Are you the sort of person that has a hard time installing surround sound stereo equipment, or building IKEA shelves? Well, HTC is now offering customers a premium installation service to take the hassle out of setting up the Vive, a process that can be intimidating for the uninitiated.

The company’s ‘Vive Specialists’ are trained to take care of the entire installation process, which includes finding the best setup for the chosen room, mounting the Lighthouse base stations, connecting (and neatly organizing) all the cables, and installing the required software on your home computer.

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See Also: HTC Vive Review: A Mesmerising VR Experience, if You Have the Space

The premium service is decidedly aimed at the ‘time is money’ crowd, and tops out at the not-so-nice price of $250—but could equally benefit the differently-abled, or anyone who has serious issues reading manuals (me included). Like most in-home installation services, it comes with a limited 30-day workmanship warranty, and not to mention the ear of a trained professional at your beck and call to answer all of your questions that the Internet would despise you for asking.

Cities include, but aren’t limited to: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City. Check your zip code on the Vive Specialist Setup website to see local availability.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Yesitisbland

    This is madness! I understand some people may have issues setting up their play space but $250 is an absolute scam. I had my vive set up in around 10 minutes with absolutely no issues. If you need help setting one of these up maybe you should re-think the purchase.

    However if you’re rich as fuck and can drop that kinda cash for 10 minute job by all means go for it. I’ll just sit here eating virtual reality food crying over my bank

    • DiGiCT Ltd

      Lol nice price, here in China the service cost only 500RMB which equels about $90.
      Install took me more time as windows updates and vga driver took a while.
      But it’s indeed easy to setup, it has step by step on book and by installer on screen.

      I did not drill holes but use Joby camera clams which easy let you move the lighthouses in many locations without much hassle.
      http://joby.com/mobile?mode=grid

      They clamp very good around any surface and can hold those lighthouses with ease.

      They come in all kinda sizes and you need 2 of them.
      I clamp them in the living room around my both 2 ceiling lights when i use roomscale.
      In the office curtain holder and door top edge for standing / seated.

      • Craig Winston

        Hi, great idea! Just looking at the site… what specific clamp do you use? There’s a Flash Clamp with Locking Arm for $40. and an ‘Action Clamp’ for $20..? Thanks in advance..

        • DiGiCT Ltd

          I got several, as my wife works for the company.
          The gorilla ones i prefer as they are stronger and have longer arms to bend around pipes.
          I suggest to take the ones 40-$50 per pieces, the smaller ones might be too small to wrap around certain objects.
          You might need 2 so i would say little below $100 for both of them.
          Lucky enough the lighthouses come with standard camera screw easy to screw them on them.
          As you see they also can handle gopro camera so weight is not an issue.

          It’s kinda stupid to drill holes lol, this stuff works out easy and the best and let you be able to move the lighthouses any time in a few seconds.

          I also need to bring demo’s to all kinda locations, those things helped me out huge to setup the roomscale within 10 minutes on any location.

          • Craig Winston

            Awesome! Thanks for the reply.. Cheers!

          • DiGiCT Ltd

            Your welcome, more vive people should know this lol.

  • Steve Biegun

    I could see this being useful. A friend of mine spent 3 or 4 hours setting up his Vive a few days ago. Most of the time was spent troubleshooting, finding correct drivers, and figuring out which of his cables was causing issues. For someone who doesn’t have 3 or 4 hours to spare, $250 is a great price.

    • DiGiCT Ltd

      Yes, but those stuff could easy be done by a friend too as those are common computer issues.
      Ofcourse the service is nice for ppl which just want it be setup working, it is great for them, but for most it is not needed as its really simple.

    • CCSLED

      Buying a room scale VR experience is the text book definition of having “time to spare” ;-)

      Wow, amazing how a comment with a “wink” got me labeled as both a troll and a “vr-technophobe”. I’m actually one of the folks who got the Vive first week it shipped. I’ll thoroughly explain the next time I make a tongue in cheek comment.

      On that note, did anyone else try Portal Stories yet? Pretty awesome Portal2 mod of what the next Portal could be like in VR.

      • Raphael

        Gaming without vr is the textbook definition of mundane and boring. And why are you trolling a vr news site if you’re a vr-technophobe?

        • CCSLED

          Agreed. I haven’t played a “normal” game since I got the Vive.

  • RogWilco

    I guess having the option available is better than nothing, but I get the feeling i could get the same level of service with the same results with craigslist and $50 cash.

    • W/ a knife in yo back as a bonus :)

  • VR Geek

    Hey Valve…I would LOVE to be an affiliate up in Vancouver Canada. LOVE the ViVe Pre and have my consumer one arriving this week.

  • Matt R

    That is a bit pricey for a job that took me 10 – 15 mins to do.