The XR Week Peek (2021.05.17): HTC announces Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3, PSVR 2 to feature eye tracking, and more!
This incredible week with the launch of many enterprise headsets has passed by, and now we go back to the usual business (pun intended).
But before leaving you to the best pieces of AR/VR news of the week, let me tease you that in the upcoming days I will publish an article I’m sure you will all love… it’s a hands-on preview on… you’ll discover it! 😉 Just be sure to keep an eye on your e-mail to not miss it…
Top news of the week
HTC launches Vive Focus 3 and Vive Pro 2
In the end, the rumors were correct and HTC launched two headsets at VIVECON: the Vive Pro 2 and the Vive Focus 3 Business Edition.
The Vive Pro 2 is a refresh of the previous Vive Pro: it features the same shell, that most people already found very comfortable, but inside it, all the visual and audio systems have been upgraded. This is its full set of specifications:
- Display: Dual RGB low persistence LCD
- Resolution: 2448 × 2448 pixels per eye (5K total resolution)
- Refresh rate: 90Hz / 120Hz (only 90Hz with the wireless adapter)
- FOV: 120° horizontal
- Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB-C port for peripherals
- Audio: Hi-Res certified headphones (removable), High-impedance headphones support (via USB-C analog signal)
- Ergonomics: Eye relief with lens distance adjustment, adjustable IPD, adjustable headphones, adjustable headstrap
- Tracking: Steam VR 2.0 technology (with support for Steam VR 1.0 base stations)
- Controllers: Vive Wands
What is most impressive is the upgrade in the visuals: 120° horizontal FOV (thanks to a new dual-stacked-lenses design), 5K resolution, and 120Hz refresh rate. The Vive Pro 2 has the highest resolution among its competitor, and one of the highest PPI on the market (the G2 has still a higher one). This is why all the most hardcore PCVR fans have insta-bought it: it could give games like Half-Life: Alyx a next-level visual realism. The headset is also compatible with all SteamVR gadgets (Knuckles, Vive/Tundra trackers, Vive Face Tracker, etc…) and so it is very versatile.
But this device got also some criticism: first of all, HTC has not released new controllers and still sells it with the old Wands. Then, the price is a bit high, and this is very HTC. $749 for just the headset, $1399 for the full bundle with the headset, wands controllers, and base stations. Especially the bundle has weird pricing, considering that is cheaper buying just the headset and then buying the Knuckles controllers and 2.0 base stations on Valve website. Then the Wireless Adapter in its current version can’t handle all the big resolution upgrade that the headset has.
As always, pros and cons in buying what is an HTC device: it is a headset for prosumers and businesses, with a whole set of paid accessories to upgrade its features.
The Vive Focus 3 Business Edition is instead a complete overhaul of the Vive Focus aimed at making it the best enterprise headset on the market. These are its specs:
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2
- Display: Dual RGB low persistence LCD
- Resolution: 2448 × 2448 pixels per eye (5K total resolution)
- Refresh rate: 90Hz
- FOV: 120°
- Connectivity:
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen-1 Type-C peripheral port with OTG support
- Bluetooth 5.2 + BLE
- Wi-Fi 6
- Audio:
- Dual microphones with echo cancellation
- 2x Dual driver with patented directional speaker design
- Privacy Mode
- Hi-Res Certified 3.5mm audio jack output
- Ergonomics:
- Ergonomically curved battery module mounted in the rear as counterweight
- Magnetically-attached front gasket and rear padding with easy to clean PU leather trim
- 150mm-wide facial interface accommodates wide eyeglasses
- Eye comfort adjustment supporting IPD range of 57mm to 72mm
- Tracking: Inside-out, with 4 tracking cameras, up to 7m x 7m play space
- Battery: 26.6Wh, hot-swappable
- Controllers: Touch-like controllers with rechargeable battery
- Hall sensors on Trigger and Grip buttons
- Capacitive sensors on Trigger, Joystick, and Thumb-rest area
- G-Sensor, Gyroscope
- Ergonomic Grip button
- Analog Trigger button
- AB / XY buttons
- System / Menu buttons
- Joystick
This headset has everything an enterprise company may desire for a standalone device: high resolution, wide FOV, high refresh rate, swappable batteries, detachable parts for higher hygiene, a case made in magnesium alloy that is super-resistant, high-quality audio, privacy features, etc… It also comes with a whole new enterprise-oriented ecosystem dubbed Vive Business, with a dedicated B2B store with just applications that could be useful for companies, device-management tools, streaming from to PC (tethered and soon also via Wi-Fi), dedicated service, etc…
It’s not only one feature, it’s all the whole hardware+software package that makes it the best enterprise standalone on the market. And, even if the community is usually very ironic towards HTC, almost no one criticized this headset. It’s nearly impossible.
The only critic it got was about the performances: if the Quest 2 can barely handle its 4K display, how can this new device manage a 5K display with a wide FOV? Well, a post on Reddit clarified this: basically, the Quest has an underclocked XR2 chipset, so it is not exploiting the full power of its SoC. The Focus 3, thanks to its superior cooling mechanism and its bigger battery, can instead use all the horsepower given by Qualcomm, and so can be very performant even on a more detailed display.
The Focus 3 BE is aimed only at enterprises, and in fact, it costs a lot: $1300 + VAT. It is like HoloLens 2: a high-quality, high-cost device dedicated to big companies.
During the Chinese counterpart of the event, the V2EC, Vive has also announced two other interesting pieces of news:
- The 7Invensun Droolon F2, an eye-tracking add-on for the Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3, coming soon for $299. This way it will be possible to add even eye-tracking to these enterprise device;
- Vive Vee, a virtual character that should represent the brand in China and the rest of the world
More info (Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3 business edition)
More info (Drooloon F2 and Vive Vee)
More info (Vive Pro 2 weird bundle pricing)
More info (Vive Pro 2 Wireless Adapter limitations)
More info (Why the Vive Focus 3 is more powerful than the Quest 2)
Other relevant news
PSVR2 may feature 4K display and eye tracking
Upload VR has been able to do a great scoop this week: the upcoming Next-gen VR headset that Sony Playstation is building, and that we all call PSVR 2, may feature:
- 4K display, with 2000×2040 pixels per eye
- Integrated eye-tracking technology, that could be used for foveated rendering
- A lens-separation adjustment dial
- A haptic feedback motor on the headset
- A single USB-C port on the device used to connect it with a single cable to PS5
- Inside-out tracking of the controllers and the headset
If the rumor is true, it may mean that PSVR2 could be a very solid headset. The resolution is quite high, inferior only to the HP Reverb G2 and the Vive Pro 2, and eye-tracking could be used to show even more details to the regions that the user is looking at. Especially eye-tracking is the special feature here since it would make the PSVR2 the first consumer-oriented device to use this technology. I think it’s a smart choice because usually PlayStation releases articles that have a long life cycle (PSVR 1 has lasted 5 years), so it’s a good idea to already equip it with technologies that may become mainstream in the next 2 years.
Inside-out tracking was expected after having seen the controllers, but the haptic feedback on the head is a very welcome surprise. Having tried the bHaptics facial haptics interface, I can tell you that being headshot in a game and feeling a vibration on your face is very fun. Of course, developers have not to abuse this feature, or it can become annoying in the long run.
I like everything that we know on the PSVR 2 device because it is visible that Sony Interactive Entertainment is putting a lot of effort into releasing a high-quality headset that is on par with what the competition is offering. And for sure it is going to launch with some very good exclusive games. I hope that this can bring the attention back to develop games with very good graphics.
Roblox CEO hints at the Oculus Quest as a future platform
During Roblox’s Q1 earning calls, CEO Dave Baszucki has highlighted some platforms that could make “perfect sense” for the game. And among these platforms onto which the game could be ported in the future, he has also mentioned the Oculus Quest.
The news is important because Roblox is a massive success: the company has been valued at more than $45B (yes, the B is correct) and features every day more than 30M active users (yes, also the M is correct). It is one of the biggest phenomenons of the moment together with Fortnite. If it gets ported to the Quest, and if enough Roblox users start creating VR content, it could drive many more users to VR platforms, speeding up the mainstream adoption of VR.
I’m not expecting Roblox to make VR mainstream overnight, but it could be another brick towards mainstream adoption. I really hope that this can happen.
HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition is now shipping
The HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition is now available to purchase online, but only in the United States. The official price is $1249.
This is another important piece of news for enterprise-oriented VR: the Omnicept upgrades the already amazing HP Reverb G2 with sensors for eye tracking, face tracking, and heart rate. All these data can be very precious for many research centers and industries (just think about how heart rate could be used to verify how calm you can be during a dangerous situation), and so this headset will surely be bought by many companies.
It will be interesting to verify what headset will perform better amongst companies: this one or the HTC Vive Pro 2. Both HP and HTC have very reliable enterprise services, and both headsets are great. HP G2 is cheaper, but Vive Pro 2 has higher resolution and better controller tracking. It’s a fair match.
Pico Neo 3 launch has been a success in China
Last week I’ve told you about the launch of the Pico Neo 3, a very intriguing standalone VR headset. It is sold as an enterprise device in the West, but in China, it is aimed at consumers and sold at a quite affordable price (around $400). The consumer store also features good VR games like Superhot VR, Red Matter, and Synth Riders. I told in my analysis that Pico could kickstart the consumer VR ecosystem in China, and the first data may point in that sense.
According to Nweon, the launch of the online store JD.COM has been very good:
- 2000 units sold in only 3 minutes
- 10 million yuan (1.5M dollars) of sales in the first 14 hours. This equates to around 4000 units sold
These are good numbers for a startup like Pico, but now the problem is if it can keep the demand high or not. Having a good launch is rather easy, also because you can boost a bit the numbers with some agreements with companies that want to buy them, but the problem is seeing if the demand can be kept high for the next 2, 6, 12 months. I will monitor the situation and will keep you updated for sure. Good luck to Pico, though!
More info (Pico Neo 3 headset)
More info (Pico Neo 3 sales numbers)
Niantic announces Lightship SDK
Pokemon Go has probably been the most successful AR(-ish) app until now, and its developer Niantic has spent the last years building a whole platform around this game. It has created tools to improve geolocation, multiplayer, and also to deliver more realistic AR experiences (e.g. making real objects occlude the virtual ones).
Now Niantic wants to offer all developers the possibility of creating their own multiplayer AR experience. Niantic has just renamed its SDK as “Lightship” and plans to open it up to developers later this year. Thanks to it, you will be able to create easily a mobile AR game with multiplayer features, and with the possibility of AR elements to react realistically with the real world. For instance, if you throw a ball on a tree, it bounces out of it.
Giving great tools to creators is important to create a new ecosystem: see what has happened after creators had the opportunity of creating AR filters. I hope that these new SDKs like Mesh, Lightship, etc… will make the AR ecosystem grow up and thrive till the day glasses will be released.
News worth a mention
Some intriguing news on the Oculus Quest
We had some interesting news and rumors about the Oculus Quest from this week, and I want to summarize them for you:
- Facebook has confirmed that it still plans to release passthrough AR in the SDK before the end of the year. It seems that it is more complicated than they initially thought (I wonder if the problems are only technical or also privacy-related), and so it is being delayed;
- A video on a dev blog article released by Facebook shows what seems to be a redesign of the toolbar of the Quest interface. It looks more colorful and this is great, but of course, I would like to verify its usability. We are not sure it is going to be released, but for sure Facebook is experimenting with it;
- It seems that in a Clubhouse discussion, someone from Facebook has said that in the future the mandatory Facebook login could be removed, with the return of the plain old Oculus one. XRSI has confirmed this rumor, and the reason may be that antitrust policies in some countries may not allow that. Keep in mind that it is something that is being discussed on Facebook, but it may not happen. Don’t take this as sure news (Thanks Niclas Johansson for the tip!);
- Oculus Quest 2 has disappeared from all Amazon EU websites. Kudos to Shachar Weis for discovering this: he told me about this news, and I have verified that it has disappeared completely from Amazon Italy and Amazon France, while some Redditors confirmed that the same holds for Amazon UK. Some people speculate that it is because it is out of stock, but actually, it has been completely removed from all the listings. May it be related to the EU antitrust policy that I mentioned above? Or maybe Amazon and Facebook are negotiating about the revenue share? I tried contacting Amazon and Facebook people to ask about this… let’s see if they reply.
More info (Oculus Passthrough SDK delayed)
More info (Oculus Quest toolbar redesign)
More info (Non-Facebook accounts may be allowed on Quest)
More info (Oculus Quest 2 disappeared from Amazon / 1)
More info (Oculus Quest 2 disappeared from Amazon / 2)
SlimeVR is an open cheap solution for full body tracking
Slime VR is an upcoming open-source project aimed at offering VR full-body tracking at a very cheap price. It works thanks to elastic bracelets that you can put on your body (on feet, legs, etc…) that have an IMU inside. Using a model of your skeleton and the rotational data provided by the IMUs installed on your limbs, the system can reconstruct a good-enough pose of your full body. This is a very smart way to have your full body for tasks where you don’t need high precision, like dancing in VRChat. The price is still undisclosed, but it should be much cheaper than a rig made with Vive Trackers.
Some interesting research projects
Three research projects caught my attention this week:
- Intel has made an amazing demo where it made GTA V look incredibly realistic. Basically, there is an AI system that merges the output of a rendered CGI scene with some real images of similar places so that the resulting rendered scene seems taken from real life. Impressive work;
- The University of Washington has made a system to transform a still image into a realistically animated one. This could be great to recreate memories of a place where a photo was taken (Thanks René Schulte for this sharing!);
- An article by Microsoft Design details how some designers have created an AR cube with very natural interactions. It is cool how they emulated the missing haptic sensations with other visual cues. This could be The Unity Cube 2.0.
More info (Intel research)
More info (Animated pictures research)
More info (Microsoft Design’s cube)
Chip shortages will hurt PS5 even in 2022
I have not good news for you regarding the chip shortages that we are living. According to Bloomberg, Sony believes that the shortages of PS5 will continue well into 2022, and this may also hurt the market of the upcoming PSVR 2.
Even worse news arrives from IBM: according to the giant, the chip shortages may last for another 2 years. I sincerely hope this is not going to happen, for the good of all the tech industry.
More info (PS5 shortages)
More info (Chip shortages)
Gamification works only for tasks that you already want to do
When imagining our MR future, some futurists imagine that everything will become gamified: doing the chores, working, studying, etc… Gamification looks like a silver bullet to let us do happily what we don’t want to do.
Actually, according to people that study the matter, this is not true: gamification has its limits, and usually, it is only good in making more pleasant things that we already want to do. So yes, with XR, we’ll have more gamification systems in our life, but not everything will be gamified.
Apple is working on a whole spatial ecosystem
Another week, another speculation on Apple. This time is the turn of Robert Scoble, that in a long blog post explains that in his opinion, Apple is going to launch an MR visor in 2022 and that in these months it is going to build a complete series of tools around that purpose. It means AR Cloud, but also creation tools, spatial music, etc… According to him, we may also have some hints at this WWDC, with a bigger reveal probably coming at the end of this year.
I advise you to read the post with a grain of salt: Robert is very good at getting the general trends, but sometimes he is too excited and misses the exact forecasts. It’s interesting anyway that some hours after he published the post, Apple has teased some news coming for Apple Music, and some magazines have started to talk about spatialization coming to Apple Music.
More info (Robert Scoble’s post)
More info (Rumors about 3D audio streaming coming to Apple Music)
VRChat has beaten Second Life
For the first time, it has happened that the number of concurrent users in VRChat has been superior to the one of Second Life, and it has even happened when there was no particular special event. This is another sign of the constant growth of VR and all its related applications.
Snap has released an interesting report
Snap has released an interesting Consumer AR Research Global Report: a long set of slides full of numbers on the mobile AR ecosystem. If you are into business, or you have to write a presentation about AR, this can be interesting for you.
(Thanks Louis Cacciuttolo for the tip)
Some news on content
- Upload VR has published 9 minutes of gameplay of the upcoming game Lacernauts;
- Captain Toonhead looks like a fun mix of a shooter and tower defense game for Oculus Quest;
- Blueplanet VR wants to bring astonishing environments reconstructed with photogrammetry to VR;
- The review of Zero Caliber Reloaded highlights the pros and the cons of the porting of Zero Caliber to Quest;
- Population One: Season Two is now live!
- Meeting tool Spatial announced a huge upgrade to its web app, plus new environments where it is possible to exhibit some digital artworks that people want to sell as NFTs;
- A Redditor is building Sentenced, a game where you are a medieval executioner and you have to decide if killing people sentenced to death according to the orders or not. Very fascinating.
More info (Lacernauts)
More info (Captain Toonhead)
More info (Blueplanet VR)
More info (Zero Caliber: Reloaded)
More info (Population One: Season Two)
More info (Spatial)
More info (Sentenced)
News from partners (and friends)
My dear friend Mr.Potam is going to launch on App Lab on June 17th, 2021 the game Smash Drums, which is a bit like Beat Saber, but all about drumming. The price of the game will be $20, but you can already play a free demo today! And you can’t say no to free…
Learn more (Smash Drums)
Learn more (Smash Drums free demo)
The super influencer Cathy Hackl has just released a new book: “The Augmented Workforce: How Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and 5G Will Impact Every Dollar You Make”. Written together with John Buzzel, it highlights all the new upcoming technological trends that will influence the production processes in the next years. A must-have book for all enterprises that want to upgrade their business in the upcoming months.
Learn more
Some XR fun
You can now buy the definition of NFT as an NFT. Just another daily nonsense in the NFT world.
Funny link
Pray for your old graphics card
Funny link
The usual jokes about HTC pricing
Funny link
After Trump’s “China, China, China”, we have a new slogan: HTC’s “Business, business, business”
Funny link
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(Header image by HTC Vive)
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