Valve has made a teaser site for its much anticipated virtual reality headset. The teaser site has an image of the headset, with the name Valve Index prominently featured. It also features a tagline of “Upgrade your experience”, and a date of May 2019.
This had been partially leaked before to UploadVR, who noted that the headset should have a wider field of view than existing headsets, and the resolution should be around that of the Vive Pro’s 1440x1600. From Valve’s image, we can see two cameras that it uses for an inside-out tracking system, a button of unknown function, and a pupillary distance slider, which allows for adjustment of the image based on the distance between your pupils.
The inside-out tracking used here as well as in the new Oculus Rift S allows for VR without any external tracking devices. HTC Vive headsets had used a system called Lighthouse, which would allow the headset and controllers to calculate their position in space without any processing by the Lighthouses. Oculus used a system called Constellation, which consisted of multiple cameras tracking signals on the headset, which was then processed by the host computer. Oculus’ solution required additional USB ports on the computer, and HTC’s required multiple electrical outlets throughout a room. With these, all of the tracking is done within the headset.
UploadVR’s sources had also told them that this headset will come bundled with Valve’s “Knuckles” hand controllers as well as a VR Half-Life game. However, they noted it “could be a prequel” rather than Half-Life 3. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell had stated previously that Valve was working on three games for VR. Other hardware indications were that it would have integrated headphones and use a strap similar to the original Oculus Rift and Vive, as opposed to the “halo” style of strap seen on the Rift S and many Microsoft Augmented Reality headsets.
