Vive Cosmos External Tracking Faceplate (Elite) Review!

Christmas has arrived early this year, and I got from HTC a cool little package with inside the Vive Cosmos External Tracking Faceplate! Let me talk about it with you…

What is the Vive Cosmos External Tracking Faceplate?

The Vive Cosmos has been built with modularity in mind and one of its coolest features is that you can install on it the front faceplate that you want. Different faceplates offer different features: for instance, the standard one should give you super inside-out tracking (even if in reality it is not that “super”), while the Magic one gives you high-quality mixed reality, like the one of the video here below.

This is cool because it means that you can buy the Cosmos and then customize its features as you wish, switching between them by just selecting the right faceplate. Yes, the pricing of these faceplates is not cheap, but apart from this, I like them a lot.

Today I have tested the External Tracking Faceplate, that makes the Cosmos a headset tracked with outside-in SteamVR technology. This means that using it, your Cosmos is not an inside-tracked headset anymore, but it becomes something like the Vive Pro, and you can use it with Vive Trackers or Valve Knuckles controllers for instance. HTC also sells the Cosmos with pre-installed the External Tracking Faceplate, and in this case, the Cosmos takes the name of Cosmos Elite. The Cosmos Elite and the original Cosmos plus this faceplate have the same features, and the only exception to this is that the Elite is all black while the Cosmos is blue.

So basically I can say that today I have reviewed both the External Tracking Faceplate and the Cosmos Elite 🙂

External Tracking Faceplate Unboxing and Installations instructions

If you were expecting an unboxing video, I won’t disappoint you: here you are me opening the package with the faceplate inside.

The unboxing is pretty simple, and there is just a box with inside the faceplate and nothing more.

The installation of the faceplate on the original Cosmos is a matter of seconds: you just look for a lever inside the headset, on the left of the lens of the left eye, and you push it down while pulling the original faceplate to remove it. Then you take the new faceplate, and you put it at the same place as the previous one, and you gently push it until you hear “click”. Pushing it all around its edges completes the installation. You now have your Vive Cosmos Elite!

Design

The faceplate is… a faceplate with the same radiation vent design of the original Cosmos. It is black and it is full of visible Triad Semiconductor SteamVR sensors. There are also two holes for the front cameras of the Cosmos, that so is still able to do some kind of low-res mixed reality using the SteamVR framework. Design-wise, it is not fantastic, but it is coherent with the style of the Vive Cosmos.

My review of the External Tracking Faceplate

My experience with the External Tracking Faceplate has been very positive. You can see the device in action and hear my impressions in this review video:

First of all, the installation has been very straightforward even on the software side, where the Vive Software Setup has taken care of configuring everything. On the hardware side, to setup all the room for VR you need all the usual clunky setup of all SteamVR headsets: you have to put the basestations in the room, connect them to the power plug, connect the 3 cables of the headsets to the various ports and power outlet, etc… Pretty a nuisance if you’re used to attach only a USB cable to use the Quest+Link.

Once I turned on the headset, I launched SteamVR home, and I did all possible tests to break the tracking:

• I moved fast
• I rotated my head fast
• I put the controllers close to my head
• I put my hand on some of the sensors of the faceplate to occlude them

But the Cosmos Elite never had an issue. Its tracking rocks, like the tracking of all the previous Vive HMDs. SteamVR tracking is the best in class and it keeps the same quality also on the Cosmos.

The External Tracking Faceplate solves the biggest problem of the Vive Cosmos, that is the controllers. The controllers of the Cosmos offer mediocre tracking, and with this faceplate, you have no more issues. And thanks to SteamVR tracking, the Cosmos Elite is also compatible with Vive Trackers and Valve Knuckles. This is great!

The Vive Cosmos Elite is a good headset with very solid tracking.

Valve Index vs Vive Cosmos Elite

I imagine that now you would like to ask me if it is better the Vive Cosmos Elite or the Valve Index. And my answer is: it depends on who you are.

If you are a consumer, the Valve Index is your best choice: it is more comfortable (I have never liked the comfort of the halo of the Cosmos), it has a wider sweet spot, it has better lenses, it has a wider FOV. We all know that the Index is a majestic device, and the Cosmos, in my opinion, is a bit behind.

If you are an enterprise customer, you should put your money on the Cosmos Elite. HTC offers a clear business licensing (Valve has always been very unclear on this), it is better at manufacturing devices (less RMAs, while the Index has some reliability problems), it offers better enterprise services, it lets you order headsets in bulk (good luck in getting 200 Valve Indexes). Furthermore, the Cosmos Elite has more accessories: you can have wireless, and you can have eye tracking with the Droolon F1. So, all in all, it offers a better ecosystem for companies and for makers. Probably the Cosmos Elite is the new Vive Pro (which is currently the most used headset in enterprise settings).

Vive Pro vs Vive Cosmos Elite

The comparison with the Vive Pro, the device that the Cosmos Elite has cannibalized, is a bit more difficult since they come from the same company.

The Vive Pro was more comfortable, and had an OLED display offering crisper colors.

The Cosmos Elite offers a higher resolution, more fill factor and a comfortable flip-up design that is very useful if you are a developer.

In the end there are pros and cons with both choices.

Availability and price

The HTC Vive External Tracking Faceplate is already on sale for $200, while you can buy the Vive Cosmos Elite, headset only, for $550, or the full bundle (with v1 Vive Wands and basestations) for $900.

Final thoughts

All in all, notwithstanding the bad reputation of the Vive Cosmos, the Vive Cosmos Elite is a good device. I liked using it to play games on Steam and Viveport: it has a very good display, and a solid tracking.

Its problem is that it comes to a market where it has strong competitors: the Rift S costs only $399 and it is a very decent VR headset, while the Valve Index costs $1000 for the full bundle ($500 for the headset only) and has supreme quality and innovative controllers. The Elite comes in the middle with a value that is not immediately clear for the average VR user.

And it’s hard to justify the $50 more that the Cosmos Elite costs compared to the Index, considering that the Index is objectively a better headset… even if the Cosmos Elite gives you for free Half-Life: Alyx and 6 months of Viveport Infinity. The two reasons that still make the Cosmos Elite valuable for consumers are: it is in stock, while the Valve Index is backlogged for weeks, and it offers you the possibility of playing games wirelessly through an add-on.

Probably HTC is not trying to battle Valve and Facebook on their terrain, the consumer market, but it’s trying to propose a solid device for prosumers, researchers, and enterprise companies, a niche where HTC has always done very well. The Cosmos Elite is currently available on the market, while the Rift S and the Valve Index struggle to get in stock, and this proves that HTC is a more reliable vendor for companies that want to get many headsets for their businesses, e.g. in gaming centers or training facilities. The Cosmos Elite is pretty solid and with a clear business licensing, so it has all the potential to become very successful in the enterprise niche.

I hope you liked this review, and if it is the case, subscribe to my newsletter or make me happy by sharing this post on your social media feed! And if you have any question or any comments about the Vive Cosmos Elite, feel free to ask them in the comments or on my social media channels!