Qualcomm & HTC Announce VIVE Standalone VR Headset For China

Standalone VR platforms are beginning to crop up, providing a VR experience without the need for a smartphone or desktop computer. A couple of months back, Qualcomm announced a partnership and reference design for Google’s Daydream platform, a purpose-built experience for VR that extends beyond the capabilities of what Cardboard originally offered. Today, Qualcomm enters a partnership with HTC to create a standalone VIVE headset that will be part of HTC’s Viveport platform.

Before you get too excited, Viveport is an exclusive to China at this time, as that is where most of the development will be taking place. The VIVE standalone headset will be powered by the same chip as the Daydream reference model, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chipset, which is the same powerful processor found in premium smartphones, such as Samsung’s Galaxy S8.

Exact specifications and capabilities are unknown at this time, but there is a good chance it will be almost exactly the same as the Daydream model announced previously (as the image silhouette looks very similar). You are not going to get the same capabilities as the regular VIVE connected to a full gaming rig, also tracking won’t be as precise either due to a lack of external sensors, but it will likely use an on-board visual tracking system, similar to project Tango.

Such standalone devices do have a great deal of appeal, since smartphones are often not equipped for the rigors of VR simulation, nor are capabilities consistent enough. Just look at the number of smartphone VR headsets out there and the huge disparity in the experiences.

The reason for the Chinese exclusive comes down to a couple of likely reasons. China has explosive growth in both the mobile and VR markets, so HTC wants to capitalise on that. The second reason is to do with Google, or lack thereof, since the Play Store has limited availability in China. While the platform from HTC will be exclusive to China, it’s likely the hardware will be similar to the reference design with Daydream.