HTC's latest video headset does not need external trackers, but it feels like doing so.

After starting as extremely limited versions of their PC-powered counterparts, standalone VR headsets are starting to be quite advanced, at least on paper. The latest example announced is the Vive Focus Plus, a stand-alone headset that HTC first revealed last week and that we were able to try ourselves at Mobile World Congress 2019.

The most obvious upgrade from the Vive Focus Plus to the original Vive Focus is its controllers. Instead of the unique controller you got with the original Focus, you now get two. More importantly, though, they both support 6 degrees of freedom (or DoF) instead of the 3DoF of the original. This means that in addition to following their rotation, they can also be tracked as they move.

Photo of Tom Warren / The Verge

The number of buttons has also increased compared to the original controller. Rather than a simple trackpad and a single trigger, you now get two triggers, a trackpad and two face buttons. This allows a lot more features, but in my demo, I only needed to use a single trigger and the trackpad.

While the PC-connected headsets, such as the HTC Vive and the original Vive Pro, have tracked the movements of their controller using external base stations, with the Vive Focus Plus, all this tracking is performed by the headset itself. There are limits to its tracking ability (it will lose track of a controller if you hold it behind your head, for example), but as long as your hands are well in front of your body, the headset's sensors should be able to see and follow them.

The result, in theory, is a similar experience to the room – scale tracking that the HTC Vive has been able to offer only on the PC before. You can stand up, walk around, crouch and the helmet must be able to follow your moment.

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Having the ability to move means that the Vive Focus Plus should tell you the areas of your virtual zone where you can move safely. To do this, it creates blue grid lines in the air as you approach the exit of your play space. While the Vive connected to the PC allows you to manually set this area with the help of the One of the motion controllers, the Focus Plus automatically creates this area around you. When you install the headset, the Focus Plus considers you to be in the center of your play area and automatically generates the barriers around you.

Internally, the Vive Focus Plus specifications are similar to those of the existing Vive Focus. He is still powered by a Snapdragon 835 from Qualcomm. It has the same 3K AMOLED display with a resolution of 2880 x 1600 and is always rechargeable via USB-C. HTC claims that you will have about three hours of autonomy with 30 minutes of charge, although a representative of SimForHealth, the developer behind one of the show's demonstration experiments, conceded that the battery life of the headset was sometimes as low. one hour with intensive use.

On the outside, the design of the headset has been slightly modified with more padding for your forehead to better distribute its weight, but it is a very similar material overall.

Removing the need for external base stations while offering 6DoF controllers is certainly ambitious, but when I had the opportunity to try the Vive Focus Plus for myself, I did not feel that tracking in depth was quite up to the task. replace them. From the moment I put on the helmet to try a demonstration, there was a slight flicker as it seemed to have a hard time understanding that my head remained more or less still.

Photo of Tom Warren / The Verge

Unfortunately, things deteriorated during the demonstration. This was a simulation of nurse training produced by SimForHealth, designed to teach you how to change a PICC line dressing (the medical tubes inserted into a person's arm allowing him to to be connected to a). The experience asked me to evaluate the patient, to follow the proper hygiene procedures and to change the elements of my dressing in the right order.

This meant that you had to work hard to collect material, interact with a virtual patient, and teleport into the virtual environment, but unfortunately the monitoring of the headset was often not up to the task. At one point in the demonstration, my virtual hands moved away from me. At another, I suddenly became seven feet tall.

The most disorienting was an occasion when I teleported outside of what the Vive Focus Plus considered my "safe" play space. Logically, I wanted to advance to be on the right side of the blue grid lines, but as I knew I had been slightly teleported, I could not trust myself anymore to not inadvertently walk into a wall.

Trade shows such as MWC are a difficult place to present products in the best conditions. There is a lot of radio interference and the show stage is a mix of lighted stands and sometimes very dark shadows. This is the kind of environment that a headset would find it difficult to find, before mentioning that the software I was using was also a work in progress. But whatever the reason, the Vive Focus Plus just did not follow me very well during my demo. We will have to see if this will improve once we have completely reviewed the HTC Vive Focus Plus.

Apart from tracking issues, however, the overall graphics quality of the headset was acceptable since it was running on a mobile processor. The 3K display did not have a large door screen effect, and the graphics were a little loose, but still perfectly clear.

The virtual reality experiences shown by HTC for the Focus Plus were business-focused and it is clear that it is its target users for the headset rather than the consumers who could use it for entertaining. Besides the SimForHealth demonstration I've tried, Immersive Factory has produced a factory training experience.

Photo of Tom Warren / The Verge

Targeting business users probably gave HTC different priorities for the Vive Focus. For example, a headset should be brought to a new location for on-site training or quickly installed in a conference room for a day of training from time to time.

But that also means that the Vive Focus Plus is not quite the latest-generation gaming VR helmet you could have hoped for. Tracking focuses on convenience over accuracy, and HTC has been keen to show professional headset applications rather than games.

This is not the case with competition. Oculus Chief Technology Officer John Carmack recently called the future Oculus Quest standalone gaming console a competitor for the Nintendo Switch. With its two 6DoF controllers, the Quest is also a competitor quite close to Vive's new autonomous helmet.

The Vive Focus Plus will be marketed in the second quarter of this year at a price that has not been announced yet.