HTC Vive Focus 3
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PRICE £1,060 (£1,272 inc VAT) from vive.com/uk
Virtual reality is a PeterPan technology: it never seems to grow up. While the first few generations of VR headsets were initially impressive, the “wow” factor quickly faded and wider adoption has been hampered by several key by factors. These include awkward setup, a limited number of apps, and the need to be tethered to a bulky PC – unless you’re willing to accept a significant drop in performance and quality.
HTC has been doing its level best to change that, however. Unlike Facebook’s Oculus Quest headsets, which have taken a more consumer friendly approach, HTC’s Vive family has its sights set on the high-end “prosumer” and business market. We gave the Vive Pro 2 (see issue 324, p46) a cautious welcome last month, but this time it’s the turn of the Vive Focus 3: a standalone enterprise VR headset.
Third-gen improvements
The most significant improvements from previous iterations of the Focus come in the form of its design. VR headsets – particularly standalone units that require onboard compute hardware –
