HTC announced that it plans next month to launch new glasses for virtual reality and augmented reality that will re-establish its presence in the market.
The Taiwanese company did not disclose the specifications of the glasses, which will be launched during the Consumer Electronics Show CES 2023, which will be held on January 5 next. But HTC’s global product chief, Shen Yi, spoke to the media about what the company is trying to achieve with the new design, which offers a small and lightweight headset that fully supports virtual reality and augmented reality.
“It’s about taking all these advances we’ve made, not only in the design aspects, but also in the technical aspects, and offering something interesting and attractive to consumers,” says Ye.
Based on an image shared by HTC, the unnamed glasses feature a goggle-like appearance with front and side cameras. Buyers will be able to use the glasses for gaming, entertainment, exercise, and even “some of their tougher use cases,” Yi says: work and productivity tools.
The glasses will have a two-hour battery, be fully self-contained, and support a six-degree joystick, as well as hand tracking. One of the main features of the glasses is external cameras that pass a color video stream to users’ screens, allowing for mixed reality experiences.
This mixed reality option is still somewhat experimental, and Yi highlighted the company’s ongoing relationships with developers and said that the best use cases will likely emerge after the launch.
It is noteworthy that the upcoming glasses are the same ones that HTC hinted at last October, and at that time, it was expected that the glasses would be a successor to the Vive Flow glasses, which are consumer-oriented glasses that were launched last year.
HTC has not confirmed this but describes the upcoming glasses as an application of the lessons it learned from making Vive Flow glasses and Vive Focus advanced glasses for businesses.
It is believed that the combination of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies in one glass will put HTC glasses in competition with the newly launched Meta Quest Pro glasses, and the long-awaited glasses from Apple.
HTC’s glasses will feature a depth sensor over the Quest Pro, which could allow for more efficient tracking and more complex mapping of users’ physical environments. It will also be distinguished by photographing the surrounding environment in a way that enables the user to read texts on a laptop or smartphone through the glasses’ cameras.
It is not known if the glasses will provide the eye-tracking feature that the Meta glasses provide, but when asked about it, Yi indicated that the Vive Focus 3 glasses got eye-tracking support as an optional standard upgrade, which is something HTC offers frequently for its glasses.
While the price of the headset is not known yet, Ye cautioned that it will look expensive compared to the Meta Quest 2 headset, which retails for $399. It is expected that the upcoming glasses will be sold at a price ranging between $ 499, which is the price of the Vive Flow glasses, and $ 1,300 for the Vive Focus 3 glasses.
