HTC plans to introduce a brand new flagship AR / VR headset subsequent month that can reestablish its presence within the client digital actuality house. The firm isn’t planning to launch full particulars till CES on January fifth. But HTC international head of product Shen Ye spoke completely with The Verge about what it’s making an attempt to attain with its new design: a small, mild all-in-one headset that guarantees full-featured digital and augmented actuality.

“It’s about taking all of these advances that we made in not only the design aspects, but also the technology aspects, and building it into something that’s meaningful and that’s appealing for consumers,” Ye says.

Based on a picture shared with The Verge, the unnamed headset has a goggles-like look with front- and side-facing cameras. Buyers will be capable of use the headset for gaming, leisure, train, and “even some of the more powerful use cases,” together with productiveness and enterprise instruments, says Ye. It will get two hours of battery life, be absolutely self-contained, and assist controllers with six levels of freedom in addition to hand monitoring.

One of the headset’s key options might be outward-facing cameras that go a shade video feed to customers’ screens, permitting for combined actuality experiences. This combined actuality choice nonetheless appears pretty experimental — after I requested what patrons would possibly use it for, Ye highlighted HTC’s ongoing relationships with builders and stated the most effective use circumstances would most likely seem after launch. “We’re at this phase where the tech is solid and we’ll start seeing some really cool experiences,” Ye guarantees.

The forthcoming headset is the one HTC beforehand teased with minimal particulars in October. At the time, we speculated it might be a successor to the Vive Flow, a consumer-oriented headset launched final yr. For now, nonetheless, HTC isn’t confirming this. It describes the gadget as the applying of classes it discovered from making the Flow and the Vive Focus 3, a higher-end headset for companies. And its mixture of digital and augmented actuality places HTC’s headset within the firm of Meta’s lately launched Quest Pro and Apple’s but unannounced AR / VR gadget.

Color passthrough was a promoting level for the lately launched Meta Quest Pro, and HTC was cagey about immediately evaluating the 2 — however Ye supplied a few potential variations. For one factor, the brand new HTC headset can have a depth sensor, one thing Meta thought-about however finally scrapped. That may enable for extra environment friendly monitoring and extra subtle mapping of customers’ bodily environments. Ye says the headset may have a greater dynamic vary than different shade passthrough combined actuality choices available on the market; he described studying textual content on a laptop computer or cellphone display screen by HTC’s cameras, one thing that’s not often doable inside Meta’s Quest Pro.

Beyond that, the brand new headset sounds extra full-featured than the Flow (which initially shipped with a smartphone-based management scheme) however lighter and fewer cumbersome than the Vive Focus 3. “We’ve made our new headset one of the lightest that’s on the market,” Ye claims — though we nonetheless don’t understand how mild that’s. The picture HTC shared doesn’t present the headset’s strap setup, however Ye’s point out of exercising within the headset suggests it is going to be extra steady than the Flow, which had an inclination to slide off of my face. “We spent so much time doing ergonomics,” says Ye. “The Flow was the first time we did that glasses form factor. And we learned a lot, actually, from it. I can say that when we see things that can be improved, we will always improve it.”

We don’t know if HTC’s gadget can have eye monitoring, one other function the newest Meta (and, based mostly on rumors, Apple) headsets lean on closely. But when requested, Ye famous that the Vive Focus 3 received eye monitoring as an optional modular upgrade, one thing HTC regularly gives for its headset. He additionally cryptically responded that HTC was engaged on subtle privateness protections that may forestall anybody from accessing information regionally or remotely from the brand new headset’s cameras, together with an encrypted native partition that shops the info. “That will somehow slide into that question you asked eventually,” he says.

HTC hopes its privateness guarantees will assist differentiate its headset from Meta’s alternate options. While we don’t understand how a lot the headset will price, Ye closely implies it can appear costly in comparison with the $399 Meta Quest 2. “We’re in an era when consumer VR headsets have been massively subsidized by companies that are trying to vacuum up and take personal data to provide to advertisers,” he says. “We don’t believe the way that we want to approach it is to compromise on privacy.” The Vive Flow launched at $499 and the Focus 3 at $1,300, and we wouldn’t be shocked if the brand new headset falls someplace between these factors.

The Quest 2 has advantages moreover a low value, although. Meta has funded or acquired a slew of fine VR experiences, whereas HTC has traditionally lagged in that division, though it’s supplied some distinctive choices like its Viveport subscription gaming service. The new headset will provide standalone VR experiences by Viveport, and it could hook up with a PC wirelessly or through a cable to play desktop VR video games. Ye says the objective is to have a “broad range” of experiences when folks choose up the headset.

Last yr HTC declared itself briefly out of the patron VR sport, at the least partly as a result of it didn’t need to compete with Meta’s closely sponsored headsets. So what’s modified since then apart from Meta elevating its costs? For one factor, HTC has launched two standalone-ish headsets in fast succession and constructed its capabilities within the course of. “We’ve always had kind of a vision of what we think is a good experience for consumers,” Ye says. “We know how to build the best tech and now we also know how to build super-small form factor devices. It’s those learnings that allow us to feel like we’re now ready to make something that’s really exciting.” But it most likely doesn’t damage that Apple and Meta are gearing up for a combat over the way forward for client VR — so if HTC desires to affix the fray, its window of alternative is likely to be closing.