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 originally pre-ordered this from HTC and it included the PCVR cable kit as part of the pre-order. The release date came and they had no idea when my order would ship so I cancelled my order with HTC and ordered from Amazon. Not thinking about the pre-order deal it arrived with no cable kit. My fault, I’ll admit to that. So I had to order the PCVR cable kit for an additional $150.00 (+tax) and was told my order for that will not ship until late November. So I have the $999.00 Vive headset that I can’t use as a PCVR device. The unit is standalone but as I have several VR headsets that are standalone that was not the purpose of this purchase. Likes: SD card slot for expanded storage (Up to 2TB on card). Eye tracking (with available face tracking for $99.00). Automatic IPC adjustment. Vivid colors and large field of view. Hot swapable battery. Dislikes: Fresnel lenses. (for this price it should have had pancake lenses). Comfort (Not a light as my Meta 3). Price (for this price you could buy 2 Meta 3’s with 512G storage and have family fun). Last generation CPU (Snapdragon 1 instead of the faster Snapdragon 2 found on the Meta 3). Built in storage is only 128Gig and that can run out fast with AAA games. Controllers have rings on them ala Meta 2 type controllers. Vive store does not come close to the Meta store as far as content. Hand tracking does not seem as precise as Meta’s. So, my go-to VR headset is still my Meta 3 and if and when I can do PCVR I will come back and edit this review and if warranted give it a higher score. EDIT: Finally received my $150.00 cable kit for PCVR. Finding the headset to be very flimsy and uncomfortable to wear for more than an hour. Not the simplest plug and play on the cable kit to, so no, I will not increase my rating. This thing is WAY overpriced for what you get in functionality. My go to is still going to be the Meta Quest 3 that costs less than half this price and is a far more advanced headset. EDIT: After 6 months of using this devise I have lowered the score by one star (to one star). Tracking is horrendous and getting almost impossible to use. This is one of 8 VR headsets I own and by far the least used (besides my Pico 4e) and the biggest disappointment of them all. Certainly not worth what they are asking in price.

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.

The HTC Vision VR headset offers a well-rounded virtual reality experience, with impressive hardware and smooth performance. Its lightweight, ergonomic design ensures comfort during extended use, and the adjustable straps make it easy to fit various head sizes. The high-resolution displays provide sharp visuals, while the wide field of view immerses users in detailed virtual environments. One standout feature is the tracking system, which delivers precise and responsive movement detection. Combined with the controllers’ intuitive design, it enhances interactions in both gaming and productivity applications. HTC also offers a solid library of content, making the Vision VR a versatile headset for entertainment, training, and VR collaboration. However, there are a few drawbacks. The setup process can be slightly complex, particularly for users new to VR, and the price point is on the higher side compared to some competitors. Additionally, while the content library is growing, it’s still catching up to more established platforms. Overall, the HTC Vision VR is a strong choice for those seeking a premium, immersive VR experience, particularly in environments where high fidelity and accurate tracking are essential.

This POV is coming from a PC VR user with roughly 500 hours of use in the past year with this headset Overall do I recommend the Vive Focus Vision? Yes. Pros: rather amazing face tracking from what I have experienced comparing to other headsets. The video quality is actually pretty good and I hardly notice the pixels themselves Cons Not lighthouse tracked (can be 'solved' with an extra tracker to sync playspaces) The cable - will get more into this later The controllers - will have this detailed later Starting off on the most important piece of information when it comes to my review; I pre-ordered this headset. With this came out there were little to no resources available at the time for me to set up headset with ease without running into confusion. As more people got the headset and tutorials/guides came up, I was able to overcome most, if not all, issues with initial set-up. Connection options: USB, Display Port, and Wireless. Display port is by far the best mode, but as I will detail below in the cable section, there are definitely announces with it. The wireless mode works pretty great, once you figure out the settings. Setting the bitrate in the settings along with TCP for transmission mode I notice significantly helped my lag I was getting with wireless mode. With wireless mode & USB mode, I do notice that it is laggier than using display port mode itself, though this also could be related to my GPU dying - so take this with a 50/50 with this part. Programs utilized: Vive Hub - through this you go through initial setup to connect your headset to your PC. Once this program is open, you will be able to connect your Vive Focus Vision to your computer using any of the methods listed above, along with a data transfer method (so far unused for me). VRC Face Tracking (available on steam) utilizing the "ViveSteamingFaceTrackingModule"(can share). This originally was very difficult to set-up. Despite this headset being promoted for use with VRChat - the face tracking through the Vive Hub app itself does not work properly with VRChat. Now, it actually gives you a prompt to use VRCFT, but previously when the headset first came out, this was unknown, and caused lots of confusion at the time. Once you connect your headset to the computer - Vive Hub automatically opens SteamVR and connects you right in, and from there you can utilize other programs through SteamVR. I personally have Open Space Callibrator & VRCFT both set to auto open with SteamVR. You will need an extra tracker to utilize Open Space Callibrators constant callibration between the headset & this extra tracker to sync playspaces like you would with any non-lighthouse tracked headset. Controllers: The controllers are rather mid, the headset does offer hand tracking but this hasn't been intigrated with use for VRChat or through SteamVR as far as I know. Due to the controllers being non-lighthouse tracked, they also have rather poor tracking quality (especially if you like to put your hands behind your back). There is also the fact, that you must leave the controllers on for the headset to fully function. This causes them to get picked up as trackers when calibrating in VRChat. For this, I have recently found use in a program called Standable that allows you to assign certain trackers to certain spots & also tell certain trackers not to be picked up during calibration. Even utilizing this only one night, it was a significant benefit compared to having to fight with those controllers outside of it. Due to how the headset tracks them, even putting them under a blanket/etc, will keep them tracked to their last known location. The Cable: When you get this cable out of the box, it comes with a 30w power brick to connect to a power outlet. This is not enough for this headset to function under DisplayPort mode. If you want to utilize DisplayPort mode, you need to buy a 45w brick at the minimum. Once this was switched, most issues related to connecting disappeared. The cable itself is also really flimsy. I've replaced it twice, and need to again. The displayport mode doesn't even work anymore. It also is definitely lagging & disconnecting more and more, even with USB mode now. If you want to utilize wireless mode, you will want to buy a second battery for the headset (quick swappable on the back). If you ever do need to switch between USB mode and WIFI mode, or an other kind of mode, if you disconnect from Vive Hub, or purely close the app, when you reboot it will put you right back into SteamVR without closing SteamVR itself. It is actually pretty good for when you need to change things around. I will also note, I've had issues with my headset being just weird - like acting like it died, and showing an android crash screen (how I found this headset runs on android) but this is few and far in-between - and I am counting to my bad luck I have with technology, as I just happen to run into some weird issues. I haven't heard of others having nearly as many random issues as I do - so I'm counting that to user error.

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.

For an almost $1000 headset it has given me a number of connectivity issues and power issues. And the overall build quality and feel just feels terribly flimsy compared to my quest 3 that I intended to replace with this headset. It works great when directly wired to your PC most of the time. But ive had issues with lost frames while wired. It Will not connect to my home wifi router straight out of the box. giving me an incorrect password error every time even with the correct password. Tried many times with no fix. So I cannot stream to my PC wirelessly, which was one of the main reasons I bought the headset. Even if the on-board battery is fully charged you cannot leave it sitting too long or else the headset will not power on unless plugged in with the battery installed for a minute or so. Also went into this headset with the fresnel lenses in mind and coming from a quest 3 I must be spoiled but even with the advertised 5k per eye its only crystal clear looking at one fixed point in the center of those fresnel lenses. I almost gave it 3 stars because The face and eye tracking is outstanding! But every other facet of the headset feels cheap. Unless you absolutely need eye tracking or face tracking this headset is NOT worth the money HTC is charging for it. This is the most terribly disappointing VR headset I've owned thus far for $900. And I was very excited to "upgrade" from my quest 3. Unless you NEED Eye and face tracking Get a Quest 3 or a Used Quest pro. Or wait for the Steamframe.

In advance I apologize for rambling and spelling mistakes- Okay so I genuinely love this headset, BUT I did run into an issue I am currently talking with Vive support but My left controller will NOT connect to my vr after a few months. This caused me to be soft locked in the pairing controller menu (making it so I am unable to move from the pairing controller menu) and I personally had to factory reset my vr (Not end of world for me as I play via displayport most of the time). Vive is really supportive and working with me to try and trouble shoot different things but despite this minor issue. This VR I utterly adore. I have had the Oculus Quest 1, 2, 3, and 3s and honestly moving to this at first was WEIRD. With it being a standalone it runs alright. I myself had gotten the display port and an extra battery which both also work amazing. If you are looking at moving from the quest to this I think the weirdest thing is the adjusting to amazing lens display and also how it runs on the computer. My computer runs so much better not having to deal with the oculus menu with connecting the quest to the pc which is amazing on its own. Overall it takes some getting use to and the small issue I have honestly hasn't really soured my view on the headset itself. I would absolutely buy this again as well as the DisplayPort which I WISH was not as expensive, but it runs beautifully. Battery swap is so easy I just recommend it.