Vive Pro Eye first look: An opening look at the future of virtual reality?
The Vive Pro Eye introduces an exciting new innovation to virtual reality in the form of eye tracking. While the standard Vive and Vive Pro headsets are only capable of tracking your head, this revolutionary new gadget can read your pupil movement for added precision and offers an abundance of new features including a new rendering technique.
I was able to try out the Vive Pro Eye at CES 2019 to see how this revolutionary technology can be implemented in various games and experiences. But, before I get to my hands-on experience, I need to stress that this isn’t an entirely new headset, but instead a modified version of the Vive Pro.
Vive Pro Eye
Those two blue circles are the most noticeable physical difference between the Vive Pro Eye and Vive Pro
The only significant difference between the Vive Pro and the Vive Pro Eye is the integration of Tobii’s eye tracking tech. The headsets are physical pretty much identical, with the only real difference being that the Eye has two new bright blue circles highlighting the front-facing cameras and a small black dial on its bottom-right corner.
Because of the minimal alterations, I will focus solely on the eye tracking on this hands-on. You can find our verdict on the rest of the headset’s features in our Vive Pro review.
Vive Pro Eye – Setup
The Vive Pro Eye features a couple of new steps during setup compared to previous HTC headsets. After strapping Eye on, I was prompted to reposition the lens directly over my eyes so the eye-tracking technology was working as efficiently as possible.
This is achieved by spinning a little black dial on the bottom-right corner of the device. You’ll know when everything is lined up once a pair of on-screen blue dots fit nicely into two black circles.
See that black dial? This is used to tweak the position of the lenses for the best eye tracking performance
A new demo will then begin. Here, you’re prompted to keep your gaze fixed to some moving blue dots in order to synchronise your eye movement with the eye tracking technology.
The whole setup process takes less than a minute to complete. This is short and simple enough that it doesn’t prove to be frustrating. Plus, you’ll only need to go through the setup process again if somebody else uses the headset.
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