The second generation SteamVR development kit, the HTC Vive Pre, was unveiled at CES in January and included numerous enhancements. Valve have now announced that the new Pre systems are on their way to developers.
In the run up to CES, HTC made a ‘bold’ statement about a new revision of their SteamVR based virtual reality system, the HTC Vive. The company had to issue a climbdown on the original anticipated release date for the Vive, originally to be during the 2015 holidays. The Vive instead would launch in April 2016, with pre-orders going live on February 29th.
The reason for the delay? A statement from HTC’s CEO Cher Wang cited a “very, very big breakthrough” as the culprit. Which, of course, ensured that the hype train for SteamVR was fully fuelled all the way until CES hit.
What was unveiled was the HTC Vive Pre, a second generation developer system with refined, sleeker VR headset, redesigned SteamVR controllers and a set of slimmed down Lighthouse laser base stations. That “very, very, big breakthrough” was the integrated, wide-angle, front-facing camera – which allows visions of the real world to be overlaid onto the virtual environment when inside the Vive headset. Additionally, the Pre incorporated a common image enhancement technique which deals with OLED panel shortcomings, Mura correction. Important additions both, with the former adding much needed environment awareness and safety enhancements the latter improving image quality noticeably. The jury’s still out on just how much of a breakthrough these additions will prove to be however.
Now, Valve has announced that the first batch of Vive Pre’s are on their way to developers already holding mark I ‘Developer Edition’ Vive systems. This is an important milestone given the short lead time until consumer edition units are due to ship in April. Developers will want to be sure that any incorporation of the front-facing camera is tested thoroughly. Developers will very likely have known about the additional feature well ahead of the CES reveal however, so hopefully this won’t be a last-minute addition for them.
It’s thought that the HTC Vive Pre represents a close approximation of the eventual shipping unit, at least in terms of feature-set. However, we’ve still yet to see the integrated headphones which we were told might be on the way for the consumer unit.