Many VR headset owners buy their hardware simply to play games. Others use them for creative, training or business purposes. While Apple has an extremely high-end Vision Pro with limited hook-ins to existing PC VR tools, Meta has shifted focus from its outdated Quest Pro to mainstream -- and more affordable -- headsets like the Quest 3 and the expected lower-cost Quest 3S. HTC, with its upcoming $999 Vive Focus Vision XR headset, looks like it might fill the void for midrange, business mixed reality for those who think they might need it.
The Focus Vision XR, much like the Quest 3 and Vision Pro, has passthrough cameras that blend visuals of the real world with layered virtual objects. The standalone headset is like an updated version of the company's previous Vive Focus 3, still using a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor and also has the same 2,448x2,448-pixel-per-eye resolution. That's higher than the Quest 3's display resolution, though, and with a larger, 120-degree field of view.
HTC also has onboard eye tracking, something Meta has left off its headsets since the Quest Pro. The eye tracking also handles automatic IPD (interpupillary distance) measurement for the headset's setup.
The Vive headset has its own controllers but could be used with wrist-worn, separately sold trackers, too.
HTCI haven't tried the Focus Vision XR yet, but it sounds like a targeted upgrade to what its existing VR hardware could do, with the added benefits of eye tracking and mixed reality. HTC already had its toes in mixed reality before with the experimentally designed, glasses-like HTC Vive XR Elite, but the Focus Vision XR looks more practically designed for glasses-wearers, with a hot-swappable rear battery that can last for about two hours. The headset has a relatively low 128GB of storage, but a MicroSD card slot can expand storage to as much as 2TB.
This headset also promises to work well with PC gaming, with a DisplayPort mode coming next year that connects directly to PC graphics cards and runs apps at 120Hz. The headset has two USB-C ports, and one of them can connect to DisplayPort via an adapter. Will that feel appreciably better than the already-capable Quest 3 does with PC VR? Hard to tell.
The Focus Vision XR's $999 price (or $1,299 for a version with business software tools) puts it way above the Quest 3, but lower than the Vision Pro. It's unlikely to win over any gamers considering the Quest 3 is already a great and more affordable multipurpose headset, but it might help serve as a middle ground for businesses and developers looking for a compact PC-ready headset for training. In that sense, it might be the most practical, higher-end, PC-friendly headset we see this year.