainstream needle at all. F3 seems like an awesome headset, but as a premium b2b offer is doesnt push any boundaries at all.

      • MosBen

        That’s like saying that “what we need” is an affordable family car with great gas mileage (or lots of range if we prefer an electric vehicle as an example), and then criticizing Freightliner because their new semitruck doesn’t serve that need.

        Sure, I want a Quest 2 competitor as well, particularly because I’ve decided that I’m not going to buy a Quest 2 at all due to Facebook. But while I’d love for that product to exist, HTC hasn’t made a mistake, nor is the Focus 3 a bad product, simply because it’s not a Quest 2 competitor.

        • Kevin White

          Yup. I see both points. If you were expecting / hoping for a car company’s unveilings to include an affordable and practical car and instead it included more niche products aimed at industry or a narrower customer base or use case, that can simultaneously be disappointing at the consumer level while still being a logical and sensical move on the part of the car maker.

          • MosBen

            Absolutely. There’s a difference between being disappointed and declaring that the company has made a mistake, or the product is too expensive. I WANT a Quest 2 competitor, and I hoped that HTC would announce one. They didn’t, which is a bit of a bummer, but that doesn’t make the Focus 3 a bad or too-expensive product. It’s just not for me.

        • mrhoustonn

          It may be a good competitor in the small niche it is, but it is still the worst decision, because if they did every spec exactly equal to quest2 and put some more $200 on top explaining it’s because they don’t sell your data, people would still buy it just because it isn’t Facebook. I know I would prefer. They’d make a lot more monies.

          • MosBen

            The thing that you prefer is not necessarily the thing that would make HTC more money. You simply don’t know that, and like all of the people who compare an enterprise product to a consumer product and complain that it’s too expensive, you’re simply ignoring that this isn’t a product targeted to you and you don’t have any special information about why HTC made that decision. Maybe this product will fail, or maybe it will succeed, but whether it does or doesn’t won’t turn on the fact that you’d rather that there was a Quest 2 competitor in the world.

          • mrhoustonn

            I meant I’d prefer to pay for that then to pay for quest2, like a lot of people would, not that I’d prefer that to this one; that is obvious. You’re right, I don’t know whether they’d make more monies, but you also don’t know they wouldn’t either. But it’s a safe bet they would, because the enterprise market is tiny. I’m not comparing an enterprise product to a mass market one, that’s a straw man fallacy; I was saying they did the worst option available to them. They are in a position to do a mass market and preferred this one. Maybe they still will, but considering HTC in the past, I wouldn’t bet on it. They’re doing the bad decisions for a long time now.

          • MosBen

            But I didn’t say whether they’d make more or less money because I don’t know. My point is the every time some company releases an enterprise headset people run to the comments to say that the company is making a big mistake, that the headset is too expensive, and that said company clearly doesn’t like to make money. These comments are almost universally devoid of any actual information about the enterprise sector or the customers who are choosing between enterprise headsets. Most of these commenters simply assert, with no evidence or reason to actually believe that they are correct, that 1) the company is capable of releasing a VR headset at some price that the commenter thinks is a good price, and 2) that doing so would surely make more money for the company than a more expensive enterprise focused headset.

            As for comparing an enterprise headset to a mass market one, you basically did. Your comment referred to HTC releasing a headset for $200 more than the Quest 2, which would result in “people” buying the headset because they “don’t sell your data”. You said that this is what you personally would prefer, and that this strategy would make “a lot more monies”.

            In this comment you admit that you don’t know whether releasing a consumer device instead of an enterprise focused device would make more money, but then say that it’s a “safe bet” that they would because the enterprise market is tiny. You have not provided any reason to believe that they would sell more headsets with a Quest 2 competitor, or, and this is important, that they would make more money doing so. It’s entirely possible that HTC simply doesn’t have the capacity to release a mass market device like the Quest 2, or that they couldn’t do so profitably. You almost certainly don’t know enough about their business or this industry segment in general to make the prognostications that you are making, or if you do you haven’t supplied that information in your comment, which would actually make it useful to people.

            You simply don’t know that this was the “worst option available to them”, nor do you know that they are in a position to release a mass market product instead of what they’re choosing to release. You’re talking out of your ass.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I seriously doubt they could offer it for only USD 200 more. The Quest 2-like Pico Neo 3 sells for USD 390 to consumers in China, and this is pretty much a straight Qualcomm XR2 reference platform HMD released by a Chinese company, most likely using tracking software etc. directly provided by Qualcomm. And if you know the average income in China and the prices for electronics on China-only commercial sites like Taobao, this is an indicator for how cheap these things can possibly get.

            And Pico is running an app store that can subsidize the Neo 3 just like the Quest 2, without having to compete with Facebook in China. HTC invested a lot more into development and sells in markets where associated costs like marketing, distribution, service etc. are much higher. There is a reason why Pico doesn’t bother to offer their already existing standalone HMD to consumers outside of China.

        • GunnyNinja

          Horrible analogy. Freightliner doesn’t make passenger cars. They make commercial vehicles. This is the equivalent of a Ford passenger car that they are charging extra for you to haul refrigerators with.

          • MosBen

            No the better analogy is that Ford makes commercial vehicles in addition to their consumer vehicles, and for someone to be annoyed that their commercial vehicles are not priced in the same way that their consumer vehicles are priced. The bottom line is that the Focus 3 isn’t a consumer product and it’s not priced like a consumer product. Pretending that it is a consumer product and being mad that it’s not priced to match is a very common and annoying mistake that commenters make around here.

          • GunnyNinja

            Stop reaching. Commercial vehicles are purpose built to do a job. This isn’t. There is nothing about this that is purpose built for commercial use other than them saying it is. HTC has a history of so called “Enterprise” headsets that are no different from their consumer versions save wording on a license.

          • MosBen

            Except it’s not just wording on a license, it’s services and support that aren’t provided with consumer devices. People need to stop pretending like the only thing that a company is buying when they buy one of these is the hardware that’s in the box. Yes, the physical device in the box doesn’t cost anywhere near $1300 to make. The higher price is a reflection of the other things that the corporate buyer is buying in that purchase.

          • GunnyNinja

            You didn’t refute the facts I presented about that hardware. You are paying for enterprise support, not different hardware. That’s the point. It’s not more robust, it doesn’t have special features you can only get with a business. They are targeting that market because they can’t compete pricewise with the others. At this point, is commercial VR still worth it? Consumers are clamoring for new devices.

          • MosBen

            That’s simply incorrect. The services that are included in an enterprise product are not the same services that are offered with warranties and customer support on consumer products. Yes, they’re probably focusing on enterprise because they can’t compete on price at the consumer level. They also may not be able to produce enough units to make a consumer launch worthwhile. There are lots of reasons why a company might make an enterprise product than a consumer product, but that doesn’t mean that an enterprise product doesn’t provide value to the enterprise beyond consumer products.

          • GunnyNinja

            I didn’t say anything about the value of the support. I said the hardware is no different. They are selling a consumer level headset and saying, “this is only for business”. Not because it’s heavy duty, but because they want to be able to price it higher. I wouldn’t buy it anyway because I would simply tether it to a PC. I’d rather buy the Vive Pro 2 if I still had lighthouses. Most of my use is seated. Mobile VR is wasted on me.

      • Jeremy Kins

        If you take away the price, it’s absolutely pushing boundaries in the standalone space from basically every spec it has, and in it’s design by moving the battery to the back which will make it so much better balanced and comfortable than Quest 2.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Actually B2B is the only market where technical boundaries are currently pushed because mainstream VR is price restricted and Facebook pretty much killed the market by offering the Quest 2 at almost build cost, not getting any return of investment for development, marketing, software exclusives etc.

        Facebook itself based the Quest 2 largely on the Qualcomm XR2 reference platform, uses displays also available to other companies. What they did better than anybody else isn’t so much the hardware as pushing the price down as far as possible and investing a lot in software. Very few companies can afford this, and for the foreseeable future the only serious competitor in affordable mainstream consumer VR will most likely be Sony.

        So instead of blaming HTC for not delivering something they cannot afford to sell without going bankrupt, people should be grateful that other companies besides Facebook are finding ways to keep pushing VR forward, even if it will take a few years to trickle down to cheap consumer hardware.

        • MasterElwood

          actually – it’s more like the opposite. Qualcomm designed the XR2 after asking Oculus what THEY want to have in a next-gen VR-Soc.

          There is a Carmack talk about that

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Not the opposite. XR2 wasn’t “designed” according to Oculus wishes, more “configured” according to Oculus recommendations. Oculus/Qualcomm cooperation goes back to the Gear VR/Galaxy Note 4 days. There are many Carmack talks about his attempts to get Qualcomm to make even minor changes for VR, often fruitless, because it didn’t fit their mobile strategy. There is a very interesting talk about what it took him to get 5K 360º video to run on the Go, because the Qualcomm engineers insisted that it wasn’t possible and therefore weren’t willing to give him the necessary access.

            The XR1 and XR2 are different from typical mobile SoCs, because they are aimed at XR devices, but they are mainly reconfigurations of existing mobile SoCs. The Snapdragon 865 was their 2020 top tier smart phone chip, the Adreno GPU is designed for gaming on phones, the Hexagon DSP that did all the tracking on the Quest 1 was introduced for audio and camera processing. The Hexagon in the SD820 was used on Daydream to remove the need for external gyroscope sensors.

            None of these components were changed for the XR2. Core differences are in other areas like power management, because phone SoCs are intended for use with short power peaks, while VR requires consistent performance. Qualcomm of course cooperated intensively with Oculus about what they needed for a stand-alone VR HMD, due to a) their experience and b) Oculus being their main customer for the XR2, but that doesn’t mean that Qualcomm created the XR2 from scratch for Oculus. They basically repackaged their existing SoC in a more fitting configuration.

    • Lucidfeuer

      Because after the pandemic companies have less “techwashing” money to waste and will go for the Quests (which I dislike).

      There’s a also a general “VR fatigue” in the industry, we’re too used to new headsets taking the dust after a few months, and after the announcement nobody in the agency I historically consult for even wants to get one. Casual discussion with companies that have an innovation/creative technology pole is about the same “don’t give a shit for 2 sec”.

      • While Oculus is definitely winning the consumer market for VR, Facebook is ruining the enterprise segment. I work for a company that does industrial VR training, and we bailed from Oculus after they discontinued the Rift S. Their enterprise restrictions are far too demanding. This Focus 3 is PERFECT for us. The cost doesn’t really matter as much, we can eat that. The control of the firmware and the business-friendly attitude of HTC makes all the difference in the world to us.

        • MosBen

          Exactly the kind of things that most commenters don’t understand when they compare a $1,300 enterprise product to a $300 consumer product. Thanks.

        • knuckles625

          Above is is a comment with good insight – I looked into using Quest 2 for business at a previous employer and although the hardware would have been great, the licensing agreement and hoops to jump through to use that hardware killed it immediately. There’s a reason many companies still pay for Microsoft Office products vs using something like Google’s suites even if they’re cheaper or better. A straightforward no-strings-attached agreement can matter more than money in the business world, it can be the difference in even doing a project or not.

        • Lucidfeuer

          All the point you mentioned are value-worthy for some companies. For VR it does nothing. Name me one company on the general consumer device that specialised in B2B without eventually failing hard: there’s none that I know.

          But there’s also a conundrum: innovation and progress has always been pushed forward mostly by either consumer demand, university research or military investments. HTC by focusing on the business segment which had never been demanding of anything (companies just used what is available even if it’s crap), and completely abandoning the consumer segment, HTC is going nowhere.

          And that is a problem given how problematic Facebook is.

          • Hard disagree. VR is not going to move forward because of video games. If that were the case, Personal Computers would have taken off in the early 80’s. The ONLY thing that will boost VR is mainstream adoption. Once VR HMDs can do things our phones, PCs and TVs can do AND add another layer of immersion then we will see the industry move forward as more than a gimmick to play video games.

          • Lucidfeuer

            You couldn’t choose a worst example: way more console were being sold than PC from the 70s all the way through the early 90s, because consoles did a simple thing well (although in a limited way) while it took a while for PC to reach even universal work offices appeal.

            So I agree that in the case of VR it’s not going to move forward because of video games, I personally don’t care about video games, I care about devices that I can develop a reflex into putting and operating in seconds when I get home or on any desk, that I can use without the weight, straps and ridiculously low-FOV making it inoperable for work, and that doesn’t occlude me my environment let alone tethers me to anything.

            VR development is going to stall for more than decade until it either gets to this point which is unlikely or new (major) actors enter the market with a seriously conceived and designed product.

          • That’s exactly my point and you missed iit. Consoles in the 70s and 80s WERE NOT PCs and the console market completely died for a few years in 1983, not to be revived until the original Nintendo came out. Actual PCs, like the Apple II and original IBM machines were not commonplace until they were adopted by BUSINESSES in the late 80s/early 90s.

          • Lucidfeuer

            So we agree then, and what I’m saying is that it’s what may happen to VR depending on how the PSVR2 turns out.

          • GunnyNinja

            Video games weren’t commonplace in homes in the 80’s, so why would gaming, which was pretty cheesy, require a PC? People went to arcades to play games until consoles became used more. Once more serious games came out that needed more horsepower, PC’s became the only way to run them. It was MS Flight Simulator that caused me to get my first 286. The consoles couldn’t keep up. Where are the arcades now?

      • MosBen

        You have been posting about the death of VR since basically 2017. You have zero credibility in the presence or absence of VR fatigue.

        As for the Quests, my understanding is that there is an enterprise focused version that goes for $800, which is substantially cheaper than the $1300 that they’re charging for the Focus 3 but which also comes with a year less service. Maybe the cheaper price will tip things to the Quest 2 or maybe the longer service protection will tip things to the Focus 3. We’ll see. But we can be sure that the Focus 3 isn’t a mistake because some armchair commenter thinks that it’s more money than they would personally spend because they’re not the customer for this device.

    • kontis

      Many companies like to use consumer grade equipment if it’s good enough.

      The “enterprise stuff” only has value if it really does something importantly better than the “normal stuff”. And these Vives will quite likely have noticeably inferior software ecosystem and SDK compared to cheap Quests.

      One of the reasons behind success of the biggest tech story of the last decade – SpaceX – was that they specifically rejected a lot of typical overpriced made-for-space things and instead sourced or made things 10x or more cheaper. For example, they went with redundant consumer Intel CPUs instead of using space grade custom radiation resistant processors.
      It was quite an inspiring approach. The famous Martian helicopter runs on Snapdragon much weaker than XR2.

      • MosBen

        Whether the Vive Focus is a successful consumer product is a different question than what we typically see in these types of posts. And frankly, as I don’t run a business, let alone one that might integrate XR products into the business, I’m only nominally interested in whether it succeeds or fails. I mean, in a very general sense a successful VR product allows for the industry to continue to grow and improve the products available to consumers, but which enterprise product is the best is pretty far afield from things that affect most of us. The reason for my post was that in any news story about an enterprise focused device there are a bunch of armchair experts who think that it’s a bad decision because it’s not priced at the same level as a consumer product.

        And for what it’s worth, Quest does have an enterprise variant which is, I think, something like $800 but which comes with less service to the business. So maybe the lower price will help it beat the Focus 3, or maybe the Focus 3’s extended service will be more appealing. We’ll see! But the Focus 3 won’t fail because the consumer Quest 2 is $300.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          Not only does the Quest 2 enterprise variant cost USD 800 and requires an annual contract, you can also not use any software available on the Oculus app store with it. You cannot switch from private to enterprise or vice versa, and there are a lot of other restrictions. It is mainly intended for large installations, where the focus is on simplifying administration and deployment of a few custom apps for many headsets, e.g. employee VR training at Walmart.

          Pretty much all of the smaller B2B VR companies I know run on HTC (mostly Vive) only, and they often develop software that sees less than 100 installations total. If you calculate developer costs at about USD 50-100 per hour, you quickly get to price regions where the extra hardware cost is almost negligible per seat. The Focus 3 fits pretty well within their needs, and if HTC can come up with a somewhat solid streaming option that allows swapping their Vive Pros for the Focus 3, this HMD is pretty much a no brainer for these companies, much more than the Vive Pro 3.

          • MosBen

            Thanks for this. It’s bananas how many people on the internet think that their idea to release a Quest 2 competitor or that enterprise headsets are a bad idea are things that companies with dozens of people working on these projects simply haven’t thought of or are just happy to go along making such obvious “mistakes”.

            And, of course, companies do make strategic errors. But the Focus 3 will almost certainly not be a mistake because some joker on the internet would like to buy a Quest 2 competitor for $500 and thinks that this would be very very profitable.

          • Especially if they share the same LCD panels and optics. I find ‘AirLink’ for the Quest 2 really exciting because I can run systems with no interference & negligible problems on a single WiFi 6 access point. If HTC comes up with similar solution, I could see it being used exclusively for VR based training. And yes Vive Pro has carved out a nice niche in VR Cafes as well.

        • I looked this up for the Oculus Go because I wanted to get a quantity discount for an OMSI summer learning camp in 2018. Sadly, the cost was almost twice the retail cost. They recommended I just buy it from Amazon. OMSI never moved forward with it because of the cost.

          • MosBen

            Yep, enterprise products aren’t consumer products.

            But hey there, fellow Portlander.

      • knuckles625

        You’re totally right that businesses will use consumer products if they’re able to. But in the case of something like quest 2, you’re not allowed to use the consumer version for commercial purposes per the unavoidable terms of service agreement. Sure, some people and businesses will do it, but at the risk of some amount of liability and daring someone to call you on it.

        We don’t have licensing agreements for CPUs, and you can put whatever OS you want on to them and use them as you see fit. Quest 2 only exists (and financially only can continue to exist) because it can only run within the overarching Facebook terms of service which prohibit things that some (but certainly not all) businesses need to do… to do business

        • This is a very good point. If the Focus 3 relied a lot of the Qualcomm development platform, this would be plus for the enterprise who wanted to customize and maybe even license an entire package (induding HMD) to other companies. Something not possible with Oculus.

      • I don’t know what kind of companies you’ve worked for, but I don’t think it’s “enterprise”. Everywhere I’ve worked has been exactly the opposite. They pay 5x the price for equivalent (if not outdated/inferior) products just to get something made for “enterprise” which supposedly comes with some fancy support contract that inevitably ends up being just as shit as any other support contract. Hell, the places I’ve worked (work), if they were doing enterprise VR, you could add a zero to this and they wouldn’t blink. You could add two zeros, and make that just for a two year subscription and they still wouldn’t blink.

        When you compare the price of hardware like this to the development team required, not just to set it up and deploy it wherever, but to build VR experiences at the company? You’re talking a team of 5-10 people at a minimum (modeling, textures, blah blah blah), with 100k+ salaries attached to each of them. The hardware cost is nothing. You’ll spend $1300 paying someone just to setup the git repo for the project, let alone a whole development pipeline, let alone years building whatever VR experience.

      • I kindly disagree. Oculus offers much better consumer-oriented runtime, but enterprise-wise, HTC and Pico are still ahead in the market. Plus this headset has monster features if compared with Quest 2. Yes, we have to verify it actually works (I hope to get a review unit for that), but if it works as intended, for certain companies (usually big ones), this is much better than a Quest 2.

        Then I agree with you that small companies will prefer a Quest 2, maybe even just a consumer one, to experiment with VR

        • Some developers swear by there Picos and they continue to improve their standalone HMD as well.

      • A Snapdragon 801 to be exact, but for $85M I can’t say it helped keep the cost down. I also read that many of the components were military grade, radiation hardened which do have premium price tag.

        Agree with your assessment on the Quest 2. Oculus SDK does a very good job of eeking out a lot of performance out of the X2. Not sure how much HTC Vive has optimized the standard Qualcomm libraries.

    • The price is too high because what EXACTLY
      are you getting that’s worth 1400 freaking dollars …??

      • MosBen

        Services and support that aren’t part of a consumer product. Just like with every enterprise device that’s sold in this space, and something that shouldn’t need to be explained every time one of these devices is released.

  • vevige4026

    the htc vive teams has forgotten that companies like chatting and collaboration functions… with free hands, that is : no joysticks. Yes that means hand tracking.
    Also the mouth tracking is missing.

    As “business” maybe they aim simulator / industry rather than service companies ?

    • Andrew Jakobs

      hand tracking is coming in Q3.

  • Lucidfeuer

    So HTC is dead. Well we all saw it coming.

    • Smelina

      Why?

      • Thoemse

        Because this is a Quest 2 with slight resolution bump witha pricetag that can only be justified with a typo?

        • mappo

          There was an interview with the president of Vive China who talked about this. Nobody can compete with Facebook on pricing, because Facebook isn’t in the business of selling headsets, they’re in the business of selling Facebook users to advertisers. They sell their hardware at a loss because their real product isn’t the Quest, it’s the Quest user’s Facebook account.

          But business users aren’t so keen on hardware locked behind mandatory Facebook accounts, so HTC sees a market opportunity on the enterprise side, selling to customers willing to pay the actual cost of the hardware.

          Will it work? I dunno, but they’re right that you can’t compete on price against a competitor that’s willing to lose money on every sale.

          • Adrian Meredith

            actually they make money from taking a 30% cut on all software sales

        • mappo

          There was an interview with the president of Vive China who talked about this. Nobody can compete with Facebook on pricing, because Facebook isn’t in the business of selling headsets, they’re in the business of selling Facebook users to advertisers. They sell their hardware at a loss because their real product isn’t the Quest, it’s the Quest user’s Facebook account.

          But business users aren’t so keen on hardware locked behind mandatory Facebook accounts, so HTC sees a market opportunity on the enterprise side, selling to customers willing to pay the actual cost of the hardware.

          Will it work? I dunno, but they’re right that you can’t compete on price against a competitor that’s willing to lose money on every sale.

        • Jeremy Kins

          I disagree actually. This is a fantastic headset. It’s going to be comfortable and well-balanced, it has double the resolution/MP, the fov is bumped to 120, it has more ram, an active cooling system that will likely allow the XR2 to reach higher capacity, and it has PC connectivity too. Oh and two lenses instead of a single panel and full IPD adjustment.

          So, yes, it’s still quite expensive, but it’s really quite an impressive headset despite the cost. I’m impressed by this, much more than the Vive Pro 2 which killed itself by not pricing as a bundle.

        • dk

          the reverb 2160×2160 per eye is almost 30% more pixels ….this is 52% more pixels …which is needed for the much bigger area fov
          ….but yeah almost no one will buy it because of the price

          • Mradr

            They are selling it as business – not at a customer price/specks. Compare to other business release headsets – while not the cheapest – its still packing a lot of features for the price for enterprise level of development.

          • dk

            yes businesses(mostly in Asia maybe) will buy it …..meaning almost no one will buy it ….but the main thing about my comment was it has a massive bump in resolution and that guy didn’t realize it

        • Andrew Jakobs

          Not really, this is a business solution, not a consumer solution, and for a serious business $1300 is nothing if it seriously improves the comfort and productivity of it’s user.

      • dk

        because a tiny number of people will buy it ….neat headsets tho

      • MosBen

        Because Lucidfeuer has been predicting the end of VR or the death of various companies in the VR space for nearly 5 years. It’s what they do.

        • Lucidfeuer

          I still stand on my position on VR, as for companies which one did it include except HTC?

  • xyzs

    So, basically it’s an enterprise Quest 2 that cost 300+1000 USD…

    • mepy

      Right, just with better resolution and better FOV. Compared to the Oculus Quest 2 business which is $800 + $180 for each year apart from the first one, that’s without Facebook, the Vive Focus 3 is $1400.

      • MeowMix

        Enterprise clientele will probably still want the upgraded Oculus Business tier support. Priority RMAs, 24/7 priority support, priority dev support.

        And just so you know, HTC also offers Enterprise tier support for their business headsets at a similar annual fee of $150+/yr

    • mappo

      It’s better than the Quest 2 by pretty much every metric. Much better resolution, much better FOV, dual LCD panels for much better IPD adjustment, more RAM, much better cooling which should mean the XR2 isn’t underclocked like in the Quest 2. Plus beefier build quality, battery only in the back making the front of the headset much lighter and more comfortable.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        The swappable battery and the magnetically attached face and rear pads are also great, esp. for public display settings. It allows to use device without any interruptions for a whole day with multiple users. Not that relevant for private users, but a pretty big deal for enterprise.

        • mirak

          it doesn’t say if it reboots the headset when you swap

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            It says the headset has to be powered down when you swap the battery.

        • mappo

          The only hardware complaint I can see about this thing is the choice of built-in batteries for the controllers. This is inferior in every way to using rechargeable AAs. Why would you add swappable batteries to the headset and take them away from the controllers? That’s just dumb.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I guess that this is very intentional. The controllers work for 15h with one charge, so there will never be a need to charge during the day if they are always charged over night. This simply isn’t possible with the HMD itself at a reasonable battery size, so they made it swappable.

            Personally I’d prefer swappable batteries in the controllers too, but their approach is probably the one that requires the least maintenance. If they come up with a charging station that has slots for two batteries and the controllers, an operator would simply place everything in the station at the end of the day and be ready to go the next morning, with the option to charge one HMD battery in between if the HMD is used very intensely.

      • xyzs

        This stuff is what should have been the vive 2, and it should be available for 600 dollars max.
        And it’s generous given the fact that the software part is for sure mediocre compare the Oculus Quest (out of the debate of FB accounts needed).

    • Bob

      The specs all appear to make this device superior to the Quest 2 by quite a large margin. Nothing is known about the tracking at this moment but I’d wager it should be on par with Oculus Insight.

      • benz145

        I wouldn’t be so sure. Oculus is ahead of everyone else in inside-out tracking, including WMR and Vive Cosmos. I hope Vive Focus 3 is up to par but I wouldn’t take a bet on it.

        • Let’s put it like this: HTC told me that they have improved a lot, and it works flawlessly, but we have to test it to verify this claim. Personally I expect a tracking that works well, but still not at the level of Insight for fast movements

    • MosBen

      Well, Facebook has an enterprise program for the Quest 2 which I believe costs around $800 but has a year less service. And as others have pointed out, the Focus 3 does have some improvements over the Quest 2. So maybe the Quest 2 enterprise version will come out on top due to lower price, or maybe the Focus 3 will come out on top with some improvements and more available service. But the comparison is not to a consumer device.

  • Man, Oculus really defined the standard for VR controller with the original Touch, and I mean that as a positive comment because I still think they are probably the best all round VR controllers to date. Yes, the Valve Index controllers have some finger tracking and stuff, but most of the stuff they do extra is largely too unrefined and gimmicky at this point to care for me personally (I’m not even a fan of the finger tracking stuff on Touch for the same reasons).

    PS. No offense to everyone that believe integrated charging batteries are better, but I actually like being able to switch in and out standard rechargeable batteries as a when needed, and always having a charged set on standby so I can continue to use my controllers without having to wait for them to charge or constantly put them into charging at the end of night and wonder if I’m just deteriorating the battery before its time.

    • MosBen

      I haven’t tried the Index controllers, but I really did love the Touch controllers for the CV1, and preferred them to the controllers for the Quest.

      • Zantetsu

        I have the index controllers. I don’t like them. They are uncomfortable and the positioning of the controls is awkward. I am sure that with increased usage one could get used to the awkward control layout.

        As it is, we still predominantly use the vive wands and the index controllers sit collecting dust.

        I agree that the Touch controllers are the best. When I use my Quest or Quest 2, the controllers are always a pleasure.

        • mirak

          I prefer vive wands over index controllers except in some games like Alyx or Walking Dead S&S.

    • Carbon Design was responsible for Xbox controller and oculus touch since CV1. Carbon Design was acquired by Oculus during this period. Touch cv1 was a sublime piece of design….

    • The CV1 touch controllers are still the best ever made, IMHO

      • GunnyNinja

        Agreed. That is why I still have one despite having owned both Odysseys, Vive, Index, Rift S, Quest, and now Reverb G2. I’ll always have it hoping one day Oculus will come to their senses and make a true replacement for it.

  • mappo

    I believe the FOV is 120 degrees horizontal, not diagonal. 120 diagonal would not be particularly impressive.

    I wonder if they’re underclocking the XR2 like the Quest 2 does or if moving the battery out of the headset gave them enough room to properly cool it and let it run unleashed?

    • Jeremy Kins

      Moving the battery plus their cooling system no doubt allows it to perform higher than in the Quest 2.

      • mappo

        Right, the question is whether that means it isn’t underclocked as much as the Quest 2, or isn’t underclocked at all. It’ll definitely be faster, it’s just a question of how much.

    • TechPassion

      It is HORIZONTAL. CONFIRMED.

  • GunnyNinja

    If I have to give HTC credit for anything, they know how to do IPD adjustment. Too bad they care more about business than consumers.

  • Master E

    $1300 and no FB > than $800 and FB

    My opinion, but FB is dirt. Glad they are pushing VR but this is a company that is trying to make Instagram for kids. Common now… are they trying to add to America’s obesity problem even more?

    I’ll go out of my way to support competitors and disempower FB. Even if it’s a fraction of a drop in a bucket.

    • dk

      so r u buying it?

      • Master E

        I will go with the vive pro 2 bundle, not this business edition. But for my developer friend it’s a simple business expense and write off.

        Unfortunately I don’t think I could get away with writing it off next year. I prefer to be honest about my taxes haha.

        • dk

          the full bundle? isn’t that more expensive than the focus 3 or at least very similar ….why would u go for that ….it can make sense if u r upgrading just the headset and u already have base stations and controllers
          ….is it because u prefer the valve tracking

    • Lucidfeuer

      I don’t 800% Oculus is with FB.

  • Adrian Meredith

    This actually looks fantastic (despite the ridiculous price). I’d love for a $500 quest 2 pro to be like this. Love the quick change battery idea and the resolution. With the more powerful cooling and the battery in the back they will be able to run the XR2 much faster than quest 2 can

  • 3872Orcs

    That is an impressive headset! Though my one question at this point is; can I use it with SteamVR or sidequest or similar alternatives?

    I know they’re focusing on business with this but as a regular consumer that won’t go the Facebook route this headset seems like an excellent alternative. Price doesn’t matter too much for me.

    • No Sidequest. Steamvr would be possible with Vive Business Streaming or whatever is the name (basically Oculus Link)

  • David Cole

    $1,300 is over priced. they needed to come in around $799 with no Sign up to justify cost..

    • Andrew Jakobs

      No it’s not, this one is purely directed at business, not consumer. And it is a one time price, not like the business version of the Quest. Yes, it is a hefty price if you look to it from a consumer perspective, but for a business it isn’t that much (compared to all the costs of the user itself).

      • Master E

        Andrew based on some of the comments I don’t think a lot of people quite understand the difference between business products and the regular consumers.

        Isn’t the Varjo business HMD thousands? (Have not fact checked myself then. Just using it as a quick example)

        This is a bargain

      • TechPassion

        But it looks how Vive 2 Pro should look. Including the controllers. Wand crap controllers are a total joke in 2021. They are completely useless, uncomfortable, just silly. Here with Vive Focus 3 the controllers look great. Who wants Vive Pro 2, a brick with wands? Nobody I guess.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    I wonder if it would also be able to keep using with an extra batterypack connected to your belt and a wire going into the USB-C connector. I hope so, as it is an extra way to using the headset for a longer period without the hassle of having to remove your headset, replace the battery and putting it on again, so the battery of the headset is the extra power to keep the switching the battery on your belt to a minimum.

  • ShaneMcGrath

    Good to see 3 things they got right, More FOV, Swappable batteries, IPD adjustment.
    Now they just need a consumer version.

  • Anonymous

    Other than the obvious “FB is underselling making consumer AIO VR impossible” argument, I think HTC not having (or at least not influential enough) an App Store is what actually prevents them releasing an AIO consumer headset at this moment. People may cry more walled-garden, but consumer VR headset at least in its current landscape require serious app revenue to remain afloat, or the alternative is to go overpriced into the $500-700 range and make themselves look like a fool and almost guarantees failure.

    HTC has always been a hardware oriented company, but the operation of app stores require totally different skill and support from various developers. So I suppose two explanations are possible here:
    1. The business focus is just trying to allow time to iron out kinks in their new App Store. Starting from B2B and eventually open up and pave way for B2C.
    2. That they really are going all-in on B2B, in which case I would also declare their death too. B2B VR volume is not going to ever be as big as consumer unless we start seeing companies wanting to ditch office PCs entirely and use a combination of VR and virtual desktop, which is more likely to happen with AR than VR.

    I personally also want to argue that Valve is not entirely without blame on this tho. If Steam also hosts Android based apps then perhaps there would be more AIO consumer headsets available. As for FB underselling, well, I think many people would be happy to pay around $50-100 extra just to avoid setting up a FB account.

    • Blaexe

      HTC has an appstore for that – Viveport mobile. But of course there won’t be compelling software if you do not offer any consumer hardware at all.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      A couple of points:

      – The Vive started as a consumer device, HTC continued to offer consumer versions, but they were simply priced out of that marked by Facebook. I’m pretty sure they would love to sell a consumer HMD, and like Pico they still do in China, where they don’t have to compete against Facebook money. Their Wave platform (including the required app store) is an attempt to become a platform provider similar to what Facebook attempts. Both the B2C and Chinese B2C headsets will help ironing out kinks, but the real problem is that Facebook is in if for platform dominance, even if it costs billions and takes a decade. Very few companies can afford to play this game.

      – B2B volumes are much smaller, but neither the Focus 3 nor the Quest 2 are created from zero. Consumer VR became feasible due to smartphone displays and gaming GPUs, AIO VR HMDs are basically high end smart phones without the modem part. And all newly announced AIOs are based on the XR2, and pretty much everybody except Apple will use it until Qualcomm releases an XR3. So even though they may sell thousands instead of millions, they still benefit from scaling effects from other HMDs and billions of smartphones.

      – Blaming Valve for not selling Android apps is somewhat misdirected. Google actively tries to discourage users from allowing alternative app stores. Epic is actually suing Google, because they pressured OnePlus and LG to back out of deals that would have had the Epic Game Store app preinstalled on their Android phones. Though this can be circumvented, Google requires the PlayStore to be installed as the sole app store for access to Google apps and services like Mail, Maps etc.

      VR is a medium. Like other consumer media the real money is in selling the content, and the most money is in becoming a middle man that takes a cut on every sale. Unlike other media like music and video, there is no open standard that allows switching platforms, giving the platform owners monopole like power. Current consumer platform owners are Sony, Microsoft, Google, Apple and Nintendo. Facebook desperately wants to become one. Epic tries to become an alternative store on the Google and Apple platforms by taking them to court. HTC tries to become one in China, because both Google and Facebook stores are locked out of this market, as they could never compete with their deep pockets. Any argument why HTC should do B2C is moot without a perspective how to compete with the existing platform giants already fighting for dominance with their deep pockets.

  • dk

    what’s really disappointing for me is …it’s not an equivalent to the lynx ….eye tracking thin body(because of pancake lenses) and great quality pass through ar should have been implemented

    • I agree on the passthrough. They said that at the moment is disabled in the SDK for privacy reasons… I guess this privacy thing is why they haven’t invested much in it

      • dk

        sounds like an excuse why they don’t want to dive into ar …..without proper rgb cameras and software the pass through quality won’t be that useful

  • Ratm

    Two hours battery =1:15 after 3 months
    = probably specialy created to bee used with a (special) battery addon, so weight and cost.. +++

  • Ratm

    Two hours? Quest 2 says 3 and its 2 in games..
    So probably an extra vive battery pack €+ inc
    And 6k using wifi? Ok..
    120 fov only.. I dont think this aims consumers.

  • mepy

    I do wonder though if it could connect to a PC with one (or both?) of the USB 3.2 Gen 1 C ports and stream full resolution Steam VR from there?

    There would probably be controller compatibility issues of course with games?

    The previous Vive Focus could stream Steam VR over Wifi, but there is not way they will be able to do the resolution of the Vive Focus 3 over Wifi.

    It’s an interesting idea because I already have a Vive Pro and now just bought the Vive Pro 2 headset, but the Vive Wireless adapter current version can’t do the full resolution, so unless they make a new one version with WiGig 2 802.11ay, I’m stuck with switching between cabled and wireless depending on the content, and probably I will end up having it cabled most of the time because of the resolution.

    So if the Vive Focus 3 can be cabled to the PC and stream Steam VR over the cable, then it would make sense perhaps to just sell the Vive Pro and the Quest 2 and just get the Vive Focus 3 instead of a Vive Pro headset only upgrade?

    • There is streaming via cable and there will be via wi-fi later this year

    • TechPassion

      I wonder why they won’t stream both eyes separately, using separate wifi transmittters? It should work.

  • grindathotte .

    It appears to not have variable eye-relief like the Index, so getting a 120 degree FOV depends on winning the face-shape lottery.

  • This is the HoloLens 2 of standalone VR headsets: a premium device sold at a very high price, intended for big companies

    • Very interesting device and very reasonable pricing

    • TechPassion

      Not very high price, considering Index with its toys (base station) costs just 300 USD less and is 10x worse.

  • Hey Ben, you wrote “Resolution 2,448 x 2,448 (6.0MP) per-eye, LCD (2x),” which actually is 4.9K or ‘5K’. I added the “4.9K” because you choose to use this two number, numbering scheme to describe the other two headsets. Also, I appreciate you identifying the single panel resolution since it is two distinct panels with enclosed eye boxes. So it is very long stretch to say it is a 5K panel, when each eye will only see one panel. Of course I know you know this and have talked a great deal about it. So my question, which is probably on your mind as well. Is this the end of OLED panels? I for one going from either the Quest 2 or HP Reverb 2 to the Vive Pro, noticed immediately the contrast and darker background when a dark scene is present. The other is the new Vive Pro 2 seems to have identical specs, including LCD panels. Do you think they are identical? If so, are we looking a identical lenses? HTC Vive’s promotional images looking into the lenses shows some pretty horrific Fresnel ridges, which leads me to believe ‘God Rays’ will be a problem.

    Your thoughts?

    • TechPassion

      2448 x 2448 = 5 992 704 = ~ 6 mpix. Add the second eye and you have even more pixels when excluding the overlapping.

      • Yep, you are right, but frankly for over 80 years the standard for describing display screens has either been its horizontal or vertical resolution (or both). And more importantly, the HTC Vive does not even use this method, so this really strikes me as odd. Also, it reduces a two dimensions into one, reducing even further the accuracy of specification.

        Also there is no physical overlapping. Most HMDs I have taken apart or part of the design process intentionally isolate each screen to prevent overlap. So if you mean overlap based on how brains integrate the two images, then yes there is overlap. But I stand by that the horizontal resolution (per eye) should be the only way we objectively standardized screen resolution as they have done for 80 years. If you mean the portion of the screen that is different based upon the parallax angle due to IPD, this does not contribute horizontal resolution, but if you had slight (1/2 pixel shift) this does help in fooling the brain into believing the image is smoother.

        The fact Ben is now throwing in total pixels just adds more confusion. And where does it end? Are we now going to start looking at sub-pixel masks and using this number to different screen resolutions? Or about the foveat screen area? Or even actual pixel size or panel size (which I would like to see) If this is the case, let’s start seeing it in these reviews as a standardized “at a glance” chart of specifications for all HMDs.

        In the end, thank you for clarifying that for me and maybe Ben is consistent with his specifications and I have not paid enough attention to it. Thanks @Tech@Maven2020:disqus

  • I wonder how everyone will feel when the world’s largest company of consumer mobile computers brings out a VR HMD that cost $1500 or more? Apple is already alluding to “enterprise” / professional use with their speculated 8K per eye VR headset. I for one, may actually find the funds to buy the $3000+ devkit, especially if all the SLAM tracking and environment (LIDAR) awareness sensors are included along with eye tracking. I sure hope at this price they also include the magical M2X processor unit either as a tethered unit or wireless. Hopefully in June during WWDC will know more about this and how to sign up.

    I liked the way the handle the DTK (Development Transition Kit) based on the X12 even though I had to give it back, but I did get a $500 credit to buy any product from Apple. Yea I got a M1 based mini, not quite the 16 GB/512 GB SSD, but used and only had to lay out $150 more for it. Frankly I was surprised at its performance with ARKit &USDZ tools, and how well Blender works on it. Sadly, the Unreal Engine editor never worked on it (8 mo ago) and its seems there are still problems and it is not M1 native and the way the court trial is going, not sure if Unreal Engine will be a choice in the future. Plus Apple has a tendency to make their own Xcode based tools before making its API available to other cross development companies.

  • TechPassion

    This one looks like high-end device for entusiasts which is released in 2021 and not Vive 2 heavy, ugly crap with bulky, useless wand controllers.