HTC has announced that developers can order the Vive Tracker from March 27. Once developers have created applications and products for the object tracker, the accessory should be available to consumers later this year.
HTC announced the Vive Tracker in early January. The device looks a lot like the ring at the end of the Vive controllers and can be used by developers to make ‘dumb’ objects visible and traceable in a VR environment. At the presentation, HTC showed examples such as a baseball bat, machine gun, pistol, gloves and a camera. The Vive Tracker has a tripod thread to attach it to something and a battery with which it can work for six hours.
HTC reports that there are already 2300 requests from developers for the Vive Trackers. In sixty percent of the cases this is for the development of applications that do not fall under games or entertainment. This concerns, for example, business, educational or medical applications. From March 27, HTC will sell the Vive Tracker to developers for 120 euros. When consumers will be able to purchase the accessory is not yet clear, but that should be sometime later this year, when applications have been developed and associated accessories have been made.
Looking back: First impressions of the Vive Tracker at CES 2017
According to HTC, CloudGate Studio is one of the first companies to work with the Vive Tracker. The game studio is working on dinosaur game Island 359 and wants to use multiple trackers to make it possible for players to observe their entire body in the VR game. That technique will be shown on Wednesday at the Game Developer Conference on the stand of Valve.
Consumers can order the Vive Deluxe Audio Strap from 2 May, also for 120 euros. This is an improved headband for HTC Vive headset with integrated headphones, which should be more comfortable during long sessions. HTC expects to be able to deliver the headband in June.