A newly posted Geekbench score may point to what HTC has up their sleeves next for Vive Focus, the company’s class of standalone VR headsets.

As first spotted by TechGenyz, a variant of HTC Vive Focus using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 chipset appeared on Geekbench yesterday, which is reportedly based on Android 10.

Here’s some of the main bits revealed in that Geekbench score:

System Information
Operating System Android 10
Model
HTC Vive Focus(XR2)
Motherboard kona
Processor Information
Name
ARM Qualcomm
Topology
1 Processor, 8 Cores
Identifier
ARM implementer 65 architecture 8 variant 1 part 3341 revision 0
Base Frequency 1.80 GHz
Memory Information
Size 5.50 GB
Type
Single-Core Score 924
Multi-Core Score 3416

Qualcomm has already given us a good idea of the kind of specs and features we could expect to see from VR headsets based on XR2, which is powered by the Snapdragon 865. Headsets incorporating XR2 can technically support displays up to 3K × 3K per eye @ 90Hz, integrated 5G connectivity, support for seven simultaneous camera feeds, and significantly more processing power across the board compared to Snapdragon 835.

Vive Focus Plus, Photo by Road to VR

It was only last year HTC unveiled Vive Focus Plus for enterprise users, the company’s second 6DOF standalone headset sporting a Snapdragon 835 (also the processor used in Oculus Quest). As opposed to the original Vive Focus released in 2018, the ‘Plus’ variant featured integrated hardware support for two ultrasonically-tracked 6DOF controllers, updated ergonomics, and new Fresnel lenses.

SEE ALSO
Qualcomm & HTC Partner to Offer Vive WAVE Platform to All Snapdragon-based Headsets

There’s nothing else to go on for now, however supposing the XR2 variant is genuine, it remains to be seen whether HTC will actually submerse itself completely into the consumer space, as the company previously straddled the prosumer-enterprise segment in the West whilst offering Vive Focus as a full-consumer product in China.

As Facebook integrates Oculus ever deeper into the mothership with the revelation that the company has put a two-year countdown timer on merging Oculus and Facebook logins, HTC will no doubt find itself in a unique position to appeal to enthusiasts looking for a solution not tied to the monolithic social network. There’s also no word on what Facebook has planned for Oculus Quest 2 of course, which is theorized to make its debut at Facebook Connect next week, but you can bet many disaffected VR enthusiasts will be hoping for a true contender.

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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.

  • I’ve enjoyed using Vive Focus a number of times and this new XR2 variant shows promise.

    However, content may be an issue if aimed at consumers, it’s not inexpensive or quick to build a good content library to attract people away from competing storefront/headset.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf28434d9ff359a6450bf78ceba2abd98ebc21e0f76dc99540b84989477d1211.jpg

    • Ad

      Even I could probably not bring myself to buy a Viveport standalone. Content wouldn’t be that hard if it’s similar enough to the Quest, which it should be, but I have so little faith in them to have a functional OS, tracking, or much openess.

      Can the focus plus sideload?

      • Viveport has impressed me this week during Venice VR festival. It no longer crashes my PC, and had some great free content. I’ve not had chance to try mobile Vive library, the first Focus I tried had some Chinese applications loaded.

        • Ad

          I’d love to see an android to Quest’s iOS, but HTC is clearly not into that.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          Hmmm.. mustn’t forget to still activate the year subscription for Infinity that came free with my Vive Pro.

      • Jan Ciger

        It can. Question is what will you sideload – pretty much nobody is developing for it and Quest apps don’t run on it.

        • Ad

          They likely can run on it if the developers want to and Facebook doesn’t do something to get in the way. The Pico does support a number of games. It’s android just the same and has an SDK.

          • Jan Ciger

            That something is Android doesn’t mean it is compatible with another Android HMD. Applications must be specifically built for each of those HMDs, including some non-trivial porting due to differences how the tracking works and how controllers are accessed.

            So there wouldn’t be much to sideload – you can’t sideload a Quest app to Pico or Focus and expect it to work. It won’t work.

            We were evaluating these two vs Quest just a few weeks ago for an industrial project given the cost and the Facebook link of Quest becoming a no-go for many companies.

            Porting to Pico 2 is OK even though it doesn’t have built-in Unity support, porting to Vive Focus is a huge pain due to the uber-crappy and essentially abandoned SDK.

            The games that run on Pico or Focus were explicitly ported to these by the developers.

            The point is not that it cannot be done (or the hw can’t handle the apps) but that few will bother given how tiny marketshare anything else than Quest has, how bad/nonexistent the ecosystem is (Viveport is a joke, Pico doesn’t have even that) and how much work the software adaptation and support of these things is.

            That’s the main reason why neither Pico nor HTC are targeting consumer market in the West with it, only enterprise where the lack of software is not a concern (enterprise apps are typically bespoke, custom development).

          • Ad

            Oh sure, I meant what I said to be contingent on how good the SDK is, and it’s infuriating to hear that. I hope Valve is at least looking into making a general OS for standalone VR.

          • Jan Ciger

            Valve not likely. They are very much invested in their high end Index/Lighthouse ecosystem to be interested in the low end/low margin mass-market mobile/standalone gear.

          • Ad

            If Valve creates a lot of things that are only on PC, gets AAAs involved, supports devs, that would go a long way. And they could create a general OS for third party headsets to compete, like android is to iOS.

    • silvaring

      Interesting placement on that back head strap, does it feel comfortable when you lie down on a pillow?

    • TechPassion

      Instant fail if it looks like this. You need external headphones what is idiotic. They should have learnt from Odeyssey+. I do not want to put extra bulky movable headphones on my had which collide with the headset like on this photo. Index headphones or Odyssey+ are the way to go.

  • Jan Ciger

    This is all cool and whatever (I have heard about an upcoming HTC HMD through another channel as well) but unless HTC actually fixes a few elephants in the room, they will become irrelevant:

    – SDK that haven’t been significantly updated for years, buggy unfinished mess that doesn’t even work properly with recent Unity versions

    – Their “business” focus where the only thing “business” is that they are actually charging higher price for the headsets. Oculus has the same problem but they are at least making some token effort with the enterprise version of the Quest (different firmware, support for device management, etc.)

    – Poor build quality – we have 3 original Vives and one Vive Pro. Out of the 3 original ones two have died already (green display or completely dead), including a replacement for one. And the third is on its way out. We have also the original Vive Focus and the build reeks plasticky cheapness too. It is still working but that’s only because we aren’t really using it for anything since it lacks hand tracking (and building sw for it is a PITA).

    – Absolutely attrocious customer support. Whenever there was a problem with one of the Vives, it was always weeks of online chat discussion (there is no phone or e-mail contact!) with agents that have no clue about what has happened on the case so you have to start over each time you get a new person, agents that promise to do things – and they never do (calling back, sending confirmation, etc.), repeatedly giving dates that are not kept and that they know they can’t keep (because apparently everything must be authorized by the HTC HQ and the outsourced support can’t really decide anything except to file a ticket for you!) and so on.

    E.g. our Vive Pro has arrived DOA and it has fried its linkbox on the first power up (see above about build quality …). Getting the linkbox replacement authorized took a month, then another month until ours arrived to their service contractor in Romania and someone has actually looked at it (it has arrived in 3 days by DHL, the rest it was sitting somewhere on a shelf) and we have got sent a replacement. Which has promptly died when we have tried to power the HMD up too – the problem was some sort of short in the HMD itself. Another 2 months of chasing the support agent trying to get an RMA authorized and then another month of waiting. So an HMD that was ordered in January, arrived sometime in March was out of commission until September. So much for their enterprise customer support …

    Sadly HTC is pretty incompetent and not only when it comes to VR hardware (ask anyone who had issues with an HTC phone …)

  • Ad

    put a two-year countdown timer on merging Oculus and Facebook logins,

    Actually it’s a one month timer, all new customers or anyone with an existing account who uses the new Quest model will have to use a facebook account.

    This would have to be a completely new model in development or prototyping, right? You can just stick an XR2 into a Vive Focus without massive heat issues, right?

  • LuigiMario

    Does anyone have any real info on how much the XR2 chip costs in bulk? Everyone is saying how it is expensive for something like Quest but nobody has the numbers.

    • kontis

      There are numbers on the internet but they vary widely. My naive conclusion is that a full package of the newest, highest end Snapdragon with 5G modem may go for as high as $200 and $100 with the main chip only. And it’s apparently twice as much, if not more, than high end Snapdragons a few years ago…

    • Blaexe

      https://twitter.com/Kuma_Sleepy/status/1276760803727642624

      SD865 price should be fairly close, isn’t it basically the same hardware?

      • LuigiMario

        What’s included in the chipset? Is there RAM and stuff also or just the modem?
        My understanding is the chip itself houses both the CPU and GPU.

        • Blaexe

          Chipset should be SoC + 5G modem as far as I understand.

      • xyzs

        250 for an 875 SoC? If it’s true, that’s ridiculus.
        Non sense greed like that never leads to successful business, when competition is offering similar results. NVidia understood that with their 2000 series. At that price point, only a very few premium Android phones feature it.

        • Blaexe

          $250 for SoC + modem. $130 for the SoC only.

          But yes, still ridiculous.

  • It’s a very cool news. I’m sure that HTC will come up with something cool, because it has something done that. What we should worry is the level of polish and the price, that are the things that have taunted the Focus+ and the Cosmos, for instance.

  • BrettVRLA

    The XR2’s CPU/GPU is said to be “2X faster than the Quest’s 835 chip”. Since mobile chip architecture is much more efficient than desktop GPUs, is there any link/info or reasonable indication to whether the XR2 could possibly be powerful enough to play some of the full PC VR games you find on Steam? In other words, will the XR2 be able to create the first standalone SteamVR headset or will we have to wait for yet another generation (XR3)?

    • Blaexe

      It’s not powerful enough – and it doesn’t work that way anyway. Steam games need X86 hardware. Mobile is ARM.

  • Jim P

    HTC has spent all this money over the years and forgot you need a ecosystem to move HMD. Sad to say but FB figured this out along time ago. Steam half assed it. I would move over to someone else that has a ecosystem quickly. But we only have GOD complex FB.