HTC VIVE Pro Virtual Reality Full System

I kept going back and forth with my husband on which VR to get. We chose this one mostly because it was the only one available at the time, but also because we looked it up on YouTube and a lot of people were recommending it. It took a little longer than expected to receive this item, probably because of COVID-19. However, we received it still in reasonable timing, and we have no regrets. Yes, it's a little pricey.. especially when you can go get the Oculus or the PSVR for way less. But let me say this, you get what you pay for in VR. Meaning, the quality is so much better in the HTC Vive than the Oculus or PS VR. I can say this because I have both. The game options are endless on PC versus the PlayStation. The controllers on the HTC Vive are comfortable and very responsive. It comes with two base stations, and when you're setting up the VR it asks you to set boundaries. Basically what it wants you to do is to take a controller and walk around the room to let it know when to inform you that you're too close to something. So say you walk into a square, and you put the headset on... If you walk too close to your refrigerator, there will be a wall that shows up in the VR to let you know not to go past that point or you're going to run into something. Lol unfortunately, there's no way for it to know where the ceiling is so be careful on that. If you have the option, I recommend a room with high ceilings, as my husband has already destroyed a light fixture while playing Beatsaber. Lol The only complaint with the HTC Vive is when you want to add add-ons. That's when it becomes a little bit more tricky and frustrating. For example, the wireless option... The HTC Vive has the option for wireless play, by buying a wireless adapter and installing it. Which is actually rather easy to do. However, it doesn't work as expected. So if you're wanting this VR because of the wireless option, just know that it's not very solid. It is beneficial for some games to have wireless, but your sacrificing quality for it. The battery life on the wireless is awful, and it'll occasionally cut out in the middle of your game which will throw you off your balance when you're in the middle of a gunfight and the whole screen goes black. Lol So just keep that in mind when buying VR. If you're buying it for the accessories, definitely look up reviews on said accessories. Other than that, we are very pleased with our VR. As you all know, it is expensive. But I promise you, you're going to have a blast with it. Just make sure before buying it, that you're going to play it enough to be worth the money. The quality itself is worth the money, but what really makes it worth it is how much you use it. Don't buy VR if you're only going to play it a couple times. If that's the case, go to a friend's house who has one. Another thing that I would like to point out is the physical sensation of being in this VR. What I mean is, a lot of VRs, especially when they first came out... Had a bunch of warnings about possible seizures, and other things that could happen because of the VR. For example, losing your balance or getting lightheaded or motion sickness... It happens. But, this VR is by far the most comfortable one that I've worn, and the least likely one to get me sick or to throw me off balance. I have played this VR for about 45 minutes at a time, Max. And I have yet to have any issues with dizziness or nausea, seizures, whatever it is. Where I can't say the same thing about the PSVR or the Oculus. The PSVR, is notorious for making people dizzy and nauseous (motion sickness). Even if you're only playing it for 15 minutes. That is a huge difference in the two VRs. So definitely keep that in mind when you're trying to justify the cost. It's going to be much more comfortable, and you're going to last longer in VR than you would in a cheaper headset. One last thing that I would Life to point out is the quality of the speakers on the headset. Unlike the PSVR, the HTC Vive Pro has speakers built into the headset. You can either have them up and away from your ear so you can hear other people and the game, or you can have them against your ear so that all your hearing is the game. They can get very loud, and they're actually really good quality speakers. You don't need another headset while using this VR. Just use the headset that it comes with, because it's good enough.

Bulky but the quality of the build is top notch picture quality is unmatched by other VR headsets. Tracking is good sound quality good 👍🏽

I bought the HTC Vive Pro system for my son for his birthday. I originally wanted to get him the older one since it was half the price, but most places were out of stock so he wouldn't have it in time for his birthday. My nephew has the old system, so we have used it many times, so this review is my comparison from the Vive to the Vive Pro. From the moment you open the box you can see there is a difference in the two systems. The Vive Pro has been colored blue which I can only guess is to make it look different enough from the original system to make people want to buy it? The setup is exactly the same for both systems. They make a very complex system easy to set up by numbering each box. By going in order opening each box, its pretty much fool proof. I would warn everyone to make sure before you setup this unit, go into Device Manager in Windows and verify that all your drivers are installed and working (If you see a red x or a yellow exclamation mark, fix this before installing the Vive). When I attempted to set this up on my son's computer, his USB 3.0 driver wasnt installed. This caused a lot of issues. Luckily I have been a computer engineer for almost 20 years, because I can't imagine how a non-technical person would have gotten around this. The whole setup took about 2 hours to complete (that includes mounting the sensors and hiding the wires inside the walls. Be sure before you begin to verify your computer far exceeds the minimum requirements. When I was researching the difference between the Vive & the Vive Pro, they kept mentioning the higher graphics resolution, but I have to say, I don't see much of a difference in the 2 systems. In fact, in my opinion, the only difference I see in the two systems is the color of the headset and controller and an upgrade in how the headset is constructed. Knowing what I know now, if presented the opportunity to choose between the Vive and the Vive Pro, I don't think paying the extra money was worth it. I paid almost $1,500 total (tax included) for the system, whereas you can get the old Vive system for around $800. I personally don't see enough of a difference in the two systems to warrant that kind of price jump. I will say that this system is like nothing you have ever seen before. The VR is so realistic you actually feel like you are somewhere else. Between the lifelike graphics and the amazing accompanying audio, you will not believe just how realistic this system is. If you look at the price without trying the system out, the price seems outrageous. Once you try the VR for yourself, you totally understand why its so expensive. If you have the money for one of these systems (either the original Vive or the Vive Pro) I recommended purchasing it. You won't be disappointed. The VR experience is like nothing you have ever experienced before.

The HTC Vive Pro Eye system is CURRENTLY NOT CAPABLE OF FOVEATED RENDERING as advertised!! There are demos from their partner Tobii's website that demonstrate eye tracking, which works well, but there DOES NOT EXIST at least ONE DEMO that demonstrates Foveated Rendering in action! I contacted HTC and they confirmed this to me. So, what this implies is that foveated rendering is NOT CURRENTLY POSSIBLE as it cannot be proven with a technology demo. They are basically using sales from HTC Vive Pro Eye to fund current ON-GOING research into future foveated rendering implementation. There is probably too much latency for foveated rendering to be feasible at this point... IF YOU WANT FOVEATED RENDERING NOW DO NOT BUY THIS SYSTEM! It will not deliver that capability. If you are interested in eye tracking/ VR integration and do not mind parting with a considerable amount of money for that, go ahead and buy one! It's also worth mentioning, despite their display panels operating at a higher resolution than most on the market, the lenses are sub-par at best compared to even Oculus Rift CV1 lenses! The Oculus Rift lenses have a greater range of clarity compared to the considerably more expensive HTC Vive Pro. Oculus uses a combination spherical and a finely graduated fresnel pattern compared to HTC Vives very coarsely graduated FRESNEL ONLY flat lense. This results in considerable blurriness in the periphery which gives them a very narrow "sweet spot" compared to even Oculus Rift CV1! I was very shocked to discover a system in the price range using Cardboard VR lenses... WTF??? You can add to that the terrible customer service... One of the CSRs I spoke to didn't know anything about a recently released product... In my opinion, don't waste your money...

I got the system when is was on sale (still very expensive!). I do get motion sickness very easily and is always hesitant about VR. For this headset I have no issue with motion sickness. I was a little disappointed that the set did not come with the wireless adapter (thats is extra $$). I did try PS4VR and it just simply is not comparable quality wise. PS4VR is a lot cheaper, however does not do room scale tracking, and gave me motion sickness on same game I would play on the Vive Pro. It should be noted that we have plenty of space at home and we track at least a 6ft x 5ft area for play and run on a NVIDIA 1070 Ti graphics card with other beefed up components. Some people mention tracking issues, for me I never had any issue with tracking playing a well constructed game. It should be noted that I set my Vive Pro up in a theater room with dark walls and no reflective surface or open windows. All in all a very solid VR system. I would recommend to anyone with a disposable income and enough space to get the benefits out of the room tracking system.

So, I got this to help me with some virtual reality media creation. Particularly for the Eye Tracking as, AS FAR AS I AM AWARE, the Valve Index does not have a modification that allows for eye tracking on it (which I would prefer to use as it allows for an 80hz refresh rate compared to the 90hz on the VPE) Quick review: Eye Tracking - Great Face Tracking Addon - Horrible mounting solution, falls off constantly for me. Whoever designed this, well... they did their best but its still horrible. Screen - OLED is great, little bit of initial screen door but it goes away quickly. FOV - Low. Way too low. Audio - Literally the worst audio I've heard, both mic and output. Mic sounds like i'm talking through a static receiver half a room away. Which, you know, at first i did go to check if i had the wrong input selected, but nope. It's just bad. Pick up a modmic or something. Anyways. I'd prefer to see some of the features of this headset like eye tracking and such in something better, like an index. That's all.

I bought the Vive Pro with Eye Tracking along with 3 base stations about 8 months ago, a month later I bought a second Vive Pro and 3 more base stations for my wife to play with. Last month a base station stopped working so I logged in and followed the steps to return it, two days latter Vive sent me a new one! a week later my thumb pads stopped working on two of the hand held controllers. I tried the calibration but no luck. I was worried that the replacement of the base station would make it harder to get the controllers repaired but NO, they were Fantastic to work with and replaced the controllers within two days. I spent over $5000.00 in vive gear and they were great to work with and the VR experience is fantastic. I would recommend this to all our friends! Thank you VIVE!!! We also bought 6 body trackers, 3 for each set and haven't used them yet. I would suggest you do some research to see if the trackers are for you.

I own the original VIVE headset since it debuted a couple of years ago. I decided to buy the PRO version for business, because of all the positive reviews about its reliability and increased resolution. Set-up: overall, it was pretty bad. I've read the stories about the long setup process that the PRO headset requires. I chose not to believe them, because I thought of myself as a pretty experienced person with VR. After all, I have the original VIVE and know how to deal with software updates and troubleshoot issues. Well, friends, I was wrong. At first everything was fine, as the little program that I downloaded from the HTC website was guiding me through the process. Then I was asked to sign in with the HTC account, so that I can "enjoy" my several months of free membership of their VR store. I googled around, and there was no way of continuing the installation of the headset without the HTC account. DEAR HTC, please don't drag me into your store if I am not interested. As a customer, I don't appreciate the strong-arming. I don't need another store subscription. I know what you are thinking: "he bought the headset, he has the installation running = he is invested deep enough now that he will register for the store account, even if he doesn't really want it." Nice calculus, but I am no longer a happy customer of yours after this kind of treatment. Long story short, I did register for the HTC account; I singed in with my Steam account. Moving on, the HTC install program did not recognize my USB 3 port as USB 3, no matter how I tried. USB 3 is required for optimum performance of the two cameras on the headset. That's fine, I thought, let's just skip this step. Then the installation program proceeded to download a whole bunch of stuff, including their store program which I did not really need, all in excess of 1 gig. At this point, I felt the process was becoming too involving. I was asked then to update all the software in the headset itself and the controllers. When all was done, at the end of the installation, I began receiving error messages from HTC software trying to sort things out with the Steam store and Steam VR. It was confusing and annoying, like watching two stores - HTC and STEAM - fight it out on my desktop. I also downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers (I run a 1080 card), and updated windows as well. Actual Use: I installed the lighthouses in the same spots where I had the original VIVE lighthouses installed. These things were supposed to be better, so I was pretty excited. Set up Room Scale VR as usual, set AUDIO in Steam VR to HMD, put on the headset and... the word to describe how I felt is "underwhelming." Many reviews say the screen door effect is "almost gone", "barely visible", or even "totally solved." I don't know how much these websites depend on advertising revenue from Steam or HTC, but the screen door effect is - clearly, 100%, in-your-face - there. I wasn't trying to look for it, I just wanted to focus on the image, but the screen door effect was photo-bombing everything just like it does in the original VIVE that was made 2 years ago. Yes, the headset is more comfortable than the original! And like most reviewers claim, it is a big deal. This is the only positive thing that I can say about the headset. Performance: With my 1080 card, I did not notice any jitter or frame drops. However, I had a lot of tracking issues where the floor would start flying from underneath me, or I would be pushed into the wall in the VR. I did room set up many many many times, and I adjusted the lighthouses many many many many times, trying all possible angles. I troubleshoot the headset for defective hardware, all was good. Did the setups again, and again received tracking madness. I switched back My original VIVE, and everything worked rock-solid. Then I did some googling, and it is a known issue. It seems, this new VIVE PRO is super-susceptible to issues if there are reflective surfaces nearby. I have several windows in my VR area that I suspect were causing the problem. However, my original VIVE has zero issues with those windows. I thought the VIVE PRO is supposed to be BETTER, right? I mean, more reliable? What's up with this, HTC? How come my original VIVE performs better than your newest PRO version? I bought this for business, I don't have time tinkering with it all the time. My original VIVE seems to be more PRO reliable than this newest, super-expensive, "PRO" version. In the end, I decided to return VIVE PRO, because it feels like a step backward to me. Even the plastic looks cheap compared to the original version. Same with presentation - the box is horrible. Seems like HTC just doesn't care as much as they cared when they released the original headset. It feels like they were trying to cut costs with this (and charge an arm and a leg at the same time, to make it a winning business strategy). Here's my recommendation: - if you have the original VIVE, buy a strap with built-in headphones, and your VIVE will be as comfortable as the new one. The resolution bump sounds impressive on paper, but in real life, you will -barely- notice it. Barely. Wait until HTC gets it game together and produces a truly next generation VR headset. This VIVE PRO is a scam. - if you don't have any VR headset and want one now; buy the original VIVE if you want superior tracking, plus the wireless add-on, plus the strap with built-in headphones. You will have a superior VR experience, AND save a ton of money that you can put towards the next generation VR when it comes out, spend on a Hawaiian vacation, invest in the stock market, or whatever you want to do with it. VIVE PRO is just too glitchy. Still feel like you want VIVE PRO? Then read all the horror stories on redit about people spending weeks and months trying to make the tracking work. Google "VIVE Pro tracking issues". Still want to buy it? I totally understand, why believe someone else's experience, when you can witness these problems first-hand? Go ahead and buy it. Amazon has a great return policy. To those of you who happen to have zero reflective surfaces in or near your VR area, and your PRO is working for you - good for you. I still don't understand how my original VIVE works so flawlessly in same area where this "PRO" version is a total puke-inciting mess. What's going on with you, HTC?