HTC’s enterprise-only Vive Focus makes using VR easy
Too bad it’s only being sold to enterprise customers in the US.
Virtual Reality can be an incredible, unique experience -- but most of it has a painfully high barrier to entry. Most VR setups require an expensive PC and an unwieldily headset weighed down by wires and adapters. There are a few cheap, simple options, like the Oculus Go , but they don't have enough power to do anything truly interesting.
But between that expensive, unwieldy option and the cheap, less immersive alternative, a new middle ground of VR devices is emerging. Facebook's Oculus already unveiled its high-end standalone VR platform with the Oculus Quest . Now, HTC is bringing its competitor to the US market: The Vive Focus.
Well, at least it's bringing it to US enterprise customers. Technically, the Vive Focus beat the Oculus Quest to market -- but until now, it was only available in China. But the company is now bringing the platform to the 37 new markets, including the US, as part of a push to bring VR to businesses. Thursday, the company announced the Focus would be available to developers for $599 and to enterprise customers for $748.
HTC told us a consumer version might be possible in the future, but it has no specific plans at this time -- and that's a shame, because the Vive Focus might be the most comfortable VR headset I've ever used.
That sounds almost like a small, dismissive factor -- but ease of use and comfort are incredibly important when it comes to the VR experience. Getting into a game on the original, PC-based HTC Vive is a ballet of positioning sensors, managing rat's nest of cables, plugging in multiple connectors, syncing controllers and setting up computer software and fighting with a series of cloth head-strap to get the VR headset to fit just right.
The HTC Vive Focus? It's barely more difficult than putting on a baseball cap. The Focus' headgear is easily the simplest I've ever used, managed almost entirely by a single adjustable dial in the back that sets how tight it is. There's also a strap over the head that can be tweaked, but most of the time, I didn't have to touch it. This is the first VR headset I've ever worn that I could just pull on and use.
Maybe that's why HTC is hoping the product will catch on with enterprise customers -- as a small, lightweight and easy-to-use headset, it's much easier to fit into an office or training workflow than a traditional VR setup. The company envisions the headset being used for collaboration, teleconferencing, design and training -- but we only examples of the latter at the headset's San Francisco launch event.
Like most VR demos, these mock-enterprise experiences ran the gamut from brimming with potential, to incredibly frustrating. One demo placed me in the role of a Volkswagen employee sorting inventory in a warehouse -- with an onscreen training robot telling me out to verify my ID, scan parts and deposit them in the proper transport container for other workers to use later. This was a well-thought-out, immersive program that immediately familiarized me with the tenets of the job, and it really helped sell the potential of VR as a training tool.
Even so, that potential is only realized if the training is actually enhanced by the virtual reality experience. Another demo I tried saw me merely clicking on a locker to equip a hard hat before walking out into a construction zone to watch a prerecorded character give a lecture. Standing and watching a speech on tool safety isn't something I really need a VR headset to do.
The Vive Focus offers a solid self-contained VR experience, and it's one that's beating the Oculus Quest to market -- but the two headsets aren't quite equal. Although both headsets boast Snapdragon 835 mobile processors and a 2,880x1,600 resolution, HTC's headgear ships with just one motion controller, as opposed to the dual 6DOF controllers that ship with Oculus' kit. It costs more, too -- the Vive Focus will sell to developers for $599, while the Oculus Quest will sell for just $399 when it launches in spring of 2019.
HTC is trying to fix at least one of those problems -- alongside the company's push for Enterprise, a 6DOF Vive Focus developer kit was announced. This is basically an add-on that gives the headset six extra sensors and a pair of motion controllers. It worked fine in the Volkswagen demo, but it needs some work: my had movements were accurate, but a little jittery.
At the end of the day, it's exciting to see how far VR has come in the past few years -- from complicated setups with PCs and wires, to simple, comfortable devices that do almost everything by themselves.
Here's hoping the technology will be used for more than worker training soon.