Jordan O'BrienOne of the best VR headsets currently on the market is about to get better, as the HTC Vive is about to ditch the cables in favour of WiGig technology. A prototype of the new model has already been showcased at Computex in Taipei, with the final version expected to ship to consumers in early 2018.
The HTC Vive currently requires a high-end gaming computer, which is hooked up to the headset through long cables. Despite offering fully tracked movements, these cables have made moving around freely a cumbersome experience. It also makes the HTC Vive considerably heavier than some of its competitors.
So how has HTC managed to ditch the cables? Well, the company has partnered with Intel to utilise the chip manufacturer’s WiGig technology to wirelessly transmit footage from a gaming PC directly to the headset. Using the DisplayLink XR codec, Intel claims that this should offer a ‘low latency’ wireless experience. Latency will be key to the wireless headset’s success too, as the smallest delay between tracking someone’s movement and seeing it on the headset could result in the wearer feeling nauseous.
To achieve low latency and still have everything looking pristine, that requires a blistering fast data stream. The first-generation Vive headset requires a 6Gbps data stream – something that is incredibly difficult to transmit wirelessly. This is where WiGig comes in, with the technology theoretically being capable of transmitting speeds of up to 25Gbps.