FEBRUARY 2019 PCWorld 31VIVE PRO EYE
Now the confusing part: The
Vive Cosmos wasn’t the only
standalone headset HTC
announced at CES. Whereas the
Vive Cosmos seems like the
more consumer-focused of the
two, and like it’s being
positioned as an Oculus Quest
competitor, the Vive Pro Eye
seems more enterprise-focused,
even though there’s very little to
distinguish it from the Vive
Cosmos. Again, we’ve got a standalone
headset with dual front-facing cameras,
allowing for inside-out position tracking.
The interesting hook with the Vive Pro Eye is
the inclusion of eye-tracking. I’m assuming that
tech resulted from a partnership with Tobii, but
HTC didn’t say for sure, promising more details
later this year. [UPDATE: Tobii confirmed after
the fact that its tech is powering the Vive Pro
Eye.] Regardless, you’ll be able to both
navigate the headset and VR experiences with
eye-tracking. More importantly, eye-tracking
allows for Dynamic Foveated Rendering,
drastically reducing the performance overhead
for VR by rendering areas you aren’t actively
looking at in lower fidelity. We saw a Tobii
demo last March (go.pcworld.com/tb11) and
were incredibly impressed.
That said, it’s strange to see eye-tracking
siphoned off to its own Vive headset model
and not included with the Vive Cosmos—
especially if the Vive Cosmos is a PC/mobile
hybrid of sorts. Dynamic Foveated Rendering
would theoretically boost performance of
those mobile experiences a not-insignificant
amount. It seems like a perfect fit for HTC’s new
flagship, not an also-ran like the Vive Pro Eye.VIVEPORT
Lastly, these were billed as “major
announcements” so I’m sticking them in here,
but...I’m not so sure. HTC is still pushing its
own Viveport service, a launcher that’s similar
to Oculus Home. HTC keeps shouting, “Hey,
did you know you can buy all your VR games
through Viveport?” And then every Vive
owner is like, “Uh...Steam exists.”
That’s how it’s been for almost three
years now.
But they keep trying. HTC’s primary hook
has been Viveport’s subscription service,
which allows you to pay $9 a month to playThe Vive Pro Eye.