What do climbing Mount Everest and testing the comfort of a car have in common? Nothing, you might say. But you’re wrong. What they have in common is that they can soon be done from the safety and comfort of your own home. The Virtual Reality (VR) business has been picking up serious pace the past year, with a number of gadgets—like the Google Glass, Facebook’s Oculus Rift, and Samsung’s Morpheus VR –promising to revolutionize the field. But there’s one headset that, according to some with tester experience, stands above the rest: the HTC Vive.
The headset, created by the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC, allows you to explore computer-generated 3D environments. Whether it be a climb up Mount Everest, or a game that lets you explore surreal, fantastical sights, HTC Vive gives you an unprecedented VR experience. The headset can display video at 90 frames per second, and contains two 1,200 by 1,080 pixel screens. The result is a high definition—but no 4k—3D environment.
But the gadgets don’t stop there. Built into the device are 70 sensors, and perhaps most important of all are the gyrosensor, accelerometer, and laser position sensor—which make the headset sound more like an airplane instead of the rather small VR device it is. What these three additions really do is track the rotation of your head, so that you can explore your VR environment naturally, just like you explore reality. If you’re flying in outer space and want to look at the planets to your right, all you need to do is turn your head in that direction—just like you would if you were really flying in outer space.
There’s one more feature of HTC Vive that sets it apart from all other similar VR headsets. Unlike Oculus Rift and Sony PlayStation VR, HTC Vive allows you to actually walk around VR environments, adding yet another naturalistic touch to your virtual experience. For this to work, the device needs to be paired up with StreamVR “base stations” in a 15 by 15 feet space. And last but not least, an “Ergonomic VR game controller” in each hand will allow you to interact with your virtual world.
The device was initially set to be commercially available in December 2015, but HTC just announced a delay and a new release date of April 2016. The reason for the delay, according to HTC CEO Cher Wang, is a “very, very big technological breakthrough”. The nature and details of the breakthrough have yet to mentioned, but they will be disclosed at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January 2016.
The good news is that a number of testers have tried out a prototype of the product, and they generally report unique and thrilling virtual experiences. One tester recounts how he climbed Mount Everest and shopped—walked around a kitchen and sat in a car—during his lunch break. Another describes his experience playing Fantastic Contraption, calling it “one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in 2015.” You can read other helpful reviews here and here.
One important piece of information that’s yet to be disclosed is the product’s price, which will play a significant role in the success of the product. The hope is that the price won’t be so high as to prevent the average person from purchasing it. But whatever the case may be, there’s no denying that the HTC Vive is unprecedented in the VR world. Its gaming content will also be impressive, as its partners include Google, HBO, Dovetail Games, Cloudhead Games, Vertigo Games and Unreal.
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