At a special event in Taipei, Taiwan, HTC cofounder and former CEO Peter Chou today revealed the first products from the new startup XRSPACE. It’s serving up both its own 5G-enabled standalone VR headset as well as a new social VR platform which appears to compete with Facebook Horizon.

Chou sees XRSpace serving the upcoming era of widespread 5G; much like how smartphones first arrived on the back of the 2.5G network in the early 2000s, the former HTC CEO sees the company’s headset, Mova, and its social VR platform, Manova, taking human interaction “to a new level” and offering more connectivity on a person-to-person level. And XRSpace is planning to bring it to the mass market.

XRSPACE Mova

Mova is a standalone VR headset that does away with motion controllers, instead offering optical hand tracking which users will use to navigate UI and interact with others online. Like Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Go, the headset only includes a single remote, which appears to have a touchpad and button array for basic input.

XRSpace is taking an interesting route with its hand-centric design philosophy, as the company is looking to appeal more to a wider set of users who aren’t necessarily gamepad savvy. Along with optical hand tracking comes room-scale tracking, making Mova closer to Oculus Quest or Pico Neo 2 in function.

Image courtesy XRSPACE

“We want people just to use their hands for main navigation,” Chou says. “We think everybody knows how to use their hands; there’s no learning barrier. Your hands are always with you—you don’t have to carry them. And hands are free.”

Its optical sensors are also capable of room scanning, the company says, making a photorealistic version of your play space by uploading textures and depth data to the cloud for processing.

Hardware specs are still not entirely clear, however Mova is said to offer 5G, LTE and Wi-Fi connectivity built on the back of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset. The company claims a 20% reduction in weight over Oculus Quest, a larger battery, greater DPI display (no resolution just yet) clocked at a 90Hz refresh rate.

The company will first offer a developer kit; there’s no word on pricing yet, although XRSpace says it will reveal more closer to its launch in June. A consumer version of Mova is said to arrive sometime in Q3 2020. You can signal your interest on the company’s website starting today.

Mova Specs

  • CPU – Snapdragon 845
  • RAM – 6GB
  • Connectivity – 5G, LTE, WiFi
  • Weight – 470g
  • Battery – 4600 mAh
  • DPI – 702dpi
  • Refresh rate – 90Hz

XRSPACE Manova

XRSpace is imagining plenty of interactions to take advantage of Mova’s hand tracking in its “mass market” social VR platform Manova, notably highlighting handshaking, high-fiving, and manipulating objects such as throwing darts and playing basketball.

Manova is looking to offer many of the social VR mainstays too, including a personal cinema and meeting rooms for remote work, however it also promises a busy city center, night clubs, and multiplayer mini-games. It will also offer premium 2D and 360 video content from its operators and partners.

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The social VR platform is said to integrate an avatar creator which lets you make a full-body avatar from a single selfie, something XRSpace Head of Design Chris Lin says will look “just like you.” Avatars, Lin says, include high-quality skin textures, a facial expressions system, and an AI-driven contextual awareness system so your avatar will more realistically react to other users around it. The headset is also said to offer full body tracking, but how that’s possible with front-facing optical sensors, the company has yet to say.

Image courtesy XRSPACE

At this point, Manova feels more like a conceptual wishlist than a functioning social VR platform as such. Many of the activities seen in the announcement video are questionable in their practicality, or even arguably useless in a virtual context. That said, XRSpace has partnered with the likes of Qualcomm, Deutsche Telekom, Chunghwa Telecom, GQ, Vogue, and Getty, and it seems to be grabbing the bull by its horns in a time of remote working, social distancing, and everything in between as the world adapts to the new normal.

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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.
  • Anfronie

    I hope that is not the strap design. That looks so painful. Do they even test these things with humans?!

    • Sven Viking

      Incidentally, that spider only has seven legs. I doubt a spider avatar with such an obvious limb omission would be worth even $233.95.

      • Anfronie

        I see you are from the old net as well. ;)

  • mfx

    DPI – 702dpi : That means NOTHING

    • Rudl Za Vedno

      Screens resolution of Mova is 2x1440x1400p/90Hz (Quest has 2x1440x1600p/72Hz) so it has to have narrower FOV to get higher DPI. It’s a bit of regression in comparison to Quest.

    • Hivemind9000

      DPI does (potentially) mean something – in that the physical screen size should be smaller for the effective resolution (which would maybe translate to a smaller headset size/weight).

      But for optics, you’re right. It’s really the FOV and PPD that are more meaningful.

    • LoneWuff326

      2880×1440 is the resolution its the same display that on the old wmr headsets like the dell visor 1440x1440p, they both have the same resolution 2880×1440, 702 dpi and 90 refresh rate

  • Ad

    3doF and glitchy immature hand tracking (because a remote was somehow too difficult)? Sounds like a winner.

  • VRagoso

    Did I miss something or this is a VR glass with this only one described function? It cannot be right? Is socializing that big a thing for new VR users? Not sure… looks like a waste of good 5G bandwidth for me.

    • kontis

      Is socializing that big a thing for new VR users?

      It is. The most popular vr app of all time is a social app. Some never-gamers literally invest thousands of dollars to socialize in VR.

      The problem is those are completely different people doing it for completely different reasons than what those silly investors think.

    • oregonerd

      I would venture to guess that Social media will be the draw for the masses to VR. Johnny Mnemonic gave a glimpse of what our personal presence could look like in the VW. I’m Facebook free and too old to do anything but watch it happen. I bought my Quest for VR Paint, 3D design elements and some exercise. I play the odd game. Would like to play other games but the Quest isn’t up to it and I’d have to rebuild my aging game sys.

  • Duane Aakre

    That video was freaking hilarious. Every person in the video and every avatar looked over 21. Where are the hordes of children screaming obscenities that have overrun every VR social site I’ve ever visited? I sure hope these people and Facebook’s Horizon have plans in place to deal with this before they roll out.

    • Pulstar44

      AGREED. I played echo arena on quest and that’s exactly what its like. Hordes of babbling children. Ugh. I thought kids under 13 aren’t supposed to play VR because it damages their eyes. Parents need to read the warnings more closely… like that’ll ever happen.

  • LoneWuff326

    what’s up with companies using old chips like snapdragon 845-835 I know soc are not that expensive for them to be always using 3-4 olde chipsets their is snapdragon 865 phones for like 399 dollars I know they can do better at least a snapdragon 855

  • kontis

    Xbox One is taking an interesting route with its sport centric philosophy, as the company is looking to appeal more to a wider set of users who aren’t gamers.

    You are not gonna believe what happened next!

    Another delusional dude who thinks that normal people want to stuck a brick to their heads and pretend to be the Sims characters.

    90% of people using metaverse apps like Second Life and VRChat do that NOT to make their real life more productive or enjoyable, they use it to escape their lives. Escapism is the entire point of VR, you silly business people.

    This is why all the social apps for normies failed and the only successful ones are those that work well for degenerates, not successful people.

    This is XBox one all over again. Company ashamed of their actual product looking for “wider” audience.

  • Cragheart

    No Snapdragon XR2, no 120 Hz. And what is the field of view?

  • The full body tracking works with trackers on ankles and wrists. You can see it in the Global Announcement video at 46:36.

    https://youtu.be/aGG73jdNhp0?t=2796

  • The full body tracking works with trackers on ankles and wrists. You can see it in the Global Announcement video at 46:36.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1a4796bb3928788131cd337146a7573f8e0ac3b8676474b2442740b7ea56c95.png

    https://youtu.be/aGG73jdNhp0?t=2796

    • Blaexe

      These are only 3DOF trackers though. They may know when you’re walking, but they don’t track your motion. Calling this “full body tracking” is misleading at best.

      • Maybe they can track both position and rotation, but the positional tracking would probably be relative only. That may be good enough for ankle and wrist tracking though.

        • Blaexe

          Thing is: I wouldn’t even call this “tracking”. These sensors might know approximately where they are going, but that’s only that – a very rough estimate, which you can also see in the video. E.g. the “dancing” part will absolutely not work.

  • The idea of using only hands tracking is fascinating, but I highly doubt its usability for gaming. This looks like a viewer of content to me. Or for social media. I don’t see it suitable for most vr users

  • Miqa

    So, how many months do we guess before they announce that they’re “enterprise only”?