Valve announces VIVE wireless add on kit - $220 pre orders friday!

[PassiveVR]

WOW. DID NOT SEE THIS COMING!

Valve announces WIRELESS ADD ON
PACK for VIVE - pre orders start Friday just $220 dollars 90 minute
battery life, NO downsides (no lag etc).

http://uploadvr.com/htc-vive-wireless-kit/

THIS
is why you all need to quit griping about Valve and welcome them if you
are fans of VR, seriously Oculus alone will not get us to the VR
promised land, competition is good, no great, and a wireless VIVE has
just pretty much made up for all it's ergonomic issues (in context)
negated much of what Rift had going for it. This is big news.

I expect the new controllers to be announced soon too which are looking to surpass touch (and I like touch).

Wrap
all this tech up in the revised unit Vive 1.5 early next year, with
some improvements and this will be hard to beat in 2017 unless Oculus
have more up their sleeves than that standalone underpowered mobile
unit.

[PassiveVR]

And here's a pre-emptive "lol" for Zenbane and his magic spin machine that will find fault in anything unless Facebook provided it first.

Sorry pal, if you can't see why this is good for all of us including oculus users/fans then you are beyond narrow minded. Time to give up the playground tactics and face (virtual) reality.

Note to others, this post was because He just jumped on this announcement in the Vive thread calling it basically 'pointless' and worse than cable (even though you can still use the cable for when the battery is recharging).

Frankly I only spent an hour or less in VIVE when active so 90 mins is great for this early on, and they said they will sell bigger batteries for longer times.

Next up, Zenbane finds fault with the human leg muscles and declares them void and "Pointless"

[TwoHedWlf]

Interesting. Like to know how well it works. Good chance it would work with a rift if it just supplies power and transmits hdmi and usb.

[Zenbane]

@PassiveVR

"Note to others, this post was because He just jumped on this
announcement in the Vive thread calling it basically 'pointless' and
worse than cable (even though you can still use the cable for when the
battery is recharging)."

I said none of those things, but by all means, listen to the voices in your head.


"Frankly I only spent an hour or less in VIVE"

I believe it. I've been saying this for months... that the Vive's worth is measured in minutes.

This will be a fun topic when the product actually ships.

[HiThere_]

A year ago I'd have considered the HTC Vive over the CV1 because of that...

But today I know a good cable management costs 10 times less to implement then that 220$ : The battery limit would make it more of an expensive downgrade then an upgrade for me 🙂

[kojack]

TwoHedWlf said:

Interesting. Like to know how well it works. Good chance it would work with a rift if it just supplies power and transmits hdmi and usb.

From a data point of view, it should be possible to get it working with a rift, since it's just taking hdmi and usb on one side and giving out hdmi and usb on the other. Although we all know how fussy the rift is about extension cables and ports, so it might not be that simple. But there's a good chance.

The physical aspect would be a little harder. First, the CV1 has a custom plug that incorporates hdmi and usb in one. You would need to carry the entire 4m cable looped up to get the separate connectors, or hack up a cable to make a shorter one. (At least the oculus cable is so thin and light that looping it up isn't much of a weight)
Second, power. The Vive is powered by an explicit power cable and power adapter, while the CV1 is powered by usb. The potential issue is that the TPCast may not provide enough power on it's usb port to handle the rift, because it has a power cable for the Vive. So there may be even more cable hacking to get the power output onto a usb cable.
Although the good news is that since usb can power the CV1 but Vive needs extra power, the TPCast's battery should last longer with a rift. 🙂

Sounds pretty interesting, I'll have to see if I can get my work to buy one.

(They say numbers will be very limited, and orders will be prioritised to people who provide a valid Vive serial number)

[Mwilliams78]

Meh... Making it wireless doesn't change the fact that it still feels like a development kit. Ive spent way more time on my Rift then my Vive even without Touch its still far superior. The Vive is clunky, uncomfortable, sub par  visuals  and the controllers feel very unpolished.  I broke out the DK2 to lend to a friend a few weeks ago and set it up with OH to make sure everything was in working order and  thought even the DK2 looked and felt abit better then my Vive.  All the crappy demos and parlor games witch cost as much as full release games make it feel even more like a development kit.  Any game worth playing on my Vive was already on the Rift with one or 2 exceptions  or I needed revive to make them  work,  they still look way better and play way smoother on my Rift and  leaps and bounds more comfortable.   Making Vive wireless just turns it into an  standalone underdeveloped mobile unit...  By the time Vive gets their hmd even close to Oculus  Im guessing Oculus will will be well on their way to even more great quality and content. I got both right out of the starting gate and am far more impressed with Oculus. Cant wait to get my hands on the Touch 🙂

[CrashFu]

Y'know what?  Good for them, and I mean it.   Going wireless is a HUGE necessity for Room-Scale VR in a home environment to actually be safe and practical.  Now they just need for half the people interested in such experiences to actually HAVE a room in their homes suitable for use (and we've got the blooper reels to prove many people don't), and for developers to actually start making more Room-Scale experiences (instead of just Standing-VR experiences).

Putting aside those two 'small' details, the Vive might actually find itself a niche in the VR Market post-December by focusing more on the Room-Scale aspect, once Rift has surpassed it in every other way.  The Vive's lack of comfort doesn't matter as much if you're only doing short experiences, and who wants to spend more than thirty minutes in one Room-Scale experience anyways?

Of course, that complete Vive Room-Scale set-up is going to cost just about DOUBLE that of a minimum Rift set-up (thanks to ASW lowering the necessary PC cost for the Rift), but I'm sure that won't bother the most die-hard Room-Scale enthusiasts, considering how much they've been willing to spend already.

[HiThere_]

CrashFu said:

Going wireless is a HUGE necessity for Room-Scale VR in a home environment to actually be safe and practical.

Say goodbye to your 2015 assumptions and welcome to the 2016 reality : As I just mentioned in this thread, with a minimum amount of cable management you totally don't need to go wireless to create a totally safe room scale home environment.

And the lack of dependency on a 90 min battery that has to be recharged, and of any wireless related issues, and of not placing a battery near your head (with it's heat and even explosion risk), makes the wired solution both the safer and more practical one.

[CrashFu]

@Cyril - Got some good examples of cable-management tools or DIY kits or somesuch?  I'm curious to what the ones you've seen entail, and how goofy they look. :tongue:

Even if you get the cable out of the way though, I'd imagine you're still going to feel it there  (and risk yanking the entire cable management rig down if you move too quickly or trip or it snags on something).  Some people will go for cable-management to avoid the extra weight and heat of the wireless system's battery, sure, but which one is preferable is subjective..

As for the matter of cost, some people would be willing to pay that just to not have to deal with the whole cable-management rig and the time and effort to set it up.   Just strapping on this wireless kit seems like it'd be much easier, and if it isn't convenient to leave the cable-management rig and the Vive itself sitting out all the time, that could be another plus for the wireless kit.

And I certainly hope they tested to make sure the packs don't explode before they let anyone buy it. :anguished:

After the Note 7 fiasco, you'd think device manufacturers would be more cautious than ever about that sort of thing