Next to the creation of full body haptic suits to give us real-time touch sensations in virtual reality in the near future, the holy grail for today’s VR is a high-end tetherless headset. Now, the VR headset viewed by many as arguably the best available, the HTC Vive, is getting just that.
Developed by one of the companies participating in the Vive X $100 million accelerator program, the device is called TPCAST and provides the first wireless solution for the HTC Vive, allowing users to walk around in VR environments without fear of getting entangled in wires and falling in the real world.
How much do VR users want such an accessory?
The TPCAST, which is being offered for about $220 on Vive’s Chinese site, has already sold out. A brief video of the device in action (below) was posted by UploadVR earlier this week.
Those who managed to snag one of the devices before the sell out can expect to receive the devices in the first quarter of 2017.
There’s no word on when this device will be made available on Vive’s U.S. store, but if these early demos are any indication, the HTC Vive just delivered a potent answer to the earlier demo from its chief competitor, Oculus Rift, and its wireless prototype.
Once again, it now comes down to which company gets the next-gen hardware into the hands of the most users first. Either way, it’s now clear that high-end, wireless headsets will be the VR trend to watch in 2017.
