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Just after announcing its own standalone VR headset in partnership with Google, HTC now announces a new smartphone powered mobile VR headset – the HTC Link. The new HTC Link mobile VR headset will be an exclusive HTC made VR headset and not a part of its Vive plan.
This will be HTC’s first ever entry in the mobile VR headset segment and probably the first one of its kind to be powered by a smartphone, the recently released HTC U11.
Image credit: HTC
HTC Link Specifications and Features
Well, unlike the existing Gear VR and Daydream VR headsets where you need to snap-in your smartphone in the VR box, the HTC Link just draws the processing power from the U11. The HTC Link VR headsets come with two 3.6-inch LCD displays having 1080 x 1200 resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate. While the existing mobile VR headsets offer a 90-degree field of view (FOV), the HTC Link has got an 110-degree field-of-view.
The HTC Link is very lightweight at just 554 grams and houses a 3.5mm audio jack for connecting your headphones. Also, there is a USB-C cable to connect the HTC Link with the U11 smartphone.
One of the peculiar features of the HTC Link, which you don’t find in other VR headsets, is that it has positional tracking with six-degrees-of-freedom (6 DoF) which means you can explore the depth fields with front and back movements in addition to moving up/down/left/right.
Image credit: HTC
Also, the HTC Link won’t be using the Vive’s lighthouse stations but rather a setup quite similar to the one we have seen in the PlayStation VR. The HTC Link comes with two hand-held controllers having lights on them which are tracked by an external sensor. For this, a capsule-like attachment is placed on the top of the HTC Link, that works as an optically tracked marker.
Image credit: HTC
The HTC Link will come with 2800 mAh of battery life. However, the sad thing is that the HTC Link is poised to be available only in Japanese markets. Now, there is certainly no clarity on this decision by HTC but it can be said that limiting it to only the Japanese market might give a free pass to the HTC-Google standalone VR headset, set to release later this year-end.
Conversely, this can also be understood in a way where HTC wants to set its own operational boundaries and maybe pull over its smartphone business by collaborating it with the VR business.
I’m looking forward to Pico Goblin.
This Link is only available in Japan and is only working with that U11 phone. I’m wondering how big that market is.
Quite interested to see how HTC has managed to put enough processing power from a smartphone to implement special features like 6 DoF… The only Japan availability is really not expected 😐
how many headsets HTC is launching? Heard alot about stand alone and is this one better then that?