HTC and its Vive division have been on the forefront of VR, with the HTC Vive among the many first VR headsets to hit the market again in 2016 – and it appears like the corporate desires to maintain that momentum up going into the fast-growing good glasses market with its new HTC Vive Eagle specs.
It’s the primary time HTC has launched a pair of good glasses, after dabbling with not solely VR headsets however blended actuality headsets with the likes of the Vive Professional 2 and Vive XR Elite – however the inspiration was clear.
At a look, the Vive Eagle may very well be mistaken for a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses; each sport the identical wayfarer-style design, with a semi-translucent physique and front-mounted cameras. Each are additionally accessible in quite a few color choices, with HTC’s purple, gray, black and brown competing with Meta’s black, blue, and brown – the latter two of that are additionally semi-transparent.
The built-in 12MP digicam, discovered on the left aspect of the body, means that you can seize each pictures and movies from a first-person standpoint – one of many largest attracts of Meta’s different, particularly for content material creators. And, in a bid to make sure privateness, there’s an LED on the suitable aspect that flashes everytime you document or take a photograph.
A button on the highest of the suitable arm not solely offers a tactile approach to activate the digicam, however it doubles up as a approach to activate HTC’s competing AI assistant.
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Not like Meta’s specs that utilise the corporate’s personal Meta AI to reply questions and queries, HTC’s different makes use of a mix of ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The button may also be used to seize sounds or pictures for context when chatting with the AI assistant.
As you would possibly count on, outcomes are delivered through two Bose-branded audio system – one in every of the arms – or through the companion app in your cellphone.
The place the Vive Eagle stand out in comparison with Meta’s different is within the battery division. The Vive specs sport a 235mAh battery, a rise of round 50% in comparison with the Ray-Ban Meta. Contemplating battery life is among the largest complaints from customers, it might give HTC the higher hand right here.
HTC claims the glasses can final for round 4 and a half hours with steady music playback and as much as 36 hours in standby. Simply as importantly, the glasses additionally help quick charging tech, with claims that you would be able to get a 50% cost from simply 10 minutes of charging.
Different specs embody a wholesome 64GB of built-in storage, Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 smarts and boosted IP54 mud and water resistance than Meta’s different – although neither are really waterproof.
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The catch? It’ll be robust to search out them, except you’re dwelling in Taiwan. HTC has launched pre-orders for the good glasses within the area, with no plans to launch the glasses in different areas regardless of different Vive-branded XR and VR headsets being broadly accessible within the UK, US and Europe.