New Cosmos Versions incoming.

[Glaucoma Predator]

 

[Glaucoma Predator]

Apparently $220 for the light house faceplate. That price is a bit ridiculous if true. 

[HoZy]

Really wish I returned mine now just so I could pick up an Elite. 

Or I wish Vive offered something for cosmos owners that want to upgrade since the tracking sucks. 

 

Cheers

[Cossack]

So the company skipped fixing the current broken Cosmos and just released what it should have at day one. A proper working item. 

How is Vive going to help current owners. 

[groslala]

I don't get HTC's policy with those expensive kits in a very competitive market. Why doesn't HTC just sell the Elite HMD alone, like the Vive Pro?

That would be the best option for people who want to upgrade their Vive (there are still 27% of Vive users on Steam according to the latest survey, but it won't last).

[TomCgcmfc]

On 2/22/2020 at 2:58 AM, Beta_Tester said:

The company is providing 3 new versions of the Cosmos. 2 of these use the same inside out tracking as ours, so I've no doubt they will have to make further improvements to the tracking. New versions are coming, but they have been delayed by the extended Chinese New Year. 

However, I certainly think that HTC should offer us 'beta' users a substantial discount on the new faceplate (with or without the lighthouses & wands). @VibrantNebula

I hope you're right about further inside-out tracking improvements.  Vive is going to have a hard time sell 3 out of 4 variants that have inside-out tracking unless they improve it a lot imho. 

I'm not sure why anyone would buy the Cosmos Elite combo since it seems to be priced the same in the US as the Vive Pro starter kit that also comes with 1.0 base stations/controllers. 

Actually in Australia Vive pricing seems even more confusing.  The early price now shown on the Vive Australia site for the Vive Cosmos Elite combo  (all in $aud) is $1,699 while the Vive Pro Starter kit (with the same 1.0 base stations/controllers) is just $1,299, or exactly the same as the current Cosmos kit.  The Vive Pro full kit (which I have) w/2.0 base stations/controllers is $1,899.

Since getting a Vive Pro w/2.0 base stations/controllers ~3 months ago I now feel a lot less likely to want to buy a SteamVR faceplate module for my Cosmos.  Esp. since this module is likely to cost me +aud$300 down under.  I would now prefer that Vive just gets our original Cosmos up to Oculus Rift S inside-out tracking standards.  Main reasons are because I prefer the Cosmos controllers over the Vive wands (and Index controllers are still not available in Australia) and I prefer the Vive Pro's oled screens in darkish games (better blacks/contrast).  Also, I find that my wireless adapter works a little better (more stable video) with my Cosmos (not sure why?).

[davide445]

Most of this seems to me a bit a marketing push. 

It theory you can achieve all of this just swapping the faceplate of the original Cosmos, so we can say they are just bundles of different options. 

Not considering price still unknown, curious about the XR. I'm doubtful for the effectivity of Play tracking considering the Cosmos is somethimes struggling with two more cameras. 

I'm doubtful about the superimposition with the Pro family. You can drop the Pro, offer a faceplate with OLED screen as option, and offer also drivers and enterprise support to the Cosmos for corporate usage.

I'm also interested to the Eye tracking but I'm not so happy to downgrade to the Pro model family (no faceplate, no new controllers, lower resolution, only OLED so more SDE). 

Edited February 23, 2020 by davide445

[davide445]

PS from the renderings the XR appear to be a Play with two more (probably) not tracking cameras, putting into question his tracking abilities. Also adding on the Eye topic to have eye tracking I need also to renounce to the XR offered features. 

So to sum up I appreciate the mix of technologies and services offered from the HTC Vive product line, not so much how they are bundled into actual products. 

Edited February 23, 2020 by davide445

[TomCgcmfc]

@davide445 There is no way that a faceplate swap to change the Cosmos lcd screens to oled is possible since the screens are an integral part of the headset and are not modular.  None of the Cosmos variants are going to look as good in most dark game environments as the Vive Pro's oled screens imho (and I know because I have both).  Hopefully in the near future developers will add in-game graphics options to help optimise lcd headsets. 

The Cosmos XR variant is an enterprise product so really does not come into play for most of us VR gamers.  It has higher resolution front cameras for AR apps.  Probably going to be another +5 years before we see this in consumer VR games/apps.

https://www.vive.com/au/product/vive-cosmos-xr/

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by TomCgcmfc

[davide445]

@TomCgcmfc yes not discussing about OLED pros that are unquestionable, simply about the business proposition. Pro and Cosmos line are just a bit wrongly aligned in my opinion in term of available features.

Being only interested on enterprise products (never used my Cosmos for gaming) here my interest for the XR. Again didn't comprehend why the most advanced features supposely useful for enterprise development (reading the articles seems the XR is presented as dev kit more than as a product) are pushed in the cosmos line that is supposed to have consumer focus with no enterprise support.