[blurbusters] HTC VIVE Cosmos VR Headset Ready for Pre-Order

[Andrew]

The VIVE Cosmos is the next generation VR headset for the company and offers higher resolution displays, a lighter headset, new wrap-around controllers, and no longer requires base stations. The Cosmos has two 3.4-inch LCD screens running at 1440×1700 per eye (combined 2880×1700), with a 90 Hz refresh rate. Strangely though, still offering a 110-degree field of view, which is exactly the same as the first VIVE headset.

 

Source

 

It's nice that they've actually starting accepting pre-orders now. It's a pretty good price as well compared to the Index. Rift S is still cheaper, but it's also much worse overall, at least specs-wise.

[TheBadBull]

Whether it's worth it or not depends how well the inside-out tracking is done. Also I really hope they got better lenses for this than the vive and vive pro, the 110° FoV is not promising.

[Andrew]

I don't think the base station-less tracking would be an issue tbh. The Rift S uses a similar technology for tracking and I don't think anyone has complained about it.

[gonX]

I don't think the base station-less tracking would be an issue tbh. The Rift S uses a similar technology for tracking and I don't think anyone has complained about it.

 

With inside-out tracking, once the controllers go out of Line of Sight of the head unit you lose _some_ tracking precision as the job is mostly left to gyros and accelerometers, which does not have 0 drift.

Imagine doing aiming-down-sights on these controllers - they might handle it well, but I would like to see some more real world impressions.

 

Lighthouse v1 technology has not particularly impressed me in some use cases, so I would not be surprised if the inside-out tracking offered by Vive Cosmos and the Rift S being the same, if not better in some regards.

 

I'd imagine the technology to be perfectly fine for 99% of use cases though, although I'd personally still prefer my base stations for that back-of-the-mind comfort that my missed notes in Beat Saber is just because I suck, and not because of the technology.

 

Still, an easy to set up VR headset that is within budget of many gamers is a welcome addition. Too often do I hear people having a poor VR experience because they do not have good mounting options for their base stations.

Edited September 30, 2019 by gonX