HTC Vive Focus Vision — Mixed Reality and PC VR Headset + Controllers — Consumer Edition

I was unsure about buying the Focus Vision at first because of its high price, but after trying it out, I think it's worth it for those who want both standalone and PCVR functionality. Switching between untethered and PC modes is smooth, and the PCVR performance is excellent, especially when using the DisplayPort converter for clear visuals. Even though the design is a bit bulky, the headset feels surprisingly comfortable. The weight is well-balanced, thanks to the battery being placed at the back, which makes long sessions easier. One of its best features is the automatic IPD adjustment, which is especially handy if multiple people are sharing the device. The display is sharp, and the MR mode works well. But there are some downsides. The price is quite high, and the headset uses an older Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 chip, which might not handle future demands as well as newer processors. The Fresnel lenses are functional but not as clear as the more advanced pancake lenses found in other headsets. Also, the standalone software options are limited, but the PCVR performance helps make up for this. This Focus Vision is a great choice for those who want a VR headset that works well for both standalone and PCVR uses. While it has a few flaws, its comfort, display quality, and versatility make it a solid option if you’re okay with the price.

I've owned a few HTC Vive products, and was ready for an upgrade... but this isn't it. I knew these came with Fresnel lenses but figured the bump in resolution and auto-IPD would make up for it. I was very wrong... My use case is connected PCVR, primarily seated racing. First the good - the additional resolution is great! The headset is reasonably weighted but well balanced, with the battery in the back. I wear glasses, and the fit was a bit tight with my glasses often getting stuck in the face pads, but overall it was comfortable. I didn't have a chance to use these for long periods, but compared to my other VR headsets, I would say these are in the slightly more comfortable region. You can feel the fan kick on to keep your face cool during VR sessions, the pads are removable and comfortable, and it offers a lot of adjustments. I also appreciate the speakers connected to the strap but positioned to offer you great sound without cutting out exterior noise - that way you can hear when someone is trying to get your attention while you're in VR. I have no real issues with the controllers - they were light and responsive. Yes the Valve Index controllers are better, but the Focus Vision controllers are light and balanced and offer all the features you'd expect. It does come with a dual USB-C charging cable... but no charger. That's a huge miss... you shouldn't need to purchase anything at this price range, and likely most users have a spare USB-C charger, but still... My first big issue was my fault - during setup, I picked up a controller and accidentally hit a button which selected Korean as the default language. Even though this kit was intended to be connected to a PC, the headset saves your setup, so I had to hunt around to find a factory reset (hold the battery and volume down until the display comes on, let go of the battery button, wait for the menu to pop up and then use volume down to select factory reset. Hit the side auto-IPD button to select, and let it run). There should be a way to go back and select languages... that's a terrible design. It took opening a ticket with HTC and waiting a few days for a response to find the factory reset settings... You need the overpriced PC connection cable to connect to a PC - though it can work over Wifi to a limited extent, my experience was not great. I even set up a separate 5GHZ wifi just for my PC and Focus Vision. The connection was laggy... with the wired kit, it worked a handful of times but kept losing connectivity to my PC's display port (a 4070ti). I moved it to my main gaming rig running a 4090 with the same issues. For the price of the connection kit, it should work flawlessly... but it doesn't. On bootup, there's maybe a 30% chance it detects my display port. When it doesn't, I had to fiddle with shutting everything down, rebooting the headset and PC, and try again... it shouldn't be this hard. Auto-IPD almost never worked, nor did eye tracking. On occasion, the auto-IPD would kick in for no reason and start adjustments... other times it wouldn't work at all, forcing you to load up the main menu and make manual adjustments. I can see this being a huge pain over time, especially if you have more than one user with different settings. And those setting menus are sometimes static (they move with your head, not one that stays fixed so you can move around and focus on different areas). With the fresnel lenses, that means the bulk of some setup and config menus are too blurry to read. This is likely less of an issue with users who don't wear glasses, but the setup and config shouldn't include any static menus like this. I found that static menu issue more when it lost connectivity to PC over display port, so if you can get the PC cable working it may not be as much of an issue. Overall, this is a huge miss for HTC. In this price range, we should expect better lenses, it should include all the connectivity and cabling, and it should be flawless and easy to set up.

I love this headset, don't get me wrong. The picture quality is 5 star, auto IPD is awesome to have, and it's standalone. It has great passthrough, but what makes me rate it 3 stars is ease of use when wanting to go the extra mile. It has no support for the Index controllers or it's own 3.0 trackers. You have to buy an additional tracker to attach to the headset, and use a 3rd party software like openvr space calibrator to constantly update your position. With how frequently the area messes up, and how poor the ultimate trackers are, if you are doing this to just get eye tracking for VRchat, you should look into options that use the base stations. Especially if you want to use index controllers and 3.0 trackers. If you don't HAVE other trackers, you are forced to buy the terrible ultimate trackers or spend extra on base stations, (4) 3.0 trackers + straps + attachement to headset + stream kit + face tracker for the full experience, ontop of the pain to set it up using space calibrator. If you're okay with dealing with the worst setup to enter VRchat daily possible, then yeah, this headset is one of the best you can buy on the market.

This is just amazing , I

I bought this HTC Vive Focus for my son - he was coming from an Oculus. He was honestly expecting a big upgrade as the price is ridiculously high. Hah - what a joke - the quality is horrible for the price. Very disappointed. We returned this pronto! Oculus outranks this by 1000 percent. DO NOT waste your money!

Very uncomfortable and the sceens suck the my valve index from 2019 is 100% better then this headset and its costs a third of the price

Coming from a meta quest 2 to this i wished I bought a quest 3. After using it for about 4 months this is how my experience has been. The build material is good but that is the little I can say good about it, the camera have poor tracking despite the better resolution cameras compared to a quest 2 resulting in me fighting the tracking during gameplay, the grip buttons are far to sensitive almost always registering a double input when putting down anything, lastly worse of all the crap connection it has to my pc (wired) with it at any random time sending my vision rolling resulting in my stopping everything to reboot the vive connection to my pc. OVERPRICED JUNK BUY ALMOST ANY OTHER COMPETITOR HEADSET! COST ME 3X THE PRICE OF A META QUEST 3!

Constant coil noise from the cable, bad mic compared to the index, the screen is super low quality compared to a Quest 3 or Index. My eyes got dried out in 5 minutes by the internal fan, and I could barely fit the headset to my face properly like the Index can fit. The FOV is completely misleading, insane black barring. Yet it costs more than an Index?!?!.