Rumor: HTC to announce HTC Vive Flow lightweight VR headset on Thursday
HTC announced Thursday a new VR headset focused on meditation and immersive media consumption. It will be called HTC Flow, it will be portable and lightweight, and it will come with a carrying case. That writes tech website Protocol, partly on the basis of trademarks.
The HTC Vive Flow, as the headset will be called according to Protocol, has been developed for a while under the working title Hue, the tech site writes. It should be a lightweight consumer VR set with which HTC wants to regain a place in the consumer market, where Facebook’s Oculus now rules. HTC also hints on the release of Vive Flow saying ‘go with the flow’ on social media.
HTC will be announcing the headset at an event on Thursday, along with announcing a new metaverse-like service called Viveport Verse, Protocol says. That service aims to combine real-time interaction during events and meetings by combining VR and non-VR, similar to Facebook’s Horizon Workrooms and Horizon Worlds, which leverage the Oculus Quest. Viveport Verse should become a place where people can meet and where people come together as a virtual tourist or to attend a VR concert or other event. That can be read on a website that HTC has put online for Viveport Verse. The world is built on Mozilla’s Hubs project.
According to Protocol, there have been rumors about the Vive Flow for some time. For example, a trademark for the Flow would have been created in September and Road to VR discovered an FCC listing for the headset last week. Protocol is now drawing its conclusion based on documents published by the Bluetooth SIG consortium for a new ‘VR all-in-one’ product code-named Hue. Protocol thinks the VR headset will have a sunglasses design. Protocol also spoke to an anonymous source who says that the Vive Flow is aimed at casual gaming and that it comes without handheld controllers. According to this source, the headset is less powerful than the Oculus Quest 2, with a less powerful chipset, but it would have more freedom of movement, with ‘6 degrees of freedom tracking’.
It is not the first time that Protocol has revealed what will be announced before an HTC VR headset announcement. The website previously did that in May with the Vive Focus 3 Business Edition and the Vive Pro 2. HTC also seemed to be working on a VR headset aimed at fitness, but that turned out to be a concept that did not go into production.
The HTC Vive Flow would be intended for meditation in VR, among other things. Image: HTC