VR Repairs

HTC has submitted a new trademark application in both Europe and the US, specifically requesting the use of a new name: Vive Focus.

First revealed at Google I/O 2017 developer conference, both HTC and Lenovo announced they were building standalone VR headsets for the Daydream platform. Neither headset revealed its perspective name, only showing concept art and a black silhouette for HTC’s new headset.

Today, the Dutch publication LetsGoDigital (via VRFocus) brought the trademark applications to light, which were initially filed on September 8th. While HTC still hasn’t said anything on the matter, leaving some doubt about whether the naming scheme is indeed intended for the standalone headset, Google had said the devices will launch later in 2017. With the holiday season fast approaching, we’ll have a definitive answer either way soon enough.

image courtesy LetsGoDigital

The standalone Daydream VR headsets are said to include inside-out positional tracking—a decisive upgrade over the rotational-only tracking of the smartphone-powered Daydream View headset. Using a computer vision-based sensor system, that the company is calling ‘World-sense’, the tracking tech won’t require any external beacons or sensors to enable a room-scale mobile VR experience.

Both HTC and Lenovo standalone headsets are basing their work on Qualcomm’s ‘VRDK’ reference device, unveiled at Google I/O in May. We got a hands-on with an early prototype of Qualcomm’s VRDK standalone headset, and despite the fact that it was essentially one year-old tech at the time, Road to VR executive editor Ben Lang said that when left to roam a 10 foot diameter circular carpet, that the tracking was pretty robust. More importantly, the reference design clearly showed the signs of integrated eye-tracking, which puts the Focus naming scheme in a different light. If the supposition is true, it would mean Focus was named specifically to sell the benefit of eye-tracking to consumers.

Check out the hands-on here.

We’ll have our eye on HTC in the coming weeks when they finally reveal the standalone headset’s name.