Following the teasing that preceded its recently released VR accessories, HTC is back on the teasing train, this time showing what may well be a new Vive headset.
The HTC Vive Twitter account shared a single teaser photo today saying, “now that the accessories are out of the way, let’s get down to business.”
The Twitter tease follows the launch of new VR accessories from the company, which themselves were teased ahead of their reveal. The phrase from today’s tweet, “now that the accessories are out of the way,” suggests this is indeed a new Vive headset from the company. It seems likely too that the phrase “let’s get down to business,” means this device won’t be consumer focused.
While we don’t know for sure if this is a VR headset (it could be AR for that matter), HTC’s Vive China president, Alvin Wang Graylin, tweeted the same photo with the hashtags “#XR #VR #Vive,” saying also, “can’t wait to share the bigger picture.”
Assuming this is a headset that’s being teased, it appears that the photo is of a single corner-mounted tracking camera, similar to what we’ve seen on Quest and other headsets. This would be a departure from Vive headsets of the past, which have placed cameras either on the front or sides, so this is likely a new product we haven’t seen before rather than a tweak to an existing headset.
In early 2020 HTC revealed Vive Proton, a prototype compact standalone VR headset. However, we have heard little about Proton since then, and the designs revealed don’t seem to bear much resemblance to today’s teaser photo, unless there have been some significant changes to camera placement (which is entirely likely given that we’re more than a year removed from the initial Proton reveal).
Whatever HTC has up its sleeve, it looks like we’ll be waiting a while yet for a full unveiling.