VEC 2019: Hands-on with the Vive Focus Plus, the mysterious Shadow VR and more!

In this chapter about my experience at VEC, I will give you my hands-on impressions about some gadgets I’ve tried there. Unluckily, I have been so busy with the presentation and the networking, that I have been able only to try only few things… next time I will try to organize my time better!

Vive Cosmos

Aaaaaand I’m just kidding. No one has been able to try the Cosmos at VEC. There was just only one device, enclosed in a plexiglass box. I’ve seen a Cosmos in real life and that’s great, but I have not been able to try it or at least see anything new about it.

Vive Focus Plus

The Vive Focus Plus was the star of the VEC and of course, a lot of booths let people try it. At VEC it was finally possible to try the final version of the Focus Plus, after all the refinements that have happened in these months.

I think that writing a full review of the Focus Plus here has little sense, considering that I have already written a long review of the Vive Focus and a long detailed hands-on with the 6 DOF devkit for the Focus. I invite you to read those two posts, because mixing the review of the Focus and the one of the controllers, you obtain more or less the impressions on how is the Focus Plus.

Instead, here I prefer to detail what has changed from the experience with the Focus plus the 6 DOF devkit.

First of all, everything has been embedded in only one device, that is exactly the Focus Plus. You can easily spot the difference between a Focus and Focus Plus, because the Focus Plus is a bit bigger on the top, in the region close to your head and also shows the ultrasound sensors scattered all over its cover.

This is far better than having the devkit, especially because this removes the glitches that may happen when two pieces of hardware have to work together. Furthermore, since the 6 DOF Focus is now only one piece of hardware, HTC has been able to re-distribute all the weight of the controllers’ tracking system and so the whole headset is more comfortable than the Focus+devkit.

When wearing it, I have not noticed the difference in weight… the Focus Plus is heavier than the original Focus (of course), but wearing it, I have not felt this difference. What I’ve noticed, instead, is that it is different how it fits the head of the user. The ergonomics are different. To me, it is a bit more uncomfortable than the original Focus… I haven’t been able to find yet a way so that it fits my head perfectly… it is always as if the front part had to flip up. Instead, my partner Max and the President find it more comfortable than the original Focus… I guess that, as always, it depends on the shape of the head of the user.

Another claimed improvement have been the lenses, that have been finally improved from the ones of the original Focus: now they have a bigger sweet spot and fewer god rays. From my experience with the device, the visuals are actually better with these new lenses. I’m very happy with this improvement.

For what concerns the aesthetics, now the Focus Plus comes only in white color and all the various leatherette cushions have been made black. One of the last things that have been changed during the final refinements before the launch has been the plastic cover of the device. While at first, the Focus+ had a smooth glossy cover, now the surface is rough. This is quite original and for this reason, I like it.

For what concerns the controllers… the tracking is more or less the same that I described in the devkit. That is, very good, very resistant, with a good FOV, but with something to improve on the jitter side… the controllers still tremble a bit.

https://gfycat.com/testyfamiliarbilby

What has been drastically improved in the Plus is the reliability during abrupt movements: now the tracking gets lost fewer times during very fast movements… and this is how the President has been able to play our game “Hit Motion: Reloaded”, punching the enemies so fast with no tracking problems.

Testing out the new Mixed Reality fitness game Hit Motion Reloaded at #VEC2019 on the #ViveFocusPlus.🥊 You can freely punch safely as you can still see the people and space around you. Created by @SkarredGhost, available on @Viveport soon. pic.twitter.com/T5m2wJGm1Y

— Alvin Wang Graylin (汪丛青) (@AGraylin) March 28, 2019

The controllers have also been finalized: now they are dark grey, with the buttons that are black. The buttons have now finally some embossed symbols on them, so you get what you are pressing by just using your sense of touch. One of the two top buttons has the Vive symbol (to trigger the system menu) and the other one has a menu symbol (it should be used, for instance, to trigger the menu of the game).

Internally, there has been an update of the runtime. This means that:

• the controllers get detected almost immediately when you take them in your hands (this was not always true with the devkit);
• you finally see both controllers in the menu;
• the UI of Viveport M has been improved.

I haven’t tried the Focus+ for enough time to express a full opinion about it. From what I’ve tested, it seems to me a big evolution over the Focus, since it finally improves the optics and gives the user the possibility to use both hands in a natural way. I’m sure I will love it 🙂

Shadow VR

One of the things that I’ve been most happy of trying has been the super-mysterious Shadow VR by Shadow Creator. This headset has been announced months ago as the Chinese competitor of the Oculus Quest, but then I’ve heard no one actually trying it after this claim. All this lack of news have created a lot of mystery about this device, with people actually asking how it actually was, and if it could really be an Oculus Quest competitor.

Well, in my opinion, not at the moment. First of all, at VEC the device came with 6 DOF tracking but only one 3 DOF controller. I didn’t get if this is because the Shadow VR currently has only this mode (that maybe will be upgraded in the future, as it has happened with the Focus) or if at VEC it has been taken only the 3 DOF controller model. When I tried asking one HTC executive, the answer I got has been “Doing 6 DOF controllers is not easy”, that is an interesting quote, but actually didn’t answer my question 😀 . Speaking with another journalist these days, it seems that the first option is the most probable.

When I put the headset on my head, I was afraid it was just one of those uncomfortable Chinese headsets that would have destroyed my nose. Actually, it was not. The Shadow VR has a good comfort and was really ok with my head and my nose. It is not the most comfortable headset I have ever worn (the Focus is more comfortable, IMHO), but I was fine wearing it. You can fit it to your head a bit like the Oculus Go, using three straps, two lateral ones and a top one that goes over your head.

When I looked at the images inside, I immediately thought: it looks like the Oculus Go! And in fact, looking at the specs, the display is exactly the same as the Oculus Go: an RGB LCD display with 1280×1440 per eye. This means that the SDE is reduced since LCD displays have a good fill factor. But at the same time, since it uses a square grid of pixels, the images are disturbed by this fixed grid that is really noticeable. I had not the time to evaluate the lenses, but I was not disturbed by them in my fast test.

The headset is a 6 DOF one and the tracking is performed using the two frontal cameras. IMHO, the tracking was a bit more fluid than the one of the Vive Focus, at least in the Viveport M home scene.

The real weak point of this device is IMHO the controller. Apart from the fact that it was a 3 DOF one, the controller had a very basic design with a big tracking ball that I don’t like that much and that will trigger for sure some irony on Reddit. Even worse, it felt uncomfortable in my hand, as if it was a bit too little… I haven’t managed a position where it fit my hand. The buttons (especially the index trigger) were in positions where they were not ideal to be pressed and the touchpad had a strange velvet finish. I have not liked using it.

I think that if Shadow Creator really wants to compete with Oculus Quest:

• It has to make a headset that appears more cool, more refined;
• It has to offer two 6 DOF controllers;
• It has to make its controllers far more ergonomic.

Now at maximum it can compete with the Oculus Go or the Lenovo Mirage Solo.

Skyworth 8K

I have also been able to have a quick test with another Chinese headset: the Skyworth 8K. This was just a 3 DOF headset with a 3 DOF controller, but what has surprised me of it has been the resolution. With 4K per eye, the screen door effect was really minimal and I had to concentrate on the display to actually see the pixels.

I guess this device may be good to watch movies or 360 films… or do some tasks that require reading text (e.g. virtual desktop).

bHaptics

I have tested again the bHaptics suit, that I have already detailed in my hands-on at Gamescom 2018.

What was interesting discovering at VEC is that now the bHaptics suit works also with the Vive Focus Plus! I have tried a paintball game with Enea and we were able to shoot each other in complete freedom, without cables ruining our experience. It was fun because the suit was able to vibrate exactly in the position we had been shot, and this improved a lot the realism of the experience.

Another cool experience that I have tried with bHaptics has been a musical one: connected to a music player, the suit was able to vibrate following the rhythm of the music. I think this could be great for musical installations, for DJs or people that want to live music in a new way, mixing different senses (sound and touch). The only drawback of this is that continuous vibrations on the chest, especially if they are high, may be disturbing on the long run.

To make bHaptics work with the Focus, you just have to attach a little box to the USB C port of the device and then you are ready to go. As I’ve said at Gamescom, I think that this is a very interesting device, and the fact that the suit is sold in different modules that can be composed (there is one for the chest, one for the head, one for the arms and one for the legs), makes it a solution we should keep an eye on.

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And that’s it! These have been the most interesting devices that I have tried at VEC! What are your impressions about them! Let me know them in the comments here below or on my social media channels!