HTC today revealed its next standalone XR headset, the Vive Focus Vision. The company appears to be appealing again to enterprise and prosumers, packing in a mishmash of specs from Vive Focus 3 and Vive Elite XR—priced at $1,000.

HTC launched pre-orders today for its new MR headset, Vive Focus Vision. Pre-orders are available from today through October 17th, after which the headset will presumably launch.

You may recognize many of the specs below from Vive Focus 3, which was released primarily for enterprise in 2021. It has the same controllers, same Fresnel optics and dual 2,448 x 2,448 resolution LCDs, and works with Vive Focus 3 accessories too, like the optional Vive Focus 3 facial tracking module ($100).

Unlike Focus 3, Vive Focus Vision however boasts color passthrough for mixed reality thanks to dual color cameras and depth sensor, bringing it much closer in function to the company’s Quest Pro competitor Vive XR Elite, which was released in 2023 for $1,100 (now $900).

Additionally, it comes with four front-facing tracking cameras and infrared floodlight for illuminated hand tracking.

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Packing in Vive XR Elite’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 chipset, Vive Focus Vision comes with built-in eye-tracking—later added an optional module on XR Elite which also tracks the user’s mouth. Hence ‘Vision’ (no relation to Vision Pro). Automatic IPD adjustment for users between 57–72mm ought to appeal to VR arcades and other enterprise use cases where multiple people use the same headset.

The company calls it a “hybrid device,” owing to its ability to play PC VR games via Steam and Viveport. To boot, pre-orders come along with a newly unveiled Vive Wired Streaming Kit for free ($150 MRSP), which includes a 5-meter streaming cable and converter, both with DisplayPort compatibility, offering what HTC says is lossless visuals from PC to the headset itself.

Ostensibly appealing to gamers, pre-orders are also set to come with seven games: Metro Awakening VR (coming to Viveport in late 2024), Arizona Sunshine 2, Bootstrap Island, Breachers, The Pirate Queen, Taskmaster VR, Kayak VR: Mirage, Wanderer, and MR-compatible games Puzzling Places, Magic Keys, Toy Trains, Yuki, and Figmin XR.

Check out the spec sheet below:

Vive Focus Vision Specs
Resolution 2,448 x 2,448 (6.0MP) per-eye, LCD (2x)
Refresh Rate 90Hz (120Hz via DisplayPort alt mode coming late 2024)
Lenses Dual-element Fresnel
Field-of-view 120° horizontal
Optical Adjustments Automatic IPD
IPD Adjustment Range 57–72mm
Processor Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 (same as Vive Elite XR)
RAM 12GB
Storage 128GB (expandable via MicroSD to 2TB)
Connectors 2 USB-C (1 with DisplayPort Alt mode)
Battery Life 2 hours (hot swappable with 20-minute internal battery)
Tracking 4 front-facing tracking cameras and infrared floodlight for illuminated hand tracking
Controllers Vive Focus 3 controllers, rechargeable battery
Audio In-headstrap speakers (dual driver), 3.5mm aux output
Microphone Dual microphone
Pass-through Cameras 2 RGB Cameras (16MP) w/ Depth Sensor

This story is breaking. We’re filling in details as they arrive, so check back soon.

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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.
  • tmikaeld

    These must have a considerable weight to them, most probably higher than the Valve Index, which is why I almost don't play in VR any more.

    (Logging in via wordpress to comment doesn't work, I just get logged in to wordpress in the dialog and when I close it I'm no longer logged in)

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      They will probably be similar to the Vive Focus 3 at 785g compared to the 809g Valve Index. The color passthrough and the second USB-C port plus DP decoder like on Pico Neo 3 Link shouldn't add much weight, the 10min hot-swap battery on the HMD a few grams. You should end up with less than 50g extra, and they may have saved weight somewhere else.

      And the total weight isn't as important as weight distribution. With the HTC Focus Vision's (now hot-swappable) battery at the back of the rigid strap serving as a counter weight, it should put a lot less pressure on face and head than HMDs where all weight is sitting at the front. And even in these a matching headstrap can work wonders, like on the Varjo XR-3 at 980g without a battery counter balance, but with tons of adjustability and swiveling pads that distribute the pressure more evenly.

      The worst scenario is still an HMD only relying on pressuring against the face with a facial interface not matching you bone structure. There all the weight/pressure is put mostly on a few protruding parts like the cheekbones that make up less than 10% of the intended contact surface, while on the XR-3 the very large pads that can adjust to the shape of you head make sure the weight is properly distributed. So an HMD twice the weight can be way more comfortable with a good strap.

      • tmikaeld

        Good point, a great strap could make all the difference. I'm saving up for the Bigscreen VR though, since I heard to much good about the oled screens and comfort.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          The Bigscreen Beyond is very interesting because it takes the weakest point of a "front only" HMD, discomfort due to a mismatch between facial interface and face, and removes it by using a facial interface that was made esp. for one face, so the pressure distribution will always be perfect. Then they removed everything non essential to get to 155g incl. strap for a VR experience where you barely notice the HMD anymore.

          This of course comes at the cost of flexibility, so no swapping with other users, no passthrough, no hand tracking, requiring lighthouse bases and of course a cable. It's sort of targeting one end of the enthusiast market, while the Focus Vision with a very similar 2.5K per eye resolution (still using Fresnel) comes from the other, allowing for wireless and tethered use, including all the MR features and flexibility for multiple users and environments, with long sessions made possible by hot-swapping.

          Currently we can't have both light and flexible at the same time, so it is good that enthusiasts can at least choose the device that fits their needs best.

          • mirak

            I guess there is no microphone too right ?

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            No, microphones were considered essential for the Beyond. And like the other parts they considered worth including, those are excellent, with YouTube reviewers baffled by them sounding better than their studio microphones. Beyond has kind of a "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing it right" policy that I like a lot.

  • VRDeveloper

    This is a clear lack of understanding of the market. In a few months, you'll see them saying: 'This VR market isn’t profitable, it’s not our fault, the market just isn’t ready yet.'

    Mark my words, you can come back here in two months to criticize me if I'm wrong.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      HTC were the first to market with an HMD including 6DoF tracked controllers and are still the preferred solution for any professional application due to their guaranteed services and not killing one business program after another like Meta. They just couldn't compete in the consumer market with Meta, who by now have spent USD 50bn at MRL alone/estimated USD 100bn total for XR in total.

      HTC actually has to make money, while Meta spent USD 5000/10000 for each currently active Quest user to get to their current position, so it wasn't exactly a fair fight. And while pretty much all of the other early HMD manufacturers either died or retracted into the very high end market, HTC still serves at least the enthusiast market, and the Vive Focus Vision with DP-in and ETFR, still using the XR2 Gen 1 because according to HTC the Focus 3 is mostly used as a PCVR HMD, is testament to that.

      So I am very sure that HTC will be still around in two months without complaining that the VR market isn't profitable. Their Vive Pre demonstration blew me away nine years ago at gamescom 2015, and they managed to make it to today despite VR growing very slowly and an opponent with almost infinite resources. So they apparently understood enough of the market to still be going despite all the things working against them by finding a proper niche.

      • VRDeveloper

        You are right, i understand that competing with Meta can be unfair, and this often puts small businesses at a disadvantage since only large companies can invest so heavily in a market.

        I recognize HTC's experience in the industry, but I believe that the current market conditions make it a challenging time to launch a headset like this. Given its price point of a thousand dollars, I would be surprised if there are enough enthusiasts willing to invest in the device.

        Additionally, these trailers (which are common these days) don’t understand the user at all; gamers can’t connect with them. A trailer like this wouldn’t even sell water in the desert.

        But to avoid sounding like just a troll or hater, I think that if they adopted Meta's OS and launched the same device but oriented towards games with superior graphics, it could be a huge success. Only time will tell. I hope it works out. I’m just sharing my point of view, especially since we’ve only been getting bad news lately on games industry.

      • flynnstigator

        Very well said. However, I still can’t shake the feeling that HTC is flailing with their product launches. Instead of a coherent, well-thought-out strategy, they keep releasing something every couple of years that doesn’t quite hit the mark. It seems like the coherent vision (no pun intended) was coming from Valve, and once HTC stopped working with them, their market strategy suffered greatly.

        The Cosmos wasn’t quite there with its inside-out tracking, and the Cosmos Elite with its lighthouse tracking was placed confusingly similar to the Vive Pro / Pro 2. All of the above cried out for wireless connectivity after the Quest 2 launch, but it came in the form of an expensive dongle that couldn’t hit the full resolution of the Pro 2. Pricing was always just above what the market wanted to pay, and each headset consistently lacked at least one key feature.

        Their software strategy has been “copy the leader,” such as launching a proprietary Vive store after the market had already settled on Meta and Steam as the two competing stores. Even Pico never got much traction with their store, and they had the China domestic market advantage and a lot more capital. HTC should have pursued an open-standards agenda instead of trying to emulate much larger companies that had huge headstarts. Imagine if they had gotten together with Pimax, Pico, and the other small players on a platform like Sidequest with automatic cross-buy for every version of a game, whether on-device or PCVR. Now it wouldn’t be so risky to buy games for your HTC device, because you’ll still have them if you switch headsets. The whole ecosystem of smaller VR device manufacturers could have thrived a lot more, and HTC was in a position to help put it together. It all seems like a series of missed opportunities, which is why I’ve been so disappointed in them.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          HTC's Vive Wave platform similar to Meta's HorizonOS was announced 2017 with 12 partners. Wave is their customized Android for mobile HMDs, Pico, iQiYi and DPVR were among the initial supporters, and in 2020 HTC also partnered with Qualcomm to bring Vive Wave to all Snapdragon based HMDs.

          But again the problem was money. Vive Wave works like AndroidXR or HorizonOS: HTC offers the OS for free, but requires manufacturers to use their software store to make money back from app sales. This model requires HMDs to be sold with profit, so it ran into the same issues as 2016 Google Daydream. With Meta accepting no hardware profits and billions in losses, neither could compete, and Wave only survived on the Chinese market with Meta absent.

          Limited resources also lead to hardware design compromises. Both Pico 4 Ultra and HTC Focus Vision are mostly improving existing HMDs for XR productivity with more RAM and hires color passthrough cameras, both easy to add. Ultra also upgrades the SoC, while Vision adds DP-in, hot-swapping and integrated eye tracking instead of an add-on. Upgrading is much cheaper than creating a new product, but leaves core aspects like displays, lenses or form factor unchanged.

    • Octogod

      To be fair, HTC has been repeating this pattern now for five plus years now.

  • polysix

    LCD = Lose Contrast & Depth…. NO THANKS. Not for 1k not for 100… NO LCD HMD will ever cross my threshold again (ex quest 2 and quest pro owner who's now happily on PSVR2 with adapter + PS5)

    • Zachary Williams

      Good luck dealing with that tiny sweetspot on a headset with the awful fresnel lenses. In my opinion, vr isn't even vr if you can't look around with your eyes and have 100% clarity edge to edge. Pancakes lenses are the next gen experience and the quest 3 puts the psvr2 to shame. Keeping that sweetspot is just a last gen headset worry only. Couldn't care less about the lcd drawbacks when I can play pcvr flawlessly with no cable and 100% edge to edge clarity. Ive compared them right side by side and I'm not sure why Sony even has the psvr2 on the market if they won't support it with any games. Getting to play gt7 in vr is the only reason to even think about psvr2. Everything else is vastly superior on a gaming pc with the quest 3. Period.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      I do not agree on the OLED, but I do agree this headset is kinda DOA.
      OLED (or micro-led) would be great, but those displays are very expensive, especially if you want a very wide fov. Personally I would prefer a wider FOV over OLED as I'm not at all displeased with the pico 4 lcd screens, they're not much worse as the OLED screens in my HTC Vive Pro, which isn't nicely black either.

    • Adrian Meredith

      The rift cv1 display was garbage had terrible colours and awful purple smeary blacks

  • Rudl Za Vedno

    Weight 702 g with headstrap… 300 grams too much for me to consider it over my G2. Plus fresnel lenses in 2024/25… Thanks but no thanks. Fingers crossed Asus and Lenovo offer something similar to us PCVR users but with Meta's Q3 lenses + PD support + weight around 400g for around a grand. That would be an instant buy for me.

  • Zachary Williams

    Fresnels in 2024 for a grand? No thank you.
    Another odd choice to put eye tracking in a headset that also has a sweetspot in only the middle 10% of the lens. They actually want you to have to look at the blurry edges? A whole decade of learning to move your head specifically to make up for fresnels sweet spot bs, and now they really want you to move your eyes in headsets with 90% blur. I'd rather be able to see than have it track what I can't.

    • mirak

      please stop, you are not going to not move your head anymore because you have eye tracking

  • Mike

    "LCD"
    Pass. Again. Come on, HTC, you can do better.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    My god, typical HTC, fresnel lenses, XR2 gen1(quest 2/pico 4 chipset), with specs like that, it is as good as DOA. If it had the XR2 gen2 (quest 3/pico 4 ultra) chipset, it might still have a place due to the eyetracking and the 120° fov (and for some the announced DP alt-mode).

    • mirak

      Yet pros will prefer this over Quest or Pico.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      But it is not a Focus 4, it is a Focus 3 plus. The main differences to Focus 3 are more RAM and color passthrough, which means just using different components and won't require changing the mainboard. The depth sensor will connect to one of the existing XR2 CSI ports, the now integrated eye tracking the same way as the external module before, and the DP-in is probably on a separate daughter board that also contains the DP decoder the XR2 lacks. It's possible that Vision uses the exact same logic board as the Focus 3.

      Which is why there are no other significant changes. HTC stated that the Focus 3 is mostly used for PCVR streaming, for which the XR2 Gen 1 is more than enough. The eye tracking (from Tobii) works with PCVR too, so this is clearly targeting people with a rather powerful PC that (with Tobii's ETFR for PC that also powers the Pimax Crystal) can actually utilize the 120° FoV and 2.5K per eye resolution, either compressed and wireless or uncompressed and tethered via DP-in. In comparison the Quest 3 with XR2 Gen 2 uses a default render resolution of 1680*1760, up 30% from Quest 2, but still only about 2/3rd of its pixel resolution. The Focus 3/Vision resolution adds another ~30%, meaning the Quest 3 by default only renders half of the Focus 3/Vision pixel resolution.

      This makes the Focus Vision a somewhat odd standalone product esp. for XR productivity apps, but the design goal here seems to clearly have been making an existing product more attractive for the group that already uses it most with some simple but clever additions, and without having to create a completely new product. Which is a smart move, even if inevitable all the VR enthusiasts will start complaining that whatever was on their wish list still isn't included.

  • The Chipset is a confusing decision. The same one of the Quest 2? This is strange

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      In an interview with MIXED, Fabian Nappenbach, HTC's director of product marketing EMEA, explained that changing the chip to the next generation would require companies to have the headsets recertified, which would be very costly.

      The HTC Focus Vision is basically still an HTC Focus 3 with some nice add-ons that make it more attractive for PCVR usage, but require neither significantly changing the existing production nor having anything re-certified. So they didn't actually choose to go with the XR2 Gen 1 again, they instead simply offer the same product with some interesting extras attached under a new name.

  • ViRGiN

    Thumbs up for surpassing Valve in VR efforts.

  • xyzs

    Fresnel? No.
    LCD? No.
    Htc? No.