Now available in China, and quite possibly on its way to a wider release, HTC is prominently showing its new standalone Vive Focus headset at MWC 2018 this week. The company says the Focus is positioned as the premium option among the incoming wave of standalone headsets; of course, premium features are never far from premium price. "Premium" [caption id="attachment_75305" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Photo by Road to VR[/caption] The Vive Focus is a standalone headset which means it has everything needed for a VR experience built directly into the device—including the battery, processor, graphics, and display—rather than relying on a docked smartphone. Powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chip, the Vive Focus is in the same class as the Lenovo Mirago Solo, but has a few defining features which HTC says makes it the "premium" option. For one, the Focus uses the exact same pair of lenses and best-in-class displays as the upcoming Vive Pro, the company confirmed to Road to VR at MWC this week. That means it has largely an identical visual experience as the Vive Pro in terms of resolving power, field of view, and display performance (though the Focus is running at 75Hz to the Vive Pro's 90Hz). With a 1,600 × 1,440 OLED display for each lens, the Focus also has a resolution advantage over the Mirage Solo's LCD display (1,280 × 1,440 per lens), and, because it's using a pair of displays instead of a single display, it also offers an IPD adjustment, which means the lens-display pair can be dialed into the sweet spot more precisely for a wider range of users. [caption id="attachment_75307" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Bottom of the Vive Focus showing IPD adjuster, volume buttons, 3.5mm headphone jack, and one of the hidden speakers | Photo by Road to VR[/caption] Beyond the displays, the Focus also includes a fan for active cooling (ostensibly allowing it to run at higher performance without overheating), and built-in speakers which are hidden in the headstrap. But these extra features put the headset into a questionable price bracket for casual users. Going on the device's Chinese starting price, the Focus comes to about $525 USD, even after removing typical Chinese tax (which I have admittedly neglected to consider in prior writings about the headset's converted price). Solid Tracking for Your Head, Iffy Tracking for Your Hands [caption id="attachment_75309" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Photo by Road to VR[/caption] Spending time with the headset today at HTC's booth at MWC 2018, I found that the headset's inside-out positional tracking (made possible by the pair of cameras on the front) was very responsive, and the rotational tracking felt just about perfect. Using the headset for about 10 minutes on the show floor, I didn't see the image jump even once, which is a very good sign. Granted, it was a very well lit environment (which is helpful to the cameras), but also had people milling about on the show floor (which is harder for the tracking to handle). There's always edge cases when it comes to computer vision, so we'll need more time with the headset to see how it handles in a wider range of environments, but so far the tracking seems viable. The controller, which only has a 3DOF-capable rotational sensor, was an entirely different story. Although they use the headsets position as the origin point of the controller in order to achieve a sort of '3DOF+' feeling, the controller is simply being asked to do more than it's capable of. Its rotational data is used to try to estimate some positional movement, but it rarely mirrors your actual movements and ends up feeling really wonky. This is compounded by the fact that the controller moves through space in large steps (relative to your head) rather than smoothly, which just looks odd. Your first instinct is to use the controller like a 6DOF controller (since the headset tracks in 6DOF), but you quickly realize it can't stand up to that demand—in five minutes of playing a cover shooter with the headset, I had to hold a button on the controller to recalibrate its forward position at least every minute. For more casual use-cases, like selecting items on menus and playing less active games, the controller is likely to be more reliable (as we've seen with Gear VR and Daydream's 3DOF controllers). But developers building for Focus will need to be careful about the limitations of the controller since it will be tempting to design with the the headset's own 6DOF tracking capabilities. Vive Pro Lenses and Displays in a Standalone [caption id="attachment_75306" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Photo by Road to VR[/caption] Given that the headset is using the same lenses and displays as the Vive Pro, it's no wonder that the visual performance is almost identical. The resolution is a bit of a step up from other mobile VR headsets (most of which use a single 2,560 × 1,440 panel split into 1,280 × 1,440 per lens), and a larger step up from first-gen VR headsets like the Vive (which has a 1,080 × 1,200 per lens resolution). The field of view, which matches the Vive, feels plenty wide for getting lost in the virtual world. [irp posts="74991" name="Understanding the Difference Between 'Screen Door Effect', 'Mura', & 'Aliasing'"] The screen door effect is still visible, but reduced compared to other headsets, and the pixels are compact enough that I can't quite see the subpixels. There's some visible mura that's easier to spot at some times than others (typical of OLED displays), but not too bad, a bit of ghosting to be seen if you're looking for it during fast motion, and the usual 'god rays' (which shouldn't be a surprise given that the headset uses the same Fresnel lenses as the Vive and Vive Pro). Continued on Page 2: Mobile-class Graphics » Mobile-class Graphics Of course, to make use of display and lens capabilities, you need the rendering power to back it up. For well optimized experiences, like the headset's 'home' menu, you could see the difference the added resolution makes. With the headset fundamentally reliant on mobile hardware for rendering, the graphics simply can't stand up to what's possible on a tethered headset connected to a high-end gaming PC. The one game I had a chance to play (a cover shooter) didn't feel like it was rendered and textured well enough to really make use of all the pixels available. That, of course, will come down to developer competency in the end, but one would hope that there's premium content to match what HTC says is the premium choice among standalone headsets. Vive China President Alvin Wang Graylin told me however that, thanks to an 8K video player available on the Vive Focus, video playback fidelity between the Focus and the Vive Pro is essentially matched. That could make the Focus a great headset for 360 and VR video, but there's still a long way to go when it comes to fostering a library of strong video content for VR headsets, and making it readily available. Ergonomics [caption id="attachment_75310" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Photo by Road to VR[/caption] HTC has designed a headband which uses both a semi-rigid over-head strap and a rigid behind-the-head strap which has a tightening knob. The weight distribution of the headset feels quite near to your face, and the straps do a good job of keeping it from swaying, so your twisting and turning it doesn't feel as much like you have a brick hanging from the front of your face. It's also quite easy to put on. I was pleasantly surprised with the comfort of the Focus, at least for my initial hands-on time with it, but it'll take a longer session to really get a feel for long-term comfort. Premium + Casual = ? [caption id="attachment_75304" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Photo by Road to VR[/caption] There's still the question of price and exactly who the target market is for such a headset. Even with Lenovo's Mirage Solo, which the company intends to price "less than $400," I had the same questions. With the Vive Focus, which we'd expect to launch in the US at around $525 (based on the exchange rate), the problem is compounded. It's a VR headset for casual users, but I simply don't know a lot of casual users who would drop $500+ dollars on a gaming device. At least in my own experience, the only people I know spending that kind of cash for gaming are all hardcore gamers playing on either a game console or PC, which means they are quite likely to already have hardware capable of running a less expensive PC or console VR headset that's capable of a higher fidelity experience with much better graphics. And if they don't own a VR capable PC or console already, but still want some VR in their life, the $200 Oculus Go might sound more reasonable to casual users compared to a Vive Focus priced around $525. Graylin argued that the kind of consumer who might buy a Nintendo Switch would be a good candidate for the Focus, given the headset's portability, ease of setup (thanks to no need for external beacons), and therefor ease of sharing. He said it's compact and easy to carry in a bag, which makes it readily available for killing 20 minutes here or there. He touted the quantity and price of VR content on Focus as a plus, compared to $60 games on Switch, but it's my feeling that one great $60 game (something closer to a 'killer app') converts buyers at a much greater rate than even 100 decent $1 games; Graylin shared his thoughts with us about VR's missing killer app last year. Graylin also pointed to some of the headset's other use-cases, like web browsing and social communication (like being able to hang out with friends in Bigscreen, he said, which is soon due out on mobile platforms), which add to the value proposition. - - — - - Ultimately the market will decide if there's a place for a standalone VR headset like the Focus that's priced the way it is, a question which is likely to be greatly influenced by the timing of the headset's broader rollout, and what Oculus has planned for its own premium standalone headset, Santa Cruz.