CES 2019: HTC announces Vive Pro Eye with integrated eye-tracking and on-the-go Vive Cosmos

HTC embraced a cord-less future for virtual reality when it announced the Vive Pro headset at CES last year. This year, at CES 2019, it has embarked upon a controller-less future for VR with the announcement of the Vive Pro Eye. The Vive Pro Eye, as the name suggests, packs integrated eye-tracking which essentially means that it will allow users to interact with on-screen menus through their eyes. Without having to use physical controllers. 

“The Vive Pro Eye integrates eye tracking natively and will offer greater accessibility, gaze-oriented menu navigation and removing the need for controllers,” is how HTC describes its new VR headset. 

Everything else about it is all-familiar though. The Vive Pro Eye isn’t so much of a next-generation product but just another mid-cycle refresh, that brings it one step closer to an even more accessible VR future.  

The Vive Pro Eye has the same dual OLED displays as the Vive Pro. It also comes with integrated headphones with built-in amplifier just like the Vive Pro. There are also dual mics and dual cameras up-front, among other things. 

HTC will ship the Vive Pro Eye at an undisclosed price in April but going by the history of Vive headsets, you can’t expect it to be cheap. The Vive Pro was launched at $799 with controllers and base stations sold separately, and the new headset is likely to cost more or less the same, or maybe even higher.  

Breaking from tradition, HTC also had another surprise announcement alongside the Vive Pro Eye. HTC is working on a stand-alone on-the-go VR headset called the Vive Cosmos. No specific hardware details about the Vive Cosmos have been shared at this point of time. All we know is that it “will offer absolute comfort, easy set up, and will require no external tracking.” A teaser that has been shared by HTC reveals a design that is on similar lines as existing Vive headsets (with controllers), only it seems a lot more compact and possibly more affordable as well.  

For Real-Time updates on CES 2019 check out our live blog, here.

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