HP announced its Reverb G2 headset earlier this year and plans to ship it this fall. Another, rumored version of the headset referred to as the ‘Omnicept Edition’ is said to include eye, mouth, and face-tracking.

Reverb G2 is an upcoming headset that’s quite anticipated thanks to new features which mark it as the first ‘next-gen’ Windows VR headset.

But a rumored version of the headset—likely targeted toward enterprise use-cases—is said to include eye, mouth, and face-tracking.

The blog Aggiornamenti Lumia claims to have uncovered a photo of the headset, which it refers to as the “Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition.” The photo shows what appears to be an appendage hanging under the headset which would presumably house a camera for mouth-tracking. The photo also shows a small glimpse of an electrode embedded in the facepad.

Image courtesy Aggiornamenti Lumia

We’ve seen both approaches experimented with in other VR products. HTC, for instance, announced a mouth-tracking camera for its Vive Pro headset last year. And we’ve seen electrodes used along the facepad to derive face movement via measured electrical signals from the likes of MindMaze and others.

The big clue for eye-tracking in a VR headset is seeing IR illuminators around the lenses; unfortunately the photo offered by Aggiornamenti Lumia doesn’t give us a view of the lenses, but the blog does claim that eye-tracking is included.

There are commercial headsets available already with eye-tracking alone, but if the Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition includes eye, mouth, and face tracking hardware, it would be significantly more capable of full facial expression-tracking than other headsets.

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Aggiornamenti Lumia has not revealed the source of its information. While enough of the surface details of the report are correct to pique our interest, Road to VR has not been able to independently confirm the information, so we’re still treating this as a rumor.

HP declined to comment on the matter. “Unfortunately, we cannot comment on speculation of unannounced products or any future product plans,” a spokesperson said.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Ad

    I want to see their approach to privacy with this.

    • MeowMix

      I’m guessing the Win10 privacy approach

      • Ad

        So Cortana is always listening and popping up in VR?

        • Bob

          The more you head into the future the more likely your personal information is going to be stored and kept somewhere.

          If you’re using Google Chrome; they’re already there. If you’re using Microsoft Windows 10; they’re already there.

          As we head into the 30’s and you live in a town, or a city and you use the internet then chances are you being snooped on.

          Any form of technology you’re embracing in the 2020’s will result in someone or something extracting data from you be it Facebook, Google, Microsoft. So easy on the politics please.

        • TechPassion

          Can be disabled with group policy in Win10 Pro version. GPEDIT in search.

      • TechPassion
    • kontis

      Who cares, this is not for consumers.

      • Ad

        Sure but better to get it in place now.

      • Dave

        LOL so businesses can’t keep and eye on RtoVR, when was that law passed?

  • Tried an application that worked with eye tracking driving foveated rendering, it worked well using Vive Pro Eye. More headsets with this technology will hasten adoption by consumers as developer build applications supporting it and technology costs decrease.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f22d5ac191691bf9343dc12ba9fd79d1ba4630eeedbe1dfe522e43c5e12360f.jpg

    • mellott124

      I tried this as well at GDC a couple years ago, I believe. Their foveated demo worked perfectly. It was also a Vive Pro. This issue was the foveated pipeline was only supported in the last stage of the graphics so doesn’t really save much processing. Although it showed the HMD end hardware can work. Until Nvidia supports foveated rendering all the way back through the chain, its not really useful. There was a lot of talk about eye tracking and foveated support at the beginning of this latest VR push but most of it has fizzled.

      • My experience was provided by a developer working for a university. I got to try it running on one of the 3 Vive Pro Eye wireless they had setup at a historical event.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e17eb4aef7561108cad9ffbf9fbccefd78598b81b0100a42ef657a415bc49022.jpg

      • alxslr

        Mmmm… but the fact that Oculus uses fixed “foveated” rendering in games like Darth Vader Inmortal proves that eye traking/Frendering should be useful to increase image quality. Also, if you reduce resolution in a monitor pc game, there is an clear increment in FPS, so it seems that the same should also apply if you reduce resolution to the 90% or even 70% of the screen

    • Andrew Jakobs

      That’s still the bigger problem, cost of the eye tracking. At the moment most headsets are using a Tobii variant of the eyetracking which adds about $100+ per eye to the cost of a headset, and adding $200 would make a lot of the headsets for most buyers too expensive. So unless that price is coming down, don’t expect eye tracking in ‘consumer’ headsets for a while.

      • mirak

        You can buy a less powerfull GPU, especially considering that the higher end gpu are, the less value you got for the money.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          Not really realistic, a higher costing headset, but a lowercosting GPU, where a lot of people aren’t going to buy a new GPU anyway. It’s just a fact that $200 extra is a big step for a lot of people to buy a headset..

    • Charles

      **yawn**. Wake me up when HP releases a version with respectable contrast and black levels. The G2 does not improve this at all, according to a search on Panelook.com.

      • mirak

        That’s LCD, what did you expect ?

        • Charles

          It’s 700:1 contrast. There are desktop LCD displays up to 3000:1, not even counting QLED LCD screens that go up to over 6000:1. I’m sure a huge percentage of the market would gladly pay $200-$300 extra for a good contrast ratio. HP should make a high-end version of this headset – I see no reason why they can’t.

      • MasterElwood

        Ahhh… yes it does.

        G1, INDEX: 600:1 contrast ratio
        G2: 700:1 contrast ratio

  • redi

    Mouth tracking lmao, why not ears and nose tracking?
    Instead of focusing on some useless feature please increase the FOV.

    • sham

      mouth tracking is good for enterprises, it can show emotions. In a virtual meeting you can see if the guy is smiling, joking, angry, etc.

    • KuraIthys

      Because ears and nose are largely static?

      Do you not understand the concept of body language in multiplayer/social settings?

      Human communication is about 90% body language and facial expressions, and about 8% tone of voice.

      If you have mouth + eye tracking you can read the vast majority of facial expressions.

      Maybe you never interact with anyone, but this is a big deal for ANYONE that uses VR in a social context.

  • TechPassion

    Track your cock movements and shaking body, when you watch VR pr0n. Zuck’s wet dream :)

  • Dave

    ‘Rumor’ LOL this has been proven in countless articles and pictures. Maybe RtoVR should change the title. All interesting stuff, I have the ‘standard’ G2 on order and I’m very excited to move from the CV1 although I have a feeling I’ll still use the CV1 for some titles.

  • Ad

    What I mean is that I want that data compartmentalized on the device itself. It’s like google vs iOS, where on one your data always goes to google, whereas on iOS in many cases it’s handled on the device and can’t go to apple.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Also one of the reasons for the delay of the G2 is presumably that HP are working on improving the lenses compared to the review version that has been around, which IMHO already seems to be a MAJOR improvement to lenses like the ones used in the Index. But I find it weird why they are still using fresnel lenses when it’s been proven that clearlenses are much better, if you look at the latest clearlensmods for the HTC Vive Pro.

    • benz145

      What delay?

      • HP Reverb G2 pre-order customers recently an email telling them it’s been delayed as they are reworking the lenses.

        Valve were very specific about choice of Fresnel lens, support a wider range of users without causing pupil swim, reduced chromatic aberration and reduced weight in optical system, also better clarity across entire FOV

        • wheeler

          Thanks for pointing this out. It’s not at all settled that the Vive with a GearVR lens mod is a better experience. Instead what I think is happening is that you have a group of people that aren’t sensitive to the problems it introduces.

          • It was super interesting using daydream (aspherical lenses – seen in image) and daydream 2017 (Fresnel lenses) headsets back to back with same pixel XL smartphone and same range of content.

            The difference in visual comfort, geometric stability, brightness, FOV was immediate; like using a different system.

            Google spent serious money and supercomputer time on the 2017 lens. Downside was god rays in high contrast content on YouTube VR.

            People have varying degrees of sensitivity, but everyone will benefit, in often subtle ways, by using the optimum set-up.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9e40b4cf23c8fc93430ff3b8e04129ea26741c8f556fd9e928d746428534f05.jpg

        • mellott124

          Interesting. I preordered day 1 and didn’t get this message. That’s not a good message to receive when you’re expecting them to ship soon. Optics are not a quick turn kind of thing. I would not be surprised then if this got delayed until end of the year, if that’s true.

  • D-_-RAiL

    I’m surprised no VR Media Outlet is talking about DLSS 2.1

  • mirak

    Can they build one with tracking ?

  • Rupert Jung

    Wish they would include wireless streaming, too.

  • Clownworld14

    Half tempted to skip the valve index and wait for this – sounds more promising the more info comes out about it.

    • alxslr

      Worried about FOV. For me Index’s FOV is almost a game changer.

  • notRobot2

    Pl. note VR headset people , Nreal is the best technology:
    1. Use lightweight spectacles like head sets
    2. use microprojectors from top or sides to project images
    3. Use USB-C linked small pocket processor or android phone to process 3d images
    4. Also add game streaming support
    5. Use open source tech

    I will only buy nreal