Last year HTC teased the VR world ahead of CES 2018 about what would become the announcement of the Vive Pro. Now the company is at it again, promising “new gear” that will be revealed at CES 2019 next week.

We’re a little less than a week from the start of CES 2019, the massive annual consumer tech show in Vegas. Road to VR will be boots on the ground once again to bring you the most important developments, including whatever HTC has up their sleeve.

Last year it was the reveal of the Vive Pro, the pricey but otherwise well refined headset that launched later in the year. This year something else is cooking, and HTC took to Twitter to tease us ahead of a reveal next week:

Image courtesy HTC

“The truck is loaded and we’re excited be on our way to #CES2019. The cases are packed with some new gear we can’t wait to unbox for you,” the tweet reads.

Notably, the three big crates shown in the photo represent Vive, Viveport, and a third one which is Vive something, with the second word intentionally blurred out.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but the big blue Vive logo prop seen in the photo—with its starry center—reminds us of the ‘Vive Cosmos’ headset trademark the company filed in late 2018. Indeed, the blurred wording on the third create looks like it could read COSMOS in all caps, but it’s tough to say definitely.

More importantly than what the crate says is what’s inside. HTC could be revealing a consumer-ready standalone headset to compete with Oculus’ upcoming Quest headset. HTC of course already has the Vive Focus, though it’s long remained a dev kit everywhere but China where it launched almost a year ago. The bulky 6DOF controller dev kit add-on for the Focus tells us too that the headset wasn’t designed with 6DOF hand input in mind—a defining feature of Quest—which will need to be more seamlessly integrated to compete with Oculus’ offering.

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Vive Pro, Vive Focus, and Vive Business Edition | Image courtesy HTC

HTC is not expected to reveal a new PC VR headset this soon, unless it turns out the company is collaborating once again with Valve on the recently leaked headset, as they did in the first place with the original Vive. Plausible, but unlikely for CES next week by our reading.

We’ll be at CES to find out exactly what HTC is showing, stay tuned!

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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."
  • Bob

    Samsung vs Apple, Sony vs Microsoft, Oculus vs HTC. It’s getting serious! ;)

    • Vegeta785

      I believe both Oculus and HTC have their both ups and downs. But it is gonna get serious after CES 2019.

  • Smokey_the_Bear

    Awesome! I love CES!
    Can’t wait to see what they unveil!

  • oompah

    What ? A toilet seat too??
    Hah ha
    btw r they trying to sell a toilet seat too so that
    when ppl r immersed in virtual reality , they need not
    break the experience with rise of nature’s call
    (inspired from Napoleon who had one under his throne ?)
    Hah ha

  • MW

    If it is not HMD with better res/fov – booring. And probably isn’t. Just some accessories for old and overpriced tech. I’m wrong?

    • nebošlo

      Yeah, that’s how I feel. I’m so done with this gen of VR, serious upgrade is way overdue.

      • Rainfox Wolfstone

        keep wondering why people keep saying ‘this soon’

      • MosBen

        Is it overdue though? When the first gen HMDs were released, the 900 series of Nvidia GPUs were the top of the line, but were somewhat quickly replaced with the 1000 series. And that’s still what most people have today. The new RTX cards are brand new and crazy expensive, which would mean that an HMD targeting those cards as system requirements would require $1,000+ PCs in order to use, just like the first generation did when they were released. That simply is never going to happen again. New VR hardware from the major players will target moderately priced PCs.

      • dextrovix

        In what sense is “serious upgrade” overdue- if you mean specs, which ones, resolution, weight, what? Because expensive PCs can struggle now, and their entry cost to run VR isn’t cheap, and neither are the headsets, which if they’re upgraded to something like “Gen 2” won’t be cheap either, thus continuing to ensure VR remains niche…

      • Hivemind9000

        I agree. But they’re going to have to add eye tracking combined with foveated rendering in order to allow current graphics cards to keep up with the resolution/fov expansion.

        • Rosko

          Exactly, we simply have to wait till this is working and ready.

    • FireAndTheVoid

      I mostly agree but knuckles controllers would also be big news

      • shaggytherodgers

        Knuckles are valve not htc.

        • FireAndTheVoid

          True, but I thought HTC was going to make their own version. Maybe I’m wrong.

      • Get Schwifty!

        It is stunning that it is 2019 and HTC _still_ doesn’t have a decent replacement for the crappy wands… just _amazing_…

    • deHavilland

      If the blurry words read like “Gloves” I wouldn’t call it that…

      • Moriar

        or simply “gear” … Gloves would be nice.

      • Anonymiiss

        I thought it said “CLOUD”

    • Yoshi Kato

      Couldn’t agree more. Pimax has shown that it’s technically possible to improve the FOV and resolution while keeping the cost somewhat reasonable. If a small company running on a tight budget can push the boundaries, then why can’t the “industry leaders” do the same?

  • Jistuce

    The box says VIVE PRO+.
    Defining feature set: Costs ten grand for just the headset.

    • Jonathan Pratte

      And then we’ll have the Vive Pro + Ultimate Edition for 25 000 only.

      • FireAndTheVoid

        For business use only, so it’s fine /s

  • oompah

    if u add smell
    then if u have
    miIf on ur face
    how nice
    ;-)

    • Slackar

      Indeed.

      …I’ve got no clue what you’re talking about.

      • Anonymiiss

        lmao

  • AlanWake

    I hope for Valve’s new HMD at CES 2019.

    • shaggytherodgers

      Yeah very exited but knowing valve it will look great and not come out for two years.

  • Massimo Depero

    What about VIVE-GLOVES?

  • HomeAudio

    Looks like Vive Gloves :)

  • Rudl Za Vedno

    I don’t get it. Everyone is talking only about Oculus and Vive. Why nobody mentions Samsung? It’s screens blows Rift out of the water and are even better than Vive Pro. If you bought it for $300, it was a steal. Next headset I buy must have 2560x1440p per eye oled screens or higher plus 135 FOV or wider and it can cost up to 1K. Until then, I’m happy with my Odyssey+.

    • NooYawker

      Because overall it’s weak compared to the Oculus of Vive.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Not really, except tracking maybe, but display wise it’s much better than vive or oculus.

    • FireAndTheVoid

      I’ve got the Vive Pro and Odyssey. The tracking on the Odyssey is a little lacking and can become frustrating in some games. That being said, the Odyssey is a hell-of-a-deal when compared to the price of the Vive Pro.

      To get people excited about Windows MR, they need to:
      (1) Upgrade to 4 cameras like the Oculus Quest. Not only would it improve the range of tracked movement, but it should also improve the tracking quality.
      (2) Add wireless

      • Andrew Jakobs

        But are you talking about the old odyssey of the Odyssey+? that’s a big difference.

        • FireAndTheVoid

          The Odyssey. The issues I mentioned are shared with the Odyssey+ though, right? I haven’t tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t have the same tracking issues.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            There have been some refinements on all aspects, but the biggest of all is the new displays which seems to have solved a large portion of the SDE ‘problem’. Tracking might still not be as good as Vive or Rift, but that’s with all Windows MR headsets. But I guess you should read/watch reviews of the + for that.

      • James Cobalt

        We sold our Vive and got an Odyssey; for us, the tracking has been quite a bit better than the Vive. The headset tracking has been WORLDS better. Controller tracking is worse is certain situations but most of the time it’s just as accurate (and just as inaccurate).

    • MosBen

      Mostly I think it’s that people are excited about the next generation of VR hardware, and while the Odyssey+ is a nice upgrade, it’s decidedly part of the first generation, like the Vive Pro. At best they’re 1.5 releases. If I didn’t have any VR HMD and I really really wanted to buy one today, I’d probably go with the Odyssey. But if I didn’t have an HMD and was in the market, I’d probably be holding off for the Quest or the next generation of PC HMDs.

    • Callsign Vega

      Smearing Vaseline on the displays the Vive Pro uses to blur out SDE is not “blowing it out of the water”. I’d rather have some SDE than a blurry image.

    • crim3

      Indeed. If some kind of “average” could be calculated from people’s reviews, I’d say the Odyssey+ has the lead right now visual quality wise. Too bad the tracking of the controller isn’t that great.

  • Paul Branney

    Clearly says a Vive Gloves

    • Jistuce

      Or gloss, or glowsticks, or greatness.

  • To me, it seems “Vive Gloves”, but it can also be Cosmos, of course. HTC has just started shipping the 6 DOF controllers for the Focus, I would find strange that they will launch another standalone headset now. I think that it can be an accessory: a glove, or maybe a kit to use the Vive with streaming from the cloud (that would be great, but I think it’s too early), or a Tracker for the Focus… whatever

  • Jacob Johnston

    I’m thinking ‘VIVE GLOVES” which would still be pretty sweet, though I can’t wait for a new headset I do think it’s too early. The Vive Pro is already a dud IMO because it’s just a more expensive and slightly-refined version of the Vive and generally not worth upgrading to if you already own the original.

    • benz145

      IMO, it would be very strange for HTC to introduce VR gloves when controllers are very well established at this point as the leading input modality for general VR use-cases, while even the very best VR gloves to date still have significant drawbacks for general usage.

      • Maybe the Knuckles are called Gloves with a HTC rebrand.

      • Bob

        The best way go about it is if you put yourself in the shoes of HTC executives; is Q1 2019 the right time to announce a completely new VR headset to get the hype going?

  • Vive Glove ?

  • bmichaelb

    Judging by the replies on the twitter post, it’s haptic ‘gloves’, not ‘Cosmos’.