Vive unveiled its standalone VR headset at yesterday’s Vive Developer Conference 2017 (VDC2017) in Beijing, China. The Vive Focus has been designed to appeal to a mass market audience, with enhanced comfort for extended use, easy on-off capabilities, and it’s the first commercial standalone device to deliver inside-out 6-degree-of-freedom tracking (6DoF), which Vive calls world-scale.

Alvin Wang Graylin, China Regional President of Vive at HTC said, "We are excited to bring high quality 6DoF VR experiences, which were previously only available on tethered devices, in a more convenient and portable form factor."

With its colourful glossy finish, the Focus certainly looks more like a consumer product than the military prototype vibe of the Vive. The design is also less ski mask and more PS VR. The Focus’ display is a high-resolution AMOLED screen with low latency and ‘unmatched clarity’, according to HTC. It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 VR Platform with access to the library of VR content available on Viveport.

A More Mobile And Connected World

Hugo Swart, Senior Director, Product Management at Qualcomm said, "As the world continues to become more mobile and connected, we've been working closely with Vive though our HMD Accelerator Program and advanced VR software features to enable immersive virtual reality experiences without the needs for wires or PCs. The combination of Snapdragon's ultra-low power, high performance VR coupled with the new Vive Wave VR open platform will help content developers deliver best-in-class mobile VR experiences to users."

No details have been released regarding the controller - there is only one, not a pair - but it looks to be closer to its Daydream counterpart than Vive wands.

As HTC said, “Without the need to be attached to a PC or a phone, the Vive Focus provides unlimited freedom of mobility while reducing the total cost for users to own a premium VR device. This type of device will certainly appeal to a much larger group of consumers.”