HTC Gives First Look At Lightweight Meta Quest Pro Competitor

According to The Edgewhich is provided with a version of the new hardwareHTC plans to unveil another consumer-focused virtual reality and augmented reality headset at CES 2023 next month, with features that may rival the recently announced Meta Quest Proincluding full color passthrough video.

Although the full announcement and reveal is still a few weeks away, HTC has teased some early details about the unannounced hardware The Edge. Like the Meta Quest Pro and older Quest models, the headset will be a self-contained, all-in-one unit (unlike most of HTC’s other offeringswhich requires a permanent connection to a gaming PC) with around two hours of battery life and support for controllers with six degrees of detected motion, plus hand tracking.

The unnamed headset will also include front-facing and side-facing cameras, allowing the wearer to still see their surroundings in full color, facilitating augmented reality and mixed reality experiences. That was probably the most compelling reason to splurge on the recently announced $1,500 Quest Pro, as Meta’s older headsets only provide a grainy, black and white video feed of a user’s surroundings to ensure they don’t crash into anything (or anyone). However, the new HTC headset will potentially outperform the competition, with HTC promising enough detail to allow users to still read text on PCs and smartphones through the pass-through video, while the addition of a depth sensor will also make it much better. will make to map an accurately. user’s environment and the insertion of virtual content into it.

The version of the new headset does not provide too many additional details, although it does not look significantly different from the recent one HTC Vive Flow, which looked like oversized safety glasses. This goes along with hints that HTC posted in October that its next big product will be compact and lightweight.

HTC will also reveal details about the new headset’s pricing at CES, but Shen Ye, the company’s global product chief, said The Edge that it doesn’t plan to subsidize the hardware by collecting and selling users’ data, and as a result the new hardware will likely be significantly more expensive than the $400 Meta Quest 2. That’s good news for those who value their privacy, but it could make the new headset a tough sell for most consumers, who seem happy to trade privacy for heavily discounted hardware.”

Update 16/12/22 at 14:05:

This article originally stated that the Vive Focus 3 required a computer connection, which is not the case. We regret the error.