If you didn’t get a chance to pre-order Valve Index yet, the company’s high-end PC VR headset, you may have a fair bit of waiting to do. While the first shipments are set to arrive for the June 28th launch, new orders for the headset aren’t expected to ship until September.

Update (June 24th, 2019): The earliest pre-orders of Valve’s Index headset are due to be delivered on June 28th, according to users of the Valve Index subreddit who have begun receiving tracking information for their shipments.

For those who didn’t jump on the pre-order right away, the delivery date for new orders of the headset and controller bundle is now expected to “ship by September 30th.” The full kit (headset, controllers, and base stations), and individual orders of each no longer show an expected delivery date, but instead simply say “reserve now to be notified of availability.”

Valve said during the reveal of Index that the headset would see a “limited initial release” to the US and EU first, and that the company would ramp up their manufacturing and expand availability based on demand.


Update (May 4th, 2019): It seems Valve has quickly revised its September 30th shipping date for the full VR kit, now showing a ‘by August 31st’ ship date for new reservations. All three out-of-stock bundles now show the August ship date.

We’ve removed the May 2nd update that was previously here as to not cause confusion.


Update (May 1st, 2019): The company has officially opened pre-orders for all Index bundles and accessories. Valve maintains that shipping on all items is slated for June 28th.

The original article announcing pre-order availability and pricing follows below:

Original Article (April 30th, 2019): The full $1,000 Index VR kit includes the Index headset, the Index controllers (AKA Knuckles), and two SteamVR 2.0 base stations—everything you need to jump into high-end VR (minus a capable computer).

Read our full hands-on with Valve Index

You’ll also be able to pre-order everything separately that comes in the full VR kit, including the headset itself, the controllers, SteamVR 2.0 base stations, and other accessories like extra facial interfaces and cables. Until now, users were unable to purchase SteamVR 2.0 base stations separately, as HTC doesn’t sell them despite offering them as a part of their $1,400 HTC Vive Pro full VR kit.

Image courtesy Valve

The company says that Index will see a “limited initial release” in the US and EU first, with the intention of ramping up quantities based on demand. The headset’s box shows the contents labeled in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese, pointing to an upcoming launch in Japan at the very least.

Here’s a breakdown of the pricing for all bundles and accessories across the US, Eurozone, UK, and Poland:

USD EUR GBP PLN
Full VR Kit $999 €1,079 £919 zł 4,669
Index & Controller Kit $749 €799 £689 zł 3,499
Index Headset $499 €539 £459 zł 2,339
Controllers (Pair) $279 €299 £259 zł 1,309
Base Station (Single) $149 €159 £139 zł 699
Face gaskets (2) $40 €43 £37 zł 189
Index Virtual Link Type-C Cable $40 €43 £37 zł 189

 

Note: Index is backwards compatible with the SteamVR 1.0 base stations that shipped with the original HTC Vive. If you already own a Vive, you can conceivably purchase the $750 headset and controller bundle and start playing. Take note that only the same version of base stations can work together. Different base station versions (1.0 & 2.0) are not interchangeable, and cannot be paired together.

SEE ALSO
Hands-on: Valve's Index Headset Sets an Impressive New Bar for VR Fidelity

If the sticker shock still has you reeling, you might take solace in Valve’s claim that Index is for “experienced, existing VR customers who want more and don’t want to wait,” a sharp counterpoint to Facebook’s move to offer a modestly upgraded Rift via the $400 Rift S. Furthermore, Valve prominently claims Index features the “best-in-class visuals and audio” in addition to “natural input, reliable tracking, and long term comfort.”

You can pre-order all of the components and bundles above here starting May 1st.

Index Headset Specs

  • Display: 1,440 × 1,600 dual LCD panels. Custom full-RGB LCD promises good fill-factor and minimal screen door effect, providing 50% more subpixels than OLED. Low persistence displays: 0.330ms
  • Framerate: 120Hz, full backwards compatibility with 90Hz, experimental 144Hz mode
  • Optics: Custom dual-element lens boasts increased sharpness, FOV 20 degrees larger than HTC Vive (estimated ~110 degrees) and large eyebox
  • Adjustability: Mechanical IPD adjustments, “eye relief” adjustments to let lenses sit as close as possible to the eye for max FOV
  • Audio: Nearfield off-ear speakers (speaker drivers, not headphone drivers) boast higher fidelity audio. No physical contact with ear aims for increased play-session length
  • Comfort: Reduced weight, high-quality fabrics and padding, geometry targeting “95% of adult heads”
  • Modability: Extensibility through “Frunk” USB expansion bay and stereo cameras. Stereo cameras don’t provide room or hand tracking, although Valve will be providing CAD models, specs and sample code to the maker community
  • Minimum Specs: Dual core CPU with hyperthreading, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD RX480
  • Recommended Specs: Quad core CPU or greater, NVIDIA GTX 1070 or greater
Image courtesy Valve

Index Controller

  • Open Hand Design: Allows direct actions such as pick up/drop, throw, grab, pinch, and squeeze
  • Finger tracking: full five-finger tracking using capacitive sensors
  • Sensors: 87 sensors per controller, including optical, motion, capacitive, and force sensors. Sensor fusion determines user intent, Valve says
  • Comfort: Dynamic sensor/pad assignment to accommodate different hand sizes. Adjustable strap for open hand interactions. Anti-microbial strap fabric
  • Compatibility: Backwards compatible with all SteamVR games
  • Button Configuration: A/B & X/Y buttons, thumbstick, trigger, and ‘track button’ – combination trackpad and force enabled button for various functions
  • Battery/Charging: Charged via USB C, 900mA fast charging, 1100mAH capacity Li-Ion. Polymer battery promises 7+ hours of battery life

– – — – –

Check out our full hands-on with Valve Index to learn all about what makes the company’s enthusiast-level headset tick.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Nepenthe

    So the headphones are kind of like the old Sony MDR-F1. Interesting.

    • My dad has a pair of Stax ear speakers and the sound quality is quite incredible compared to headphone drivers.

      • Nepenthe

        Yup, of course Stax are the cream of the crop because they are electrostatic, but the form factor is similar.

  • Not quite Gen 2. ;/

    • mellott124

      I’d say gen 1.75. :-)

    • Mateusz Pawluczuk

      Gen 1.67777777

      • Jarilo

        Gen 1.14159265359

        • Trip

          Upvoted because I like what you did there, despite the fact that your post is “irrational” =P See what I did there?

          Clearly this headset is closer to two than it is to one.

    • Jarilo

      Everyone has their own definition of gen 2. It’s pretty obvious there is no such thing in the VR tech market at this point.

  • Jerald Doerr

    Sounds awesome… Real interested to see the duel lens pixel layout and 144 hz…

    • Icebeat

      yeah, FOV is far from what I was expecting

      • Trip

        IIRC the leak said 135 degrees which is only off 5 degrees from what most people are calling it. The big question for me is what is my actual FOV on my Vive with the lenses all the way in and the thinnest available facial interface. I know it’s a good bit more than what’s possible with the original foam so the FOV upgrade for me might be pretty small. Still, after the initial disappointment with specs was negated by reading more reviews I’ve got a really good feeling about this one. Some of these reviewers are not easy to impress and this headset managed it.

  • Zachary Scott Dickerson

    I got a pimax 5k+, unsure if the headset will be ‘better’ , but the knuckles controllers are of most interest to me. I just don’t know if they will be implemented in games I care about. I hate throwing weapons in VR, so I hope this fixes that problem.

    • Jerald Doerr

      True… Got me thinking if there’s ever a good scenario to mix the 2 controllers… 1 old 1 new.

      • Zachary Scott Dickerson

        True, I play with a rifle stock in shooters, so I worry about the loss of aiming stability. Sniping is hard when your hands are floating like holding a virtual pistol. Maybe one controller is fixed to stock and other is free motion hand?

        • StarLightPL

          There are already knuckles adapters for protubevr on thingverse, wouldn’t take much to adapt them for plumbing stock noobtube.

  • Brad

    Note to editor: You have RTX 1070 in the recommended specs. No such card. Is it GTX 1070 or RTX 2070?

    • Mark Steelman

      I would assume it’s GTX 1070

    • benz145

      Haha good spot, the answer is RTX 1070; fixing that.

      • Jim Cherry

        Since 1070s and 480s are no longer made valve should update the recommendations so that new pc buyers know where they stand. As in will a rx 570, gtx 1660, or gtx 1660ti meet the minimum. And if headset requires a minimum of 4gbs of vram that should be noted aswell.

        • Jistuce

          Specs should also provide guidance to owners of PCs trying to determine if they have the horsepower to drive this. That is, in fact, their traditional purpose.

          That said, specs are a really rough guideline here, since the actual load will be determined by what software you’re trying to use, not the goggles themselves.

      • Jarilo

        You even got it wrong here in the reply. That’s funny.

        • Trip

          LOL I noticed that too. Totally something I would do.

  • Jerald Doerr

    HTC Vive Pro.. For developers…. Now 100% useless!!! Hahaha…

    • Jarilo

      That headset has already had a year run dude, also only reliable wireless on the market.

      • Trip

        Actually from what I read the wireless adapter doesn’t get along super well with the Vive Pro. Most people were saying you were better off with original Vive if you were using wireless. That may have changed later though, this was from shortly after they started shipping the wireless kits.

        • FireAndTheVoid

          I have had absolutely zero issues with the wireless kit for the Vive Pro. Maybe they didn’t have the wireless transmitter in a location that could easily see the whole playspace?

          • Trip

            Well, we are stretching my memory which means there is every possibility that I’m accidentally making this up, but I think it was a matter of there not being enough bandwidth to keep up with the higher resolution. That and having to buy an extra cost accessory on top of the already kinda high price of the wireless kit and super high price of the HMD. All I know for certain is I saw quite a few people complaining they were disappointed with the performance of wireless + Vive Pro. I am jealous though sir, if it’s working really well for you that is a pretty sweet setup that I’d like to have if it weren’t too expensive.

      • Jerald Doerr

        Oooooooo ok…. So you’re saying a product should only be good for less than a year? Really… Ummmmm it was overpriced a year ago…. And still is…… Right?

        • Jarilo

          It was always Over priced and still is. All of these damn VR things we are throwing money at are freaking over priced dude (someone help my wallet). It’s still a good 3k headset though if you already have it, and I’m just saying it’s the only available reliable wireless for 3k on the market.

    • Lucidfeuer

      Yeah but then you must be really stupid and have a lack of judgement to have ordered the HTC Vive Pro…so, good.

      • Jerald Doerr

        Lol yeah…. I guess It was almost 100% useless day one…

  • shaz

    Not available in Canada?!?! WHY?

    • gothicvillas

      Not available in UK either.. wtf.

      • Omar Ceja Salgado

        There’s pricing in GBP so it should be available in the UK.

      • M0rph3u5

        what! I just pre-ordered in its £919 inclusive of VAT. Its still up mate.. hurry up :)

    • R3ST4RT

      I was going to pre-order on day one but with it not being available in Canada….guess I won’t be doing that anymore Q_Q

      • Adam Dent

        Yup, me too. Index looks like a proper successor to Vive without the strange compromises the Rift-S makes (reviews of Rift-S all say it’s just meh). I think the price for Valve-Index is reasonable for what you get. I would have pre-ordered the Index in Canada if I could have too! Oh well…

    • Jonathan Winters III

      Because
      “Fuck Canada.” – Valve Corporation

  • RadRAW

    Another headset without VR-link (USB-C) port…
    So I guess it’s pointless to pay extra for ie. Asus Strix 2070 (Strix 2060 does not have VRlink onboard)? Or does “display port” means it will use VRlink after all? Anyone knows that?

    • Sion12

      But there is.Index Virtual Link Type-C Cable is $40

      • RadRAW

        https://store.steampowered.com/app/1072830/VirtualLink_USBC_Adapter_for_Valve_Index_Headset/

        Yeah, but it seems that this $40 cable is just a 20cm piece that You use to connect all the cables hanging from the headset to Your PC. Pretty useless imo because it denies the existence of VRlink itself. The headset should give user possibility to replace original three cables with just one – VRlink – only then it would make any sense…

        • Popin

          No, there is 1 cable coming from the headset (similar to the later version of the Vive cable) that has a breakaway end piece similar to the original Xbox controllers with the 6” breakaway pigtail.

          The breakaway end that comes with the Index is a “Trident” (e.g. a breakout) cable that fans out to Display Port, USB3.0, and 12v power. The Virtual Link breakaway cable replaces that end piece and does everything (video, usb, and power) over that one USB-C port connection.

          • RadRAW

            So if I understand that correctly at the end of the cable that comes straight out of the headset there is native VRlink/USB-C connector? (If yes, that’s great!) How does the headset gets power from If someone does not have VR link in a PC? Is there an external PSU that You’d have to connect to that cable (apart from DP and USB)?

          • Popin

            no at the end of the single cable coming from the HMD is a Valve created “Quick Connect” breakaway connection. e.g. the last couple feet of the cable is a separate piece with the quick connect on one end and fans out to 3 cables for DP, USB, and Power.

            The adapter you will unplug that quick disconnect and remove the trident fanout quick disconnect, and then connect the Virtual Link “adapter” which is just another quick disconnect cable with a Virtual Link compatible USB-C plug on one end and the Valve created quick connect on the other.

            “This adapter cable features the same quick connect design used by the Valve Index Headset tether to replace the standard three-port (DisplayPort, USB, power) connection cable.”

            I’m assuming they designed this breakaway cable for the same reasons Apple created the MagSafe connector and Microsoft created that for the original Xbox controllers. If you pull on the cable (e.g. if you trip over it or move quickly away from the PC) it will “break away” rather than yanking your computer and/or damaging the connections on your GPU/USB, etc.

          • Popin

            btw – how does the headset gets power from? Via external PSU?
            Do You happen to know how does the power cable looks like? (I can almost see Valve’s $40 power extension cable ;)

            The trident quick disconnect breakaway cable fans out to a Display Port, a USB3.0, and a 12v power tip (that you connect the same type of power brick that connected to the Vive’s breakout box).

            The Virtual Link cable doesn’t need anything else because its all done over the one USB-C connector

    • Jim Cherry

      Appears the kit will have an adapter of some kind. So that if you have a virtual link port you can use it instead of display port/hdmi.

    • benz145

      It has native VirtualLink support, but the cable will be sold optionally, unfortunately.

      Also unfortunate, knowing which computers do/don’t support VirtualLink is still a very unclear situation: https://www.roadtovr.com/all-rtx-gaming-laptops-will-be-vr-capable-but-optional-virtuallink-branding-could-breed-confusion/

    • RadRAW

      I was thinking rather about whether the headset will have native support for VRlink or whether two cables come out physically from it, which can not be replaced by one.
      If the VRlink cable (USB-C) is an optional accessory, I understand that two cables (USB / DP) come out of the headset and after adding the adapter cable we will be able to connect the headset to the PC using VRlink …. while still having TWO cables hanging down from my head?

      If yes – this $40 accesory cable is pretty useless…

  • Trenix

    You guys said that the bundle comes with a single base station, it’s actually 2 SteamVR 2.0 Base Stations.

    • M0rph3u5

      why would they sell the HMD with only one Lighthouse? it won’t make any sense

      • Trenix

        No idea, maybe to improve tracking to people with existing base stations? When you say one base station, that’s a single base station.

        • Popin

          That would only work for Vive Pro users who also purchased the Vive’s SVRT2.0 base stations. The 1.0 and 2.0 base station technology are not compatible.

      • Popin

        SVRT works with only one base station but doesn’t give the benefit of 360° room scale tracking. It would be somewhat foolish to ship the full bundle with only one base station.

        The additional base stations are sold as individual units however so they might have gotten that mixed up.

  • Sion12

    I wished they atleast use a 2160×2160 display like the HP reverb

    • TheHitman1982

      If they would of been 2160×2160 I would of pre ordered instantly.

      • Bryan Ischo

        of != have

        • TheHitman1982

          huh?

          • Bryan Ischo

            Sorry just being a bit of a grammar nazi here. You should write “If they would *have* been 2160×2160 I would *have* pre ordered instantly”. There, I feel better.

          • Omar Ceja Salgado

            Actually if you’re nitpicking, you can go further lol It is not acceptable to use would, could, may, or might in the conditional portion of the sentence (the if sentence). It should be: “If they had been 2160×2160, I would have preordered them instantly.”

          • George Ouimet

            Omar’s Right.

            TheHitMan1982.Replace(“they would of”, “it had been”).Replace(“of pre ordered”, “have preordered it”);

          • Bryan Ischo

            Yes, that is even better, thank you.

          • Jistuce

            Contractions are a thing too.

            “If they’d been 2160×2160 I’d’ve pre-ordered instantly.” is what I would of written.

          • Nepenthe

            Is it okay to punch a grammar nazi?

          • Downvote King

            Only with exacting verbiage.

          • TheHitman1982

            Yeah I like mine better

          • George Ouimet

            We’ll if we’re being picky then, “!=” means “not equal to” which doesn’t make any sense in this scenario.

            The correct way to correct HitMan would have been: TheHitMan1982.Replace(” of “, ” have “);

          • Bryan Ischo

            If we’re being picky, what I wrote was intended to mean that “The meaning of the word ‘of’ is not equal to the meaning of the word ‘have’ and thus the two cannot be used interchangably here”, which does make sense in this scenario.

            s/ of / have /g

          • Downvote King

            s/ of / have /g

            Explain yourself sorcerer

          • Bryan Ischo

            That’s a ‘POSIX regular expression’ for replacing the text ” of ” with ” have ” globally within some text. If this were 1970 and you worked at Bell Laboratories you would run a command like this to do a text-replace, sort of an old-school way to do the same thing as your “find-replace” dialog in many modern text editors:

            $ sed -e ‘s/ of / have /g’

            And you know what? You can do the same thing in 2019 because the tools that those old computer wizards created are still available and in wide use today.

            It is kind of the ‘lore of programmers’ to express text subtitutions and other text operations using this kind of regular expression syntax.

            Which is why I used it in response to the original poster, who posted some kind of clumsy pseudo-code that would presumably do the same thing, but without the cool factor of invoking ancient programmer lore.

          • TwinFire

            I’m learning stuff I never knew I would care about!

          • Downvote King

            Nifty thx

          • Trip

            If that’s some kind of computer code wouldn’t he be a “sourcerer” instead of sorcerer?

          • Downvote King

            I mean, I wouldn’t want to assume it’s source code and get zapped into a newt by some cranky wizard ;-)

        • Jistuce

          Heil der grammarfuhrer!

          • Gerald Terveen

            That is “Heil Grammarführer!” or “Heil, mein Grammarführer!” or “Heil, dem Grammarführer!”. :P

          • Jistuce

            I stand corrected.

      • Jarilo

        That’s the deciding factor? It’s not that big of a deal, 3k is very nice, most people even on the best GPUs in the market can’t SS high on 3k and now that these headsets are going insane refresh-rates the 3k was probably a wise conscious decision.

        • Icebeat

          insane refresh-rates when you don’t see a shit doesn’t made sense neither.

          • FireAndTheVoid

            When I first showed the OG Vive to my wife, her first comments were “they need higher resolution” and “they need to get rid of the cord”. No one that’s tried it has ever asked for higher refresh rate.

          • Jarilo

            Of course she had to be shown VR first to even known what it means to appreciate it right? Higher refresh rate is the same.

          • edie

            If you intend to profit $8307 month to month by means of with the use of your access to the internet combined with laptop or pc then Allow me to inform you of my working experience. 2 yrs back I started employed by privately-owned corporation without being paid decent cash with respect to my effort. And my mate informed me of a web-based job that can be run from a home office when you use worldwide web and laptop or desktop pc and best thing about it one can do the business anytime we desire and aquire the payouts on week after week basis. It’s contrary to a propaganda which you see all over the internet that offeres to get you to be extremely rich in 2-3 months or so. Nowadays after focusing on this earning opportunity for all this time I will declare that this is actually the finest via the web work I will be able to acquire due to the fact that by carrying out this project I am able to do the tasks anytime I am able to. When I was working in private business I was the inability to to spend time every day with my spouse and children the good news is during 2 yrs I have been working on this online work and nowadays I have been savoring spare time with my loved ones at home or just by heading outside to any place I like. This role is often as simple and easy just like going through sites on the internet and doing copy/paste paste job that anyone can do > nanosecondcodger.fuer-alle.de

          • Full Name

            If they upped it more, less PC’s could run it. I gave a (wireless) pro and a 1080TI, and it struggles at times..

          • FireAndTheVoid

            I’ve got the same setup as you and I agree, on some titles it struggles. My point is that Valve used the same resolution as the Vive Pro but increased the refresh rate, which will cause GPUs to struggle even more. If they were going to give us something more, then I think most people would have preferred more pixels.

            On a related note, a lot of people supersample even with the Vive Pro (200% or even 300% in some games, especially with a 2080 Ti). In many cases, we are already rendering at resolutions equal to or higher than that of the HP Reverb.

          • Full Name

            It sounds like the refresh rate can be changed, so hopefully if people struggle it can be set lower (or I suppose it will just end up rendering less frames due to stress). Don’t get me wrong, I’d love more resolution, but I think it would cause issues with their minimum recommendation of a GTX970. (Which I have on my secondary machine, and it is no champ for VR….). It would be nice if they can do a “Pro Index” in a few months. For now, since it isn’t wireless, and other than a bit worse FOV on mine, I just ordered the Index controllers. Those look awesome.

          • Harmoniser

            Yeah for some games pcars I’m normally on 1.3 or 1.4 with high or med settings and most getting 90fps. I’m intrested to see what people can run. Elite dangerous, I’m on HMD 1.5, I have a rtx 2080ti

          • Jarilo

            I can see fine, maybe you need to hit up a local lencrafters.

          • The Bard

            Exactly! Genau!

        • The Bard

          What? Not that big of a deal? You must be working for Valve. You imagine looking through VGA screen at World? Visuals, the view, the screen, the depth of black is like being blind or not. Resolution is critical, just next to FOV which is second place. The rest is wireless, weight and only then controllers. I don’t care about controllers accuracy when the screen I stare at is WEAK. Index resolution is even worse than Odyssey+ sold since 1 year. Odyssey+ for me is not enough resolution, even with anti-SDE.
          The screen = critical. One of the human senses.

          • Jeff

            Meh? Reviews are saying its amazing. We will see in a few months. Valve chose 144hz and ultra-low latency over higher resolution. They have been researching VR for 10+ years now, I have some faith, but ultimately we will see…soon.

          • Greg Anthony

            if trends follow with the last windows vr headset, we should be able to buy the reverb and then use the index knuckles and home station. Best of both worlds, high resolution + better controllers. But we shall see if that happens this time around.

      • Trip

        I had the same feeling at first, but later (after checking other reviews) decided that Valve selected the displays they did because they thought they would give the best final result once you factor in things we didn’t know we wanted or needed; faster persistence-y stuff, more sub-pixels/better fill, faster refresh, etc. Reviews indicate that these things make a much bigger difference than those of us complaining about the lower resolution displays expect.

        • Callsign Vega

          Naw, it is all about the resolution. The Index has the same resolution as the old Vive Pro. Which has terrible clarity and SDE.

          • Trip

            But…. that’s my point. On paper we just see the same spec as Vive Pro and Odyssey+ but respected reviewers are all very impressed with the clarity…

          • Callsign Vega

            Remember the Vive Pro uses Pentile pixels (which is terrible) versus the Index uses full RGB. So there will be some clarity gains there. But it is also spread over a larger FOV, so once again reduces some of those gains.
            I’ve noticed a lot of reviewers “gush” over new products, almost as if they are being paid. When is the last time you heard a real negative review on a new piece of equipment? Everything is amazing! If they say something negative, they won’t get that new piece of equipment in the future.

          • Trip

            As far as reviewers, I’m always on guard for that kind of thing. You can usually tell the difference by their level of enthusiasm. I trust Ben, this article is a perfect example, where he commented negatively on the god rays issue which caused quite the uproar of criticism directed at the Index. Look at the headline for the Index hands on here on RoadtoVR, compare that to the headlines of previous RoadtoVR hands on HMD articles.

            I suspect most everyone is underestimating the effect of the ultra low persistence. Even if you are looking straight ahead in your VR headset your head is most likely moving around at least a little which may be causing a nearly constant bit of motion blur. Whether that’s the case or not, it seems that something about this display sets it well above other displays with the same resolution in HMD usage, both OLED and LCD.

    • The Bard

      Exactly. Let’s see what Samsung will do in the next few months. I bet they will pop up with a killer VR headset till October. Index would be the best VR experience, ever. It is missing 2160 x 2160 per eye. Nice to see 130 FOV and 120Hz refresh rate. It is an upgrade, but missing on the resolution. It is a pitty it did not exceed Odyssey+. There’re talking about subpixels, but not talking about gray instead of pure black. I have mixed feelings.

      • Kyokushin

        Yes, and 1440×1440 LCD RGB (3 subpixels) had Acer VR or Lenovo Explorer which costs around 300 bucks.
        In comprasition of acer vr to O+ ,the second one have no SDE, and first have visible.
        So in fact on 130 fov there will be worse pixel per degree and final quality on index will be worse than on Acer VR.

        • StarLightPL

          We will see, Cmdr, we will see. There is the question of how dual optics will perform, and how big is panel utilisation. O7

        • Rosko

          WMR headsets has poor tracking & are not that good as a result for some games.

          • Trip

            Lighthouse is currently the best solution for me, so I don’t want any HMD that doesn’t have it. Reasons are accuracy and compatibility with the full motion sim.

      • When does the waiting to see who does what end w/ you folks?

        Guess this may not make sense…

        • FireAndTheVoid

          We will continue to place all of our hopes and dreams in the next rumored headset, probably for the next decade

        • Jarilo

          Yea man, I’m sitting here like ready for the games.

        • Jerald Doerr

          That’s for real the truth… You keep doing that you’ll miss out… I got my 2 GTX 1080 FTWs day one… If I waited till now cost would be a little over $250 less… I got that money back just in fun and time saving renders almost a year ago!

      • Trip

        To me the OLED black has been overrated. Too much banding in black scenes and too many artifacts when you turn your head too fast.

        As far as Samsung, I do expect to continue to see nice displays from them but WMR is still absolutely a no-go for me due to the tracking quality and the need for software support other than just native SteamVR. The former issue by itself is a deal-breaker for me due to my motion sim.

        • The Bard

          I do not see ANY banding, ANY in pure black scenes. Maybe you had wrong model.

    • And

      That would have been the perfect headset until the next gen

    • Gerald Terveen

      looks like they picked the screen for the ability to support the fastest switching, not the highest resolution. and I actually am super curious to see how much more stable and locked in the world appears with the new screen.

    • Callsign Vega

      Yup, Reverb it is for me. The Index is Gen 1.5 device, Reverb is Gen 2.0.

    • MOT

      Yep the reverb is amazing.

  • Brad

    So to be clear, the original lighthouse base stations from the first version of the Vive will work for this?

    • Nepenthe

      Yes.

    • Popin

      Yes, devices using the newer SVRT2.0 chiclets are able to be used with SVRT1.0 Base Stations. The Index and The Index Controllers will work with your original Vive Base Stations.

      The SVRT2.0 Base Stations will not work with devices using the older SVRT1.0 chiclets (original Vive, and original Vive wand controllers)

      • Brad

        Thanks. Do you know if there are any drawbacks to using 1.0 base stations? Any reason I should upgrade?

        • Popin

          1. Support for more than 2 base stations (up to 4). The 1.0 tech couldn’t do this due to the need for the sync pulse and needing enough time to complete the sweeps before the next pulse

          2. Single rotor design so they are smaller, less power consuming, and quieter. Not really a big deal compared to the 1st gen.

          3. Better tracking volume. They have a wider FOV both horizontally and vertically, and they have a greater range (~7m out vs ~5m out).

          The main reason I’m going to upgrade is to support 4x base stations to eliminate any occlusion. I’m planning on pointing one of them more directly toward my desk for better tracking of seated VR titles, and then three in a triangle around my space.

          If you are currently happy with your tracking performance with the 1.0 base stations then there really isn’t a need to upgrade

          • Trip

            I would have gone for the upgrade for similar reasons but I would also have had to replace my three Vive Tracker pucks which would have added a bunch of extra cost on top of the extra $200+ for the 2.0 lighthouses themselves. =(

          • Popin

            Are you sure your trackers aren’t using the SVRT2.0 chiclets? I know they launched right around with SVRT2.0 was becoming available. I don’t recall if they ever actually shipped 1.0 only trackers or not.

            Still, if you are satisfied with your existing tracking performance for your space then not a big deal, and I’d certainly not spend the $300 to replace those three Vive trackers in order to upgrade if you have an existing workable solution.

            I’ve been Sans VR for ~6 months due to one of my base stations getting damaged so I’d rather spend the money on getting SVRT2.0 base stations rather than spending $150+ on replacing my Vive base station.

            I’ve had problems in the past with some loss of tracking, primarily while seated at my desk, so I’m really looking forward to having solid coverage. My space is large enough were my base stations were a bit farther apart than the 15′ diagonal recommendation and I didn’t want to run the sync cable across the room so they would sometimes loose sync. Sync-on-beam removes that as an issue any the wider FoV of the 2.0 base stations should allow me to cover my entire space.

          • Trip

            My trackers are definitely 1.0 tracking. Lots were sold before the 2.0 compatible ones were launched. IIRC the 2.0 trackers have the Vive logo in blue, 1.0 trackers have the vive logo in gray. I wasn’t too happy when the 2.0 trackers launched maybe two months after I bought three of the old version. =( I’d love to add two more trackers. My tracking is basically perfect but I have to relocate the lighthouses when I want to play with room scale instead of my motion simulator.

          • Popin

            Ahh that helped the recall :) You are 100% correct. I forgot they had grey logos previously and switched them to blue logos when they changed them to the 2.0 compatible chiclets.

            Man… You have way more of a reason to upgrade to SVRT2.0 being that you have essentially two volumes you want tracked. I would hate having to re-setup the room and moving them back and forth.

            But that is an extra $900 for base stations and new trackers.

          • Trip

            It would be really nice if I could afford it, yeah. Thing is that lighthouse tracking is so ridiculously easy to setup. I bought an extra set of mounts so it only takes me a couple minutes to move them and another minute for recalibration. I don’t understand why people make a fuss about Lighthouse tracking, but maybe they never spent hours fiddling with Oculus CV1 with four tracking cameras.. that was a nightmare.

        • Jarilo

          “Any reason I should upgrade?”
          Not really unless you want to use 4 and increase the play space by a lot. With two base-stations up high there is 0 occlusion.

  • chicanoterp06

    I hope there will be somewhere I can demo this prior to ordering (hopefully Microsoft store) … definitely getting controls but would like to see how much of an upgrade the headset is

    • Jistuce

      Very likely not Microsoft Store, since MS has a competing VR standard(to say nothing of the Windows Store vs Steam non-battle)

      • chicanoterp06

        they currently sell the rift and vive, that’s where I bought mine from

        • Jistuce

          I stand corrected.

  • NooYawker

    Eye tracking would have made this much more viable.

    • mellott124

      Not really. Entire graphics pipeline still doesn’t take full advantage of eye tracking despite Nvidia talking about it for years. Also would have raised price more. Eye tracking is still a ways out for consumers.

      • Justos

        chicken and egg problem. No eye tracking? no eye tracked pipeline. No eye tracked pipeline, no eye tracking.

        • NooYawker

          This seems to be the debate. But the hardware always has to come first.

        • Bob

          Eye tracking is already on the Vive Pro Eye and it’s just a matter of when the technology matures enough to be included with future headsets from various companies. It will happen; just a matter of when within the next five years.

          Content will follow as soon as it’s implemented properly and I’d wager Oculus will be the first to crack it perfectly and take advantage of the technology with exclusive games that use eye tracking to enable foveated rendering.

        • mellott124

          Exactly. Not ready.

  • Nepenthe

    120Hz, full backwards compatibility with 90Hz — okay, does that mean you can choose 90 or 120 or that the 120 works perfectly with software but you can’t run it at 90?

    Here’s the reason I ask: I wonder if the Vive Pro wireless adapter could have an Index pack released at some point… but I think the Index would have to be able to run at 90Hz for that to be the case.

  • oompah

    ONE THOUSAND USD
    & not standalone
    for arab sheiks

    • dk

      the average salary in 1st world counties is pretty high …it’s not a problem for them unless u r swimming in debt ….but u still have to be an enthusiast with excellent pc

      • burzum

        Well, taxes are high as well… 5k are just 2.5k after the money grab and then nothing else has been paid. I don’t know that many people who can pull a thousand Euro out of their pocket without carefully thinking about it.

        Oculus is right with their strategy to get VR to the masses. Index is an enthusiat level HMD but clearly nothing a regular user will go for except he has a lot money to spend.

        • dk

          yes people will think about it and they might be paying off a lot of other stuff ….but https://www.reinisfischer.com/average-salary-european-union-2018 it’s not for “shakes” it’s as much as a high end phone and even cheaper than some phones ….but super expensive phones is another story

        • Trip

          Well, I think as fast as they sold out there must have been more interest than Valve expected which is REALLY good news for us enthusiasts. I hope sales continue to be strong after the HMD’s start arriving on people’s doorsteps but I imagine once the hardcore VR heads like us get them sales will die out. I also imagine that Valve is expecting that. They might sell a lot when their “Flagship VR game” releases. I’m almost willing to bet it’s a Portal game considering the fact that they have used the Portal world for the SteamVR tutorials (robot repair, hand shake test, etc.) Even the original Vive setup instructions (software not paper I think) were Portal themed. Great choice on their part IMO, I really enjoyed it all.

  • kakek

    They did the total opposite of Oculus. Including doing wrong what Oculus did right.

    And yo know what ? I’m not sure the result is more interesting ?

    + Better display / lense, without going overboard with resolution.z
    + Knuckles look great
    + interresting audio solution

    – More than twice the price of the rift S, not sure there is THAT big a difference in quality, considering the rift also up it’s resolution and lenses.
    – For that price, still no eye tracking/fovheated rendering/variable focal.
    – recommended conf go higher. And 120 hz ? maintaining 90fps is altready a problem most of the time.
    – Where are the games ? Oculus might be fcking things up with their exclusivity, but at least they are investing in games. What are you gonna play with you new 1000 $ headset if 3 out of 4 big VR titles are oculus financed and rift exclusive ?
    – Not going to make the VR market any bigger. Anyone enthusiast enough about VR to get a 1000$ heaset requiring a 1000$ recent rig already has VR. It’s NOT going to motivate third party studio to invest in games.

    • RavnosCC

      It might increase the the market a bit, with a flood of used Vive headsets, wands and 1.0 lighthouses hitting the secondary markets for sub $300 prices…

    • Justos

      I agree its not worth it considering you can get 2 Rift S and 200$ worth of games on top of it.

      The specs are nice, but its not worth double and then some. This is not gen2, so i’ll hold off a while longer.

    • Jarilo

      Can people please stop talking about Oculus exclusives as if the rest of the people on Vives , WMR, and Index aren’t playing them? Revive is superb. PC VR doesn’t really have exclusives and I bet half the stuff will be even better on the Knuckles.

    • Jarilo

      “1000$ headset requiring a 1000$ recent rig already has VR. It’s NOT going to motivate third party studio to invest in games” No offense, but as far as games go I’m not really interested in sub-par Quest mobile VR ports , for if it’s the quest that brings the audience then that’s where the third party support will be…locked to a garbage snapdragon. What joy, but at least we can super sample them on PC-VR right? what a joke.

      • kakek

        I’m not talking about that. Oculus a financed many very good VR games already, and has at least 5 interresting games coming this year. PC VR games, not oculus quest.
        Valve has one this year. Maybe …

        • Jarilo

          Flawless on Vive, not sure about WMR, didn’t try it though I have an ACER on the side I don’t use often. Yes, thank Oculus for some of those exclusive, which may start to shrink in quantity over a period of time if the Quest has to be taken in to consideration, that’s the point. Never the less, Ive found their “exclusives” to be good, but still short and B to AA level games. Valve is promising a AAA.

          • kakek

            Stormland and Asgard wrath are also promising ot be AAA sized titles, bigger than what we’ve had so far.
            And respawn is working on something still unanouced for this year.

            Look, I can’t say I’m a fan of Oculus, considering I only have a WMR headset and revive works badly for me.
            But objectively, they have had a much better track record than valve with software support so far. Oculus home is pretty nice, the drivers are very stable, and they have invested much more in content than Valve.
            If I end up choosing a headset, I wouldn’t ignore that. Their game library is objectively better, even if you ignore the fact that you can access steamVR because Valve are playing the open-software cards.

          • Trip

            I will grudgingly admit that Oculus has had quite a few REALLY good exclusive games. Thank the maker for Revive, and curse those Facebook bastards for their exclusive bull$#!t.

            Lone Echo (plus Echo Arena and Echo Combat) and Edge of Nowhere are two of my very favorite VR games. Oh, I really really enjoyed Lucky’s Tale too. I really want more good third person platformers for VR, I never would have guessed they’d be so enjoyable.

          • kakek

            Have you tried yooka layle with it’s VR mod then ?
            https://github.com/Eusth/VookaRaylee
            Worked really well for me.

  • RadRAW

    It is a pity that Valve did not think about people who want to have the highest image quality, want to have great audio but do not want to have any base stations and cables hanging on the walls.

    Was it really so difficult to do external tracking, since Index has 2 cameras? From what you can see on the example of the Oculus Quest – it can be done very well (even with 2 cameras onboard).

    People who want to play VR games while sitting at a desk near their PCs (races, simulators) do not need base stations.

    For me personally, the need to have base stations to use Index is a dealbreaker. I do not need 1mm super-duper exact real time tracking. I just want to have fun and I want HQ image inside. I also want my headset to be portable as much as it can be so I could put it in my bag in 30 seconds and take the headset to my friends.

    Meanwhile, I’m waiting for Vive Cosmos and my choice will fall between HTC and HP. Sorry, Valve. Taking responsibility on other people and developers (“maybe someone will do the support”) is very, very weak. Especialy considering the high price of the set.

    • gothicvillas

      If you don’t want super duper tracking there are other options like Rift etc. I wanted super duper and glad Valve went for it.

      • RadRAW

        Rift S -1280×1440 @ 80Hz
        Index – 1440×1600 @ 120 (144)Hz and so on…

        What I meant was – would it be really be SO hard for Valve to give people choice – worse tracking withour stations OR better tracking with them?

        Not everyone needs superb tracking but we all want better resolution and better displays.

        • Popin

          The base stations aren’t just for the HMD though. In theory they could use the two chaperone cameras to try to do OpticalCV based environment tracking but they would leave the controllers non-functional.

          They already said the cameras will be open to the SteamVR API and there is also the “Frunk” that they will be providing CAD for the maker community so there very well might be some people who try to extend the functionality to do that. Leap already tweated they intend to try to work on something for the Frunk so we will have to wait and see how those get used.

      • Popin

        Agreed, SVRT2.0 is a huge upgrade to the tracking fidelity especially for larger play spaces. Valve has already said vis-a-vis OpticalCV based tracking they are interested in it and would switch once its capable to match the precision and responsiveness of lighthouse.

        Until then, I’m glad they continue to push lighthouse forward.

    • Jarilo

      I’m pretty sure when you pay 1000 you are paying to get super-duper.

      • RadRAW

        Would you like the image on your new monitor for $ 1000 to be visible only after wearing, let’s say, special glasses? Let us also assume for a moment that you know for sure that the image on it could be perfectly visible even without them – but the producer for unknown reasons did not take into account this function, claiming that all this is for the image to be of the highest quality. And the manufacturer sells you those “special” glasses for $ 200 …

        We should remember that due to the inconvenience of use and the lack of a single standard, 3D technology has died.

  • RavnosCC

    So shipping is not included at time of sale, is it free? Did I miss that somewhere… ?

    • StarLightPL

      Yeah shipping was free (Poland, EU)

  • bliglum .

    Considering the premium price, I was expecting slightly more premium specs. 1440p resolution when state of the art is at 2160? Hmm.

    Also feels a step down from OLED, yes the LCD is RGB, but I’d still rather the better blacks, more saturated colors, and faster pixel switch of OLED. And those new cameras on the front? just 960p. So AR would look pretty grainy with them….

    Overall, pretty meh for a $1000 “premium” VR package.

    • M0rph3u5

      you won’t be able to get a low persistence and high refresh rate the LCD offers with OLED lenses. Needless to say the SDE is way less with LCD in comparison to OLED

      • Popin

        OLEDs nor LCDs are lenses

        • M0rph3u5

          they are actually display technologies:OLED (stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diode) LCD (stands for Liquid Crystal Display)

          • Jistuce

            Which, I believe, was Popin’s point. You said “OLED lenses” when you meant “OLED displays”.

          • Jarilo

            You have to understand how picky everyone is here with terminology. If you thought grammar Nazis were bad, welcome to VR comment sections.

          • Still not nearly as bad a the grammar nazism as you can see by scrolling up, the length of their discussion is staggering.

    • Jarilo

      The reverb isn’t even available yet, the new state of the art lol. It’s just a bump in resolution. Valve chose 3k because there is still room for super sampling that people can’t achieve on current GPU and they want to hit high refresh rates.

      • Icebeat

        excuse me, but I prefer high screen resolution to super sampling any day of the week (not at Saturday’s nights because party) .

        • Jarilo

          That’s not what I meant, we don’t have the horsepower to do 4k (Unless all you play is beat saber). The 3k is a good res for current GPU market. Everyone prefers native res over SS, I find the high refresh rate questionable as well for performance. There is no reason to obsess over resolution like this.

      • MOT

        Ive had my reverb weeks. It is miles ahead of any other headset in terms of clarity.

        • Jarilo

          It’s 4.5 million pixels. It better be, I was just saying it’s a trade off for their refresh rate.

    • Olivier

      You didnt pay attention, the whole reason behind the switch to LCD is because of its FASTER response times. And they’re not alone, more and more LCD headsets exist

    • mfx

      As for the definition I agree they could have pushed to 2160×2160 product, however this OLED fanciness is really not deserved. OLED pentile manufacturers and companies that uses them -lie- to people about the definition of their screens. Pentile matrix definition should NOT legally allowed to be defined by 2 sub pixels. Because the perception of a 1080p OLED image is in reality similar to a 720p with 3 sub pixels screen. The only thing OLED does really better than LCD is the better black level. But a good screen is not only a good black level value..

      • Jeff

        Consumers wouldn’t be able to afford a 2160X2160 144hz HMD.

    • Henrik ‘Walter’ Peytz

      There’s no “Right choice” for the straight up best headset atm. in terms of practical fidelity (not theoretical fidelity) The constraints right now is on how manufacturers balance resolution, FOV and refresh rate. If they maxed all of it out nobody would have a rig capable of running anything.
      – Index has obviously sacrificed resolution and staked their bets on subpixels saving the day in that department, and beefed up the FOV and Hz.
      – HP Reverb has sacrificed FOV and Hz for more resolution.
      – Pimax says “Fuck it” and does everything (except Hz) to the max, relying on their customers to dial in individual settings that doesn’t result in reprojection galore.
      – …and Quest is phone-VR without a simcard.

      All in all: as long as the hardware delivering the image is the bottleneck there will be no conclusion to this argument. It’ll just be “I like X Wootwoot!”. As long as that’s the case It’d make a lot more sense to focus on what else the headsets bring to the table like controllers, wireless, headphones, extendability, comfort etc. Immersion isn’t just about the display-specs unless they’re absolute garbage, which none of these next gen HMD’s are.

      We can talk about it again when we have rigs that can power Blade and Sorcery’s “Warfare III”-mode on a Pimax 8K without stuttering.

  • immersive_computing

    Just placed my pre-order – full Valve Index kit and VirtuaLink adapter for my RTX2080Ti

    Shipping was free of charge.

    Now the long wait starts ;)

    • Jarilo

      Congrats

      • Immersive_Computing

        Thanks. Regarding value, Index seems to be what Vive Pro should have been, noticeable lens and controller upgrades, coming in £300 less than Vive Pro full kit 2.0

        i always had the funds for Vive Pro but after using it several times found the price/value poor and bought a Rift CV1 instead as a hold over until Valve released their headset.

        • Jarilo

          Nice, I’ve invested in the Vive Pro already and don’t mind because I enjoy the wireless. I’m adding in the knuckles. If I was in your position, the Index is what I would go with as well if the tether did not bother me. People are considering it expensive at 1k but actually the HMD is only 500, it’s really the light house tech and knuckles that boost that price.

  • Pizzy

    Sold out please update your article

  • JesperL

    LOL out of stock in like 1 hour.
    Got my preorder.

    • Justin Hogue

      Same, hope ours ship around june 15th.

    • calcanuck26

      Good for you. I delayed a few hours, and only have a “shipping July 30” reservation.

    • Jarilo

      Congrats

  • brandon9271

    The price of the HMD at $499 is sort of reasonable.. but $149 each for the base stations seems nuts to me. I know HTC charged out the ass for Vive stuff but I was hoping Valve would try to make things more accessible.

    • Gerald Terveen

      Seems like they used the price to curb demand to a manageable level. I also expected the V2 advancements to lead to a lower price and am still hoping it will happen in time before the real war over consumers happens this christmas.

      • MosBen

        Especially since one of the primary improvements in the V2 base stations, as I understand it, is a simplification of the IR system.

        • mirak

          Kind of.
          One less engine and no need for the stations to synchronise by flash, this means less IR LEDs, but now the laser is modulated to transport positional informations to the peripherals.

          I think that people that will buy the stations will in fact finance the headsets that is maybe less expensive than it should be.

        • y_m_o

          Arent the v2 base stations capable of more than 2 and area coverage is larger too.

    • Toothlover

      HMD alone without base stations or controllers? What I do with it? Stare at it and wish it’d magically work somehow?

      • brandon9271

        Yeah, i guess $499 for just the HMD isn’t that reasonable. Especially considering it has LCD displays. The best deal going on HMDs is the Samsung Odyssey. It proves how overpriced everyone else is

      • Interwebdeuce

        Use it as a pure HMD without any room-scale type walkabout. Essentially you remain seated and consider it literally a head-worn monitor. Think of using it the way you use a monitor right now only with the benefit of looking around freely without moving in-game.

      • Rux ify

        The HMD alone is for people that already have lighthouses and controllers from the Vive and Vive Pro.

  • wcalderini

    Whew. Glad I got what order I could in. Waited for the buzzer here at work, then realized my seldom used “Steam Log-in” was forgotten so I could not complete the purchase. Rushed home at lunch, 12:30 CST, and by THAT time all of the “complete sets” were gone. (Had switched over to “reserve yours”) WAS able to finally purchase the Headset /Controller combo with my legit info. I already have my original Vive base stations but was hoping to bundle and upgrade. Now I’m looking at the store page and only the controllers and the base stations are options to “add to cart”. Early adoption DO have it’s price. Good luck all.

  • Kyokushin

    Meh for 1000 USD helmet with noticable SDE (yes, it will have noticable SDE, there was helmets like Acer VR with similar resolution and LCD panels and they have SDE) less pixel per degree than Odyssey+ (which cost 300 bucks and have zero SDE).

    Buy O+ on discount or wait for Reverb.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      But these are completely different LCD panels than the Acer VR headset, with different pixellayout. And yes there will still be SDE, but much less than the Acer VR headsets.

      • Sion12

        even if it completely remove SDE, at that resolutions, the overall image will appear pixelated because of the low resolution

        • Andrew Jakobs

          Oh please, what bullshit.. people really have become snobs.. there is nothing pixelated even about the PSVR which has about the lowest resolution of the current decent headsets..

          • Sion12

            what real bullshit is saying PSVR is not pixelated. Its not a matter of being snob, you can clearly see each individual pixel on PSVR and higher resolution Lenovo explorer which i both owned.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            then you’re really focusing on the displays and not the experience/game itself.. Coming from having used/own the Forte VFX-1, Vuzix VR920, DK1, DK2, PSVR and Vive I think people are really exaggerating in regard to pixelation on the current HMD’s. But then again, I just focus on the experience/game itself, and I’m just being realistic, very highresolution displays are something for the near future when GPU’s caught up with what they need to drive in max settings. Even foveated rendering is not gonna be the solution, it might really help a bit but it will still have people bitch about it, especially in the beginning when eyetracking is still not keeping up with the movement of the eyes, and fixed foveated rendering isn’t something you want.
            Personally I was very suprised when I put on the PSVR, as I was used to the DK2 and heard people bitch about how awful the PSVR was. It wasn’t, it was a big step up from the DK2, even better IMHO than the Vive.
            With the prices these headsets costs, I think they are pretty good for this current time. As GPU’s also don’t really seem to move forward in significant power, we’ll just have to wait a few years before we can have HMD’s with displays (for the regular consumers) that are much higher than the current highest resolution (and ofcourse also low persistance, because there are already higher resolution displays, but not with the needed persistance).
            I’ve said this many times before, Yes it’s possible to have real 4K+ displays per eye, no SDE, 120hz+, 180+FOV (vertically/horizontally), with the best eye tracking that’s possible, with the best fullbody/head tracking that’s possible, with the best lenses possible. But it’s not possible on a pricetarget of around $500-$600, $5000-$6000 would be more realistic (I think that’s even a low suggestion), and that’s for the headset/tracking only, to drive those displays you’ll need GPU’s that are at least that price (or higher). And still, people will bitch about something.

            And most of the manufacturers are targetting consumers or small businesses. So anything $600+ is just too high (except for businesses), as only a few people will buy the headset. And for mass adoption it will need to be a low price. You already saw it when HTC introduced the Vive Pro, which a lot of people bitched about it being way to expensive.

            VR has been around for a few decades and will continue to be around for a long time. It’s only now that the technology has become cheap enough to actually do some decent acceptable VR, which in the past was only possible if you had a very VERY large budget (of $10.0000-$20.0000) for a headset alone, not even tracking included.

            Just be patient, we’ll get there, it’s only a few years away before you have the headset of your dreams.. And even then you’ll propably have something to bitch about.

    • The Bard

      Exactly. I am curious about next move by Samsung within 6 months. They will not let the rest of players drink champagne.

    • calcanuck26

      Yes, but Odyssey+ eliminates significant SDE by introducing a blurriness that makes everything less sharp.

      • Manuel Riger

        its not true that its less sharp lol. is just as sharp as the old od just without sde….

        • VR-Astro

          The O+ is noticeably less sharp than the OG. What are you smoking.

        • Jarilo

          Not true, I’ve tried it and it’s like having a slight Temporal anti-aliasing blur on everything. It’s not intense though.

    • Trip

      Disagree. So many people are missing the fact that this is not just “any” LCD panel. It’s an LCD panel with exceptional properties that reviewers are saying looks pretty fantastic. I’m not saying SDE is 100% gone, but it’s supposedly pretty minimal. I’m sure it won’t be as sharp as Reverb at least right at the center of the lenses, but Tested said Reverb is blurry once you move your eyes to look off center (small sweet spot) and that the stereo overlap was compromised a bit by their lens design.

  • The Bard

    Guys, this thing looks heavy.

    • Jarilo

      It’s not, the Quest is though.

  • Trenix

    I’ll wait for reviews and a sale. I’m willing to spend up to $800 but $1,000 is pushing it. Sorry but I don’t believe a VR headset is worth the cost of a computer, especially since it requires a computer to run it.

    • mirak

      So for 200$ that you could easily save in one or two month, you will pass up on buying the best headset ever made.
      This makes no sense.

      • Trenix

        That $200 can be better spent on something else. I’m sorry but I don’t think a $1,000 price tag is worth it. For $1,000 I can upgrade my wife’s computer. A VR headset with all of it’s required parts, is not the value of a computer . It’s just an accessory which shouldn’t be worth more than the system itself. We also don’t know how great the headset is. If the god rays are similar to the Oculus or worse, then I’m not going to even bother.

        I also thought the new 2.0 base stations where supposed to be cheaper. What ever happened to that? The controllers, base stations, and headset, will go down in price eventually. I wouldn’t be surprised if they reach the price of a vive bundle.

        • mirak

          What do you know about the value of an headset ?
          Yes an headset should cost less if it was made by a Chinese company that just copied it and had nothing to invest in research.

          You compare to a computer, but computers are pretty set, with the same ATX norms, since years and with a ton of demand.

          Either you can afford the emost expensive or you don’t, there is no shame in that, no need to overcompensate.

          • Trenix

            The value of a headset is the value I make it. If I dont find it worth the price, I’m not buying. It has nothing to do with affording anything. Apple has moronic customers buying their overpriced products which provide far less performance than the alternatives.

            I am not one of those customers, so I’ll wait. A VR headset is an accessory, not it’s own system. For 1k I’d want a standalone Oculus Quest on crack, with the capabilities of a computer. Otherwise let’s keep prices as if they are selling an assessory.

          • Bryan Ischo

            It’s kind of hilarious that you can understand that value is relative and that a headset may be worth more or less to you than someone else, but that you can’t understand how to apply that same principles to other people’s values of Apple products.

            Different people value different things, obviously. I wouldn’t call people who value aspects of a product that I don’t care about ‘stupid’, because I recognize that other people have priorities different than my own.

            The people I *would* call stupid are those who demonstrate a willful ignorance of this concept when applied to other people, but somehow can apply it to themselves without any confusion.

            Can you guess what term I would use to describe *you*?

          • Trenix

            You buy apple products, therefore you’re stupid. There is something called customer value and I get that some people value things differently and believe they’re getting their money’s worth. However some things are just pure hype and overpriced. Whether it’s from marketing or monopolies, sometimes the customer can be considered an idiot for what they’re buying. For example, someone can find value with shit on a stick, others will think you’re retarded to think it actually has value.

            Again, an accessory should not be overpriced when it relies entirely on your computer. That are so many other things I can better spend $1,000 on and a VR headset is not one of them. For example, a new phone, laptop, better graphics card or computer parts, and so on. They’re not even selling us a 2nd generation headset and it has noticeable god rays.

            I’ll wait till it goes on sale, in fact I probably am stupid that I didn’t preorder it and sell it for double for stupid people like yourselves. That would of been a better investment, because yes, I do make money off of stupid impulsive people who can’t comprehend the value of products.

        • Trip

          I couldn’t have justified $1,000 on my budget, but $790 for the HMD and controllers was a go (if just barely). I absolutely NEED the controller upgrade, I own a ton of games I flatly refuse to play until I’ve got thumbsticks back! (For clarification I used to run Oculus with touch, I had to switch to Vive a long while back because I had a critical need for open source type stuffs.

          • mirak

            Then just say it’s too expensive FOR YOU.

            As Bryan Ischo is saying, you are saying it as if everyone is doing a bad deal by getting it.
            You can’t afford it, and that’s it.

  • TwinFire

    Like anything, I’ll wait till the reviews come out before sending them my noughts and ones. But actually quite happy they sold out their pre-order allocation as valve needed the confirmation from the market to open the floodgates on production.

    • Trip

      Exactly my thoughts on them selling out, but I’m also glad I got my order in for the first wave of deliveries!

    • JesperL

      I figured, I preorder, and then hope for some good reviews in the 2 months waiting. And if they suck, I can cancel my preorder.

      • Trip

        Even better, we could probably sell it on ebay for a profit because there are going to be people who don’t want to wait until fall…. I could have sold my DK2 for a massive profit, mine was in the very first shipment to the USA.

  • impurekind

    Looks like it’s gonna do pretty well for Valve then.

    I expect we’ll see the Quest selling really well for more casual users and the Index selling really well for more hardcore users (all things being relative). Not too sure about how well the Rift S will do but I expect it will still sell pretty well too.

    Again though, I still have to mention that you can get BOTH a Quest and Rift S for $200 less than the Index, and you even have enough money to buy a Quest carry case and bunch of great games too (many of which will also be cross play).

    The Index looks pretty cool but that price is just crazy compared to what Oculus is offering for a LOT less–kinda reminds me of the whole Vive vs Rift situation previously but to an even greater extreme.

    • mirak

      WMR is offering a lot less too.
      But it’s garbage.

    • Trip

      I’m convinced that Rift S is going to be a big disappointment to a lot of customers. I’m biased though because I know the fixed IPD has been an issue for me on past headsets.

      • Immersive_Computing

        After owning Vive and Rift I bought Lenovo Explorer WMR. The fixed IPD gave me eyestrain and an unpleasant “hangover” after 2-3 hour sessions, I was only 2 mm off its fixed IPD measurement.

        In 2019 there shouldn’t be any headsets coming to market with fixed IPD, its purely a cost cutting measure and any claims to accommodate using software IPD is marketing fudge. It’s no different to wearing the wrong spectacles.

    • plrr

      Rift vs Vive were comparable products, though. With Index you get something that is on a different level. Notably, compared to the Vive, it seems next-generation in terms of audio and controller solution.

  • Why this delay??? Have the orders been too overwhelming or have they found an issue?

    • FireAndTheVoid

      It looks like the delay is due to their initial production run of headsets being sold out. Without knowing how many headsets Valve ordered for the initial run, there is no way to know how high demand was. I suspect that they ordered a relatively small number in order to guage the level of interest in the Index. Or they could have production difficulties like AMD has had with a few of their recent GPUs. I believe the 144 Hz LCD screens are sole-sourced from a single supplier. It could be that they have a low production rate.

      • StarLightPL

        Servers were choking to near death for the first 5 minutes, that’s saying something. You would think a store the size of Steam would have it down to the point, yet they caved. The demand was huge, partly riding on goodwill alone. I hope valve won’t disappoint.

        • FireAndTheVoid

          Interesting. I guess we’ll have to wait for future Steam hardware surveys to see just how much market share they’ve taken.

          • Jarilo

            I’ve had a headset since Vive release and I never do those hardware surveys, half the time headset is unplugged so wouldn’t detect anyway. Crazy to gauge anything by that if you ask me.

        • mirak

          Well the index is already kind of a disappointment because there is no 2k per eye and eye tracking.
          Some might say no wireless but I won’t say it.

          However if the SDE is kind of gone, that should do it.

          • Trip

            To me the hands on reviews indicate the display looks far better than specs suggest.

        • Trip

          It was 17 minutes of frantic clicking before I was able to get my purchase to go through. First the site was lagged out completely, then it kept saying “purchase failed” or something like that. I was worried, but I still got shipment window of end of June so I’m happy!

          • Andrew McEvoy

            Where did you read your shipment window? I dont see it in the confirmation email I received : /

  • Neil Chillingworth

    Waiting for reviews before dropping £1000, don’t care how long i have to wait.
    talk of god rays has me worried and it just doesn’t seem like a worthy upgrade to current gen VR

  • 3872Orcs

    It’ll be the end of year before any of us outside US and EU get it, if ever :( What about the rest of the world Valve!?

  • HomeAudio

    Thank you so much for adding PLN in a pricing breakdown table!!
    ;)

    • StarLightPL

      There is nothing to be happy about as our price shows that it’s about 100pln higher than the price in €. Oh wait here’s our “free” shipping.

  • Tom Daigon

    Great hardware, too bad there are no games for it….pass.

    • Engineer_92

      What the hell are you talking about? Valve owns Steam and worked with several developers on their platform to integrate their controllers.

    • StarLightPL

      LOL it’s steamvr. All games will work. Knuckles support should also be significant, because devs had them for years now.

  • NooYawker

    More people wanted a $1000 VR headset than they predicted. Probably more than anyone predicted.

    • FireAndTheVoid

      Remember that there were two other options: just the headset for $500 and the headset + controllers for $750. For people who already own a Vive setup (roughly 40% of the current PC VR market), they could have purchased one of these cheaper options. $500 doesn’t sound that bad.

      • NooYawker

        That’s right… now I’m thinking about getting in on this. If nothing else at least the controllers.

      • Jarilo

        Well said, some of us are wireless on Vive Pros, nothing other than the refresh rate is drawing someone like this in for the Index, but being able to use the Knuckles and 2.0 base-station with out getting the headset is thus very welcomed Valve.

        • FireAndTheVoid

          I’m in that boat. I’ve got a wireless Vive Pro and this headset’s features aren’t enough to get me to go back to wired. Definitely looking at buying the controllers though.

          • Jarilo

            That’s my situation exactly and that’s what I did, they’ll come in June also which is nice.

        • mirak

          RGB sub pixels instead of Pentile, so 50% more subpixels, meaning easier text to read, better perceived resolution and a better fill factor so less SDE.

          I sent back the wireless because it was too hot, so went back to wired and can live with it.

          On a OG Vive though so the gap is more justified than with the pro.

          • Jarilo

            Mine is not hot, maybe your head is a microwave or you had a broken one. You would spend 800 on Vive Pro and 300 on Wireless and then throw it in the trash and spend 1000 on wired Index again for RGB? nice lol

      • mirak

        And then you have one useless headset and two useless wands, unless you sell them or have two computers in the same room and enough space to play multiplayer in the same space, which is very unlikely

        • StarLightPL

          Old wands will work with Index if you are using old lighthouses. They won’t work with new basestations though. and as one of the unlucky ones that had send his vive for RMA roughly three weeks after purchase, I appreciate “spare” headset lying around.

    • MosBen

      Keep in mind that while they’re back ordered we don’t know how many units that actually represents. The article also says that they are releasing limited quantities initially and then ramping up to meet demand. So they could have 1,000 preorders and be backlogged to September or 100,000. We just don’t know.

    • mirak

      Maybe they just can’t produce more even if they wanted.

  • mirak

    So no one to complain that if you break one controller you will have to buy two ?

    • Jarilo

      You know, for as much hate that the Vive Wands get…it’s an awesome feature to have ambidextrous motion controllers.

      • Trip

        Yep, they are equally awkward and uncomfortable in either hand! Great feature! =P

        In all seriousness though, what you say is true but IMO they are so bad it’s not worth the sacrifice. I loved touch back when I owned it, though I recently tried beatsaber with touch and felt the angle of the blade to the controller was wrong.

        • Jarilo

          Hah, well yes, thought they are nice for certain things. I can’t wait for my Knuckles.

    • Two because they dont sell one?

    • JesperL

      Cross that bridge when you break one – maybe the option to buy 1 is ready then.

  • superdonkey

    slap it on the front of steam store. get customers.

    the power of marketing.

    • StarLightPL

      I really don’t see people buying a €1080 hmd in droves because they saw an ad on Steam. That might work for a 30€ game though.

  • Jarilo

    I got me some Knuckle Index controllers pre-ordered, the kits flew off the shelves completely. I’m not upgrading the HMD though lucky me.

  • Toothlover

    for specs, it should’ve been in the $699 range.

    • Trenix

      Yup, I’m gonna wait for a sale. Not worth it currently, especially since we haven’t even seen the reviews yet.

  • mfx

    Htc should wake up because everybody is starting to bring the 1.5 generation to reality and they haven’t shown anything really yet.

    • Trip

      Eh… I don’t know about that. They were sorta the first gen 1.5 headset with Vive Pro (except maybe Odyssey+? I don’t follow WMR stuff really). The fact that they botched it big time doesn’t mean they are going to rush another attempt rather than play the long game and try to recover when gen 2.0 starts to really happen.

  • Trip

    I think this update is really good news. Valve rolled the dice on producing a high end enthusiast headset with what they considered the best combination of features currently practical and it sold out in one day. I would think this likely means initial sales exceeded expectations which gives them (and competitors) encouragement to consider this path as opposed to the Rift S “race to the bottom” option. I’m thrilled.

    • mirak

      They will not sell at this rate after a few months, and are not afraid to lose customers to competition, so instead of increasing production and distribution capabilities they just delay the moment you get one.

      • FireAndTheVoid

        You’re right. The Vive Pro was also sold out initially, for weeks with months of backorder, if I remember correctly. Yet, even after a year, it only accounts for a few percent of the total PC VR market according to SteamVR surveys (I know that survey isn’t perfect, but it’s probably close to reality). There is no way to know how well the Index will do based on this initial sell-out.

        • Trip

          I’m not saying that Index is going to continue to be a really big seller, just that it looks like maybe they sold more than expected. This means that in theory it was a worthwhile and profitable venture rather than a financial failure which will encourage Valve and others to continue down the premium consumer VR path in the future.

    • impurekind

      I think the “race to the bottom” approach [or just making something for normal users rather than hardcore and rich geeks/nerds] actually makes sense for fully standalone headsets (so Oculus is not wrong in doing that for Quest), but I do think we should be pushing the home/PC VR headsets as far as we can go.

  • Trip

    I think what many of us missed initially (because we focused on the wrong thing) is that the display used wasn’t chosen because it was cheaper or something, it was probably chosen because Valve R&D decided that this lower resolution LCD display’s features provided a better overall result in many or most use cases due the fill rate and super fast properties. Notably, we are taling about a better final result with potentially higher framerates due to the lower resolution. I think the specifications belie the actual visuals we will see in this headset.

    • mirak

      The real issue isn’t resolution, it’s the screen door effect.
      Pentile is also an issue when you can’t address the subpixels directly, because it means the screen is doing the interpolation itself from RGB to RGBG while it would be done better by a graphic card that could render straight to RGBG and do special anti-aliasing.

      • Trip

        Well that’s another interesting bit of information. What is the negative effect of this exactly? I imagine speed in one way or another, but what gets slowed down?

        • mirak

          Speed doesn’t change, just quality.
          The interpolation to handle the missing subpixels is done by a chip in the screen.
          With a RGB screen the screen just display what the GPU sends.

  • Leonardo Almeida

    I wish to know if this HMD will be compatible with Vive Wireless adapter, I will not came back to wired VR. Thank´s

    • FireAndTheVoid

      The Index has the same resolution as the Vive Pro, supports the same refresh rate of 90 Hz, and uses the same tracking (meaning the same information needs to be communicated with the computer). So, even if the Vive Wireless adapter isn’t compatible initially, that same technology could easily be adapted for the Index.

  • Would I like one of these? Hell, yes. Will I buy into Lighthouse tracking in 2019? Nope.

    I have a Rift 1 and despite all the complaints about the Rift S not being a very robust upgrade I am still getting one.

    Unless I am willing to permanently transform a room for VR use only, this is just too inconvenient. I understand that Lighthouse, especially 2.0 is superior to Oculus Constellation, specifically the finicky setup process and extra cables, but the ability to have a single cable HMD that I can use ANYWHERE with my laptop cannot be ignored.

    I just wish DisplayLink would get off their butts and release a wireless option for Rift. I would easily pay for that and stick with lower rez for now.

    The increased fidelity of the INDEX cannot be ignored, but anyone who doesn’t think that inside-out tracking will be the primary solution going forward for the majority of VR devices/usage….well, please explain it to me.

    I get that VBE’s will always need Outside-In until they come up with a way for multiple HMDs to coordinate player position with each other, but for home consumers, Rift S and Quest are gonna dominate the market.

    Higher fidelity on both the HMD and the tracking will increase over time, and quickly; as in the next 2.0 offerings from Oculus will easily match/exceed the INDEX including (or because of) offering eye-track/foviated rendering.

    And anyone paying attention knows that with that technology even though there might be an increased cost from the new tech, it will keep the cost of higher resolution screens and GPU’s down since the majority of the screens will no longer require full screen max rendering.

    But, that is irrelevant at the moment. What the really good new is …..there is a solution for EVERYONEs needs at a variety of price points. INDEX seems great. PiMax seems great. (I would love to test out SWORD vs KNUCKLES) But Quest and Rift S are selling out just as fast as Index.

    I know 2016 was the debut of affordable VR tech to the world but 2019 will see it in the hands of the masses. This is (not-quite) iPhone -esque in comparison.

    • Cl

      Sure, in the future when inside out is just as good and can do everything as outside in, we won’t need outside in. But that’s not how it is. That’s like saying why get a desktop computer when laptops can be moved easily. Well, desktops are better.

      Personally I dont plan on using vr anywhere, but my livingroom. So the lighthouse tracking is just fine for me.

  • Romulo de Castro

    I am so disapointed with their manufacturing capacity…Sold out after half an hour.

  • impurekind

    Just imagine the day when standard VR headset specs are 120Hz+, 200+ degrees field of view, 8K+ resolution, 0.330ms or less persistence, and so on–and what’s amazing is we all know it’s coming in the not too distant future.

  • impurekind

    For all the Index is doing right, at that price I just wish they’d increased the resolution and FOV even further.

    • Lucidfeuer

      Yes, all things considered since they increased the FOV to almost a minimum acceptable degree (140°) the low resolution is going to be a problem unless they have a special SDE technology.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Resolution isn’t a real factor in SDE, you can have a very low resolution with no SDE or a very high resolution with awful SDE…

  • Zephyr0o

    People buying before they even see if Valve’s games are worth a grand. I wouldn’t spend more than $599 for all of it unless Valve produce several games that put all the features to great use and push the quality of VR games to new heights, at least 3. I don’t believe they will pull that off because the games wont be exclusive to Index, unless Valve choose to lose money on game development.

    That’s a $1000 gamble, it isn’t easy money for most people. I get that it moves the tech needle ahead and that will trickle down to reasonable prices eventually but to hear Index is backlogged when there’s not even one single game shown off yet makes me wonder about early adopters. Will 2019/2020 Valve be able to produce great games worth $1000 that people expect? I doubt it and it would suck to have a 1k hmd and accessories that just play the current style of VR games better.

  • Romulo de Castro

    Their manufacturing capacity is like one unit per week. What a disapointing launch.

  • From this price list, it gives the impression that you can still use the old VIVE controllers and just replace the headset itself, if you want to get started on-the-cheap.

  • oompah

    I prefer Oculus quest
    This 1000$ piece has no onboard computer
    <|:-0

  • Gonzax

    3 days left, Gosh it’s been a long month but this week seems eternal!

  • MosBen

    I’m waiting for a price drop or three. Plus, at some point I’ll need to upgrade my PC, and that’s not happening anytime soon.

  • 3872Orcs

    Valve said during the reveal of Index that the headset would see a “limited initial release” to the US and EU first, and that the company would ramp up their manufacturing and expand availability based on demand.

    Backordered until September! Is not that demand enough to start ramping up production?! And when will the rest of the world get to order it? I’m going mad not knowing when I’ll be able to even get one!

    • Andrew Jakobs

      It’s not that easy, they also depend on delivery of displays and other components..

  • Yeshaya

    Does the review embargo have end on the 28th too?

  • The Bard

    For 500 USD I would understand. Not more expensive. This hardware and experience with low resolution is not worth more than 500.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Well, if you already have the current Vive(Pro), you’ll only need 500 for the headset…

  • VR Guest

    Just pre-ordered an index, and the following week I was able to order it… a few days later I was notified that it was shipped!!

    You may want to update the article, even though it was an excellent piece, it almost discouraged me from even trying to get one. so either I got super lucky (doubtful) or they are not backlogged as suggested.
    CANT WAIT for KNUCKLES!!!

  • Waylon Gregrich

    WISH U COULD GET THE CONTROLLERS AND NOT THE HEADSET< BEEN ALMOST # MONTHS AND NO CONTROLLERS FOR SALe, I guess ill buy the whole kit than throw the headset out the window and keep the controllers. make the controllers so I can buy one damn. Knuckle me in some controllers and keep your headset its garbage and nothing new I haven't seen before, ive seen better on my HTC vive pro on my 3000 dollar computer.