tpcast-transmitter — image courtesy TPCast

TPCAST Announces Wireless Adapter for Oculus Rift, Arriving Q4 2017

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Oct 18, 2017

TPCAST, the company known for creating a wireless adapter for HTC Vive, announced that they’ll be delivering a device that supports the Oculus Rift by the end of the year.

Update (10/19/17): TPCast has provided further clarification that their wireless solution for Rift is a separate unit from those Vive-only units sold in China and Europe.

If you own a PC VR headset (aka ‘tethered’), you’ve probably already mastered the strange dance you have to do to untangle the cable during room-scale gameplay. The cable, housing within it an HDMI and data/power-transmitting USB cord, is probably one of the greatest limiting factors to making the room-scale experience truly immersive.

image courtesy TPCAST

TPCast maintains their solution can transmit up 5 meters away at 2k (2160×1200) with a latency of less than 2ms. Battery power, provided by an external powerbank, is said to last up to 5 hours.

This is accomplished via a head-mounted transmitter that draws current from a 20,000mAh power bank. The signal is transmitted through both a dedicated WiFi router for data and a special receiver attached to your PC for video.

image courtesy TPCast

image courtesy TPCast

image courtesy TPCast

The company first launched its Vive-only transmitter in China six months ago and has been filling orders until it went out of stock just recently. While pre-orders for the transmitter aren’t available in the US anymore (Microsoft’s pre-order page has since disappeared), the European market is expecting pre-order delivery later this week from its various distributors.

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TPCast maintains their “Wireless Adapter for Oculus Rift” is slated to arrive “by the end of Q4 2017.” It’s unclear in what capacity Rift support will arrive, whether it be in a dedicated Rift-specific unit, or a unit that supports both Rift and Vive. We’ve reached out to TPCast for comment, and will be updating soon.

“TPCAST is committed to support the Oculus Rift HMD with our unique wireless technology solutions, and provide VR users a high-quality, immersive VR encounter,” stated Michael Liu, TPCAST CEO. “With the TPCAST wireless adapter, we will be changing the VR usage and experience by providing the complete freedom of movement with no cables.”

GigaSora

This just made me realize that if theres a huge push for standalone headsets with long lasting batteries, we may have a Samsung situation where batteries explode, but on our face.
- Pablo C
  
  the battery is hold in the belt, it would be to heavy for the neck..
  - EvilDog77
    
    Great. Now we can blow our spines apart rather than burn our faces off.
    - Michael Griffin
      
      This is completely ridiculous. NONE of the phones EVER exploded. They swell, create some heat, and smoke but they do not explode. The exploded thing was bullshit propagated by media and imbeciles. I am not saying it isn’t a hazard but lets be realistic with what actually happens.
      - AS
        
        Ok, lets be realistic shall we? https://youtu.be/bZ8IsMRFM5o
      - D3Pixel
        
        Thats not a phone. Just saying.
      - Michael Griffin
        
        Thank you good sir.
      - AS
        
        That’s the same type of battery. A phone will contain one at least 10x larger
      - Michael Griffin
        
        You sir are a fucking moron. That isn’t a cell phone battery… Also if you put a torch to it I wouldn’t expect much else, that does not mean the item is defect or unsafe. Put a torch to almost any energy source and you will get a reaction. Again I say to you, no phone has ever exploded like you see in this video. Also that cell he put under a fucking torch is not the same type of battery that is in a cell phone. They don’t explode and they don’t catch fire unless there is an accelerant near by.
      - AS
        
        I’m going to ignore the crude attack, I’ll just point out that a cr20xx cell is similar battery chemistry to that of a mobile phone battery. A cr2032 may be around 180-200mAh, 5-10% of the capacity of a mobile phone
        
        Lithium batteries have to be charged very carefully, as overvolting them will cause excessive heat. Once they exceed a voltage of 4.2v to 4.3v, they WILL violently start degassing at high temperatures. That is known as an explosion. Look it up.
        
        If you really can’t be bothered, let’s try another example. https://youtu.be/q7o0KoSHmFQ
        
        There are hundreds of cases if you look.
        
        Try looking up a topic before you argue against it.
      - Michael Griffin
        
        I have been around many gassing batteries that actually did end up degassing none of them have ever exploded. They do not exploded unless there is an outside stimulus. Try pointing a torch at your gas tank and see what happens…. Stored energy is almost always volatile under the right conditions. In normal use under normal conditions a phone battery WILL NOT EXPLODE.
      - AS
        
        This is also completely false. Lithium batteries can also fail due to underfoot age or simple mechanical fatigue
        http://www.mpoweruk.com/lithium_failures.htm
      - Michael Griffin
        
        Ok so overvolting them you say will cause the to violently explode…. How is a cell phone in somebody’s pocket going to increase in voltage??? Yes, I am aware that increasing temperatures can raise the voltage slightly but the phone was in his pocket, if it even is a phone, since it was in his pocket we can reasonably say that it has discharged some since being disconnected from a charging source, because of this The voltage is not going to raise enough to cause that to happen. The video you posted is hardly proof of anything… We didn’t see the phone, we don’t know what kind of phone it was or if in fact it was a phone, we don’t know that this wasn’t a set up.
        
        Also, I apologize for my crude attack and aggressive position. I have been having a bad few weeks. Should not have come off the way I did but I stand by what I have said.
      - AS
        
        That’s completely the opposite of what I said, overvolting causes aggressive heat production, which will cause a battery to degass.
        
        As I said, there are plenty of incidents, and if you look into carefully documented scientific experiments on the subject, you’ll find it only takes the failure of a small component to short out the charge circuit and allow a battery to start overvolting itself. Your mobile phone charger is really only a power supply, the actual charging circuitry is part of the phone or battery itself.
        
        There’s plenty of information here. http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries
        
        And here’s yet another example, this time in a controlled environment. https://youtu.be/SMy2_qNO2Y0
- killdozer
  
  Computers/cars/houses also burn, dont use one
- James Barrett
  
  This was very much a concern with the Note 7/GearVR. They had to patch the Note 7 to disable GearVR for fear of exploding on people’s faces.
- AS
  
  haven’t you heard? it’s iphone 8’s that explode now. Samsung added a hidden detonator in their oled screens they sold to apple
- Sydney Losstarot
  
  Hopefully Solid State and Glass batteries come out soon and the next VR HMDs will use solid state batteries and with wireless built in at a much more reasonable price for the general consumer.
JMB

Would be wicked cool if TPCast worked on getting the Vive specific model ready for mainstream before focussing on a different HMD imo.

The current state of the TPCast unit for Vive is a disaster.
- burzum
  
  Why is it a disaster?
  - JMB
    
    Mic and camera aren’t supported, the software is unreliable, the included router is way underpowered, support is non-existant, they are fucking everyone that bought v1 by not supporting it anymore. It really ticks all the boxes of a hacked-together product run by people that have absolutely no idea how to turn an idea into a viable product.
    
    Some of us are working on getting around some of these issues on our TPCast discord channel, but in its current state I can absolutely not recommend anyone to get this product who isn’t keen on spending more time on tinkering with it than actually using it to replace their HMD tether.
    - JesperL
      
      How come I only see positive comments on youtube about it?
      Watch Sweviver, he uses it for all his VR videos, and it seems to work perfectly. – is he lying?
      I would really like to know, becayse I preordered and am supposed to get it friday or monday.
      - OPMan
        
        There were different versions. Sweviver does not have v1
      - JesperL
        
        What version does he have? and what version are we getting in EU the 20’th?
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  Maybe because of the Oculus Rift selling more and more, and maybe the OR version is less hassle to support.
Firestorm185

Howhoahwowoowow, waht? Thats awesome!

Even with some of the limitations, can’t wait to pick this up!
Arkadius Brand

Its like having a microwave on your head. Slowly cooks your brain :)
- JesperL
  
  Just a stupid comment, or do you have some evidence?
  It passed EU regulations, which are pretty harsh.
  Should be safe enough.
  - Devin
    
    probably a joke, you know for laughs…
FISHSTIX

After a year and you still cant buy this crap. Except for stupid prices on ebay. I am giving up, by the time they get there shit together, a better company will have a better product. I am done waiting for this crap to hit a store or online retailer.
Unreal Qw

$499?
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  that’s also what the Vive version now costs.
Andrew Jakobs

except they announced it last week during Connect.
Sydney Losstarot

Solid State and Glass batteries can’t get to the market soon enough.
TonyVT SkarredGhost

Wow, this is a great news! We can have wireless Rift, too!
Brad

I have TPCast on Vive and also have tried another Wireless VR solution demoed by an Australian company called IMR. http://www.immersiverobotics.com/ They already had their system working on Oculus and Vive, they had 4 of them running as multi-player. They seemed to be really putting in a huge effort to perfect their technology and it was immediately obvious that it was far superior and more future proof, compared with TPCast. TPCast feels far too hacked together to be called a product, it also has a fair few issues with reliability. I will probably wait for IMR’s solution, maybe I am a bit jaded by poor quality Chinese products that don’t deliver on what they promise.