Vive Focus 6 DOF Controllers dev-kit specifications: ultrasound-based tracking, 180° horizontal FOV

The news of the day is that finally we do know something about the upcoming Vive Focus 6 DOF Controllers dev-kit specifications.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about: well, the Vive Focus is the standalone headset produced by HTC. It features 6 DOF tracking, but the associated controller is only one and has only 3DOF rotational tracking. Since for a 6 DOF headset would be ideal to have two 6 DOF controllers (like in the upcoming Oculus Quest), HTC has announced the release of a 6 DOF Controllers dev-kit, that is an add-on for Vive Focus consisting of a faceplate and two controllers that can finally offer the possibility to use your two hands naturally inside the Vive Focus.

And yesterday, at XRDC, the company has officially released some specifications of these 6 DOF controllers, as reported by Road To VR.

The specifications are:

• Tracking System: Ultrasound + IMU sensors fusion;
• Tracking field of view: 180° Horizontal / 140° Vertical;
• Operating range: accurate positional tracking up to 1m.

I admit that I’m a bit surprised by the choice of tracking technology: I expected something based on IR, like in most systems. Anyway, this is not a bad choice and it is not even that strange: the Pico Neo already uses ultrasound tracking for its 6 DOF controllers. For sure HTC has picked up the best compromise in terms of price, accuracy, battery time and compatibility with the form factor of the Vive Focus. And as Road To VR says, it is one of the tracking options offered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 VR reference design.

1 m of range is enough to play comfortably with your hands unless you are Mister Fantastic. Regarding the field of view, I guess they optimized the tracking so that the controller is surely tracked if your hand is still in your field view and even when it goes a bit out of it. But 180° x 140° means that you can’t play with the controllers being behind you… so for instance, you can’t use them to play a bow and arrow game. These controllers will be more or less like the ones of the WMR headsets.

It is also interesting to look better at the released image. From that ones, it is possible to see some interesting things.

First of all, let’s look at this guy.

There are some strange things in this image:

1. There are four black dots on the front of the headset. I don’t know if they are part of the ultrasonic tracking technology, but it’s the first time that I see them;
2. There is a cable coming out from the faceplate and going through the head of the guy. This is the first time that I see it as well… but probably it is just the cable of a battery pack;
3. Someone has cut the upper part of the hair of that guy. Maybe his barber is used to use a chainsaw to cut his hair, who knows.

Anyway, there is a lot of weirdness in that picture.

It is much more interesting to zoom on the other picture.

From that one we can:

• Appreciate better the faceplate, that covers the upper and lateral parts of the device. It takes the power from the USB-C port that is on the top of the Focus;
• See better the controllers: they have clearly:
  • A touchpad for the thumb;
  • One system key close to the touchpad (may also be two, it is not clear from the images);
  • A trigger for the index finger;
  • A trigger for the middle finger (this is slightly visible in both images).

I appreciate a lot that there are triggers for both the index and middle fingers… I love on my Oculus Touch grabbing things with the middle finger and then trigger them with the index (e.g. I hold a gun with the middle finger and then use it to fire with the index finger).

And that’s it for what we have learned today… of course, we still need to know some info like battery duration, release date, and price…. but at least now we have some info more on this interesting devkit! If you’re interested, you can preorder one from this US page or this Chinese page. Of course, I’ve already subscribed, I want one immediately!

(Header image by HTC)