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HTC permanently trims $200 off Vive Pro price tag

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
In January HTC reduced the HMD from $799 to $599, this is effective worldwide:

https://www.vive.com/us/product/vive-pro/

Full kit is down to $899 - including 2 x base stations v. 2.0 and Wands:

https://www.vive.com/us/product/vive-pro-starter-kit/

This is probably HTC trying to fight the Index - and not a bad move at all - with the Cosmos problems, it makes sense to make the Vive Pro more attractive. .

Note that HTC charges $199 per base station and $129 per controller if bought separately - that's $660 for controllers and base stations. Valve charges $149 per base station v. 2.0 and $279 for 2 Index controllers ($577 in comparison for 2 base stations and 2 controllers). 

Getting Vive Pro with 2 base stations and Index controllers will be $1176, so that's still significantly more expensive than the full Index kit ($999) - but then again, you can't buy the Index kit right now. Due to Vive Pro's high res oled screens, physical ipd, the tracking and the audio, paired with Index controllers this solution may be close to one of the best non-Oculus solutions. Compared to Index, Vive Pro has reduced fov, lacks support for 120-144 Hz and many will consider Index to have better audio. 

Vive Pro could be an interesting option for those wanting a second hmd and wanting oled for better blacks - preferably those who already have base stations and Index controllers:

https://youtu.be/DPMJDXmYwiY

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

13 REPLIES 13

Wildt
Consultant
Throw in the wireless adapter and sell the full kit (with index controllers) for 1000 bucks, and I might bite when my CV1 dies.
PCVR: CV1 || 4 sensors || TPcast wireless adapter || MamutVR Gun stock V3
PSVR: PS4 Pro || Move Controllers || Aim controller
WMR: HP Reverb

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Wildt said:

Throw in the wireless adapter and sell the full kit (with index controllers) for 1000 bucks, and I might bite when my CV1 dies.



That would actually make a lot of sense - after using a lcd hmd (Index) for months I'm not ready for a world without oled. Unless 3080 Ti is the cure, the power of asw 2.0 probably should not be underrated though - would not be in Stormland without it - nor in Asgard, lol. 

2 x Base stations (v. 2.0) will ensure that you get at least the same awesome tracking provided by 3 CV1 sensors. Actually I think base stations are better - they cover more ground - when I wander off in Saints & Sinners to the very edges of CV1 tracking, I'd still have perfect tracking using Index (but of course that may depend on the room). Like CV1 tracking, you don't need any light to use the base stations - I use Index in complete darkness or close, just like I use the CV1.  

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

TomCgcmfc
MVP
MVP
Actually the $899 is for the Vive Pro starter kit w/1.0 base stations/controllers.  Probably ok for most unless you have a pretty big play area.  The full kit w/2.0 base stations/controllers is now listed at $1199.
i9 13900K water cooled, RTX4090, Z790 MB w/wifi6e, 32Gb 6400 ram, 2x2TB SSD, 1000W PSU, Win 11, QPro, Q3, w/Link and Air Link, Vive Pro1 with Etsy lens mod and Index Controllers


TomCgcmfc said:

Actually the $899 is for the Vive Pro starter kit w/1.0 base stations/controllers.  Probably ok for most unless you have a pretty big play area.  The full kit w/2.0 base stations/controllers is now listed at $1199.



So annoying.  Shouldn't even be selling v1.0 base stations in my opinion.  I remember all the talk about v2 being cheaper to manufacture.
Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

TomCgcmfc said:

Actually the $899 is for the Vive Pro starter kit w/1.0 base stations/controllers.  Probably ok for most unless you have a pretty big play area.  The full kit w/2.0 base stations/controllers is now listed at $1199.


Thanks for the correction, I wasn't aware they still sold v. 1.0, although these should be fine also for the Index (don't know if v. 2.0 is faster for 120+ Hz though)

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Wildt
Consultant



TomCgcmfc said:

Actually the $899 is for the Vive Pro starter kit w/1.0 base stations/controllers.  Probably ok for most unless you have a pretty big play area.  The full kit w/2.0 base stations/controllers is now listed at $1199.



So annoying.  Shouldn't even be selling v1.0 base stations in my opinion.  I remember all the talk about v2 being cheaper to manufacture.


Dunno if the user is talking out of his bum, but there's a comment related to this article that might explain it:
From my understanding things didn't go as planned and failure rates of 20-30% at factory (Flex @ Buffalo Grove Illinois - assembled in USA using foreign sourced components) meant production is off schedule. Some redditors report waiting from before Christmas for replacement 2.0 base stations with no ETA, and a number of these reports were for 2.0 dead on arrival or failure soon after powering up.
Speaking to developer at event recently using Vive Pro, he said they'd had over a dozen 2.0 base stations fail within a year, compared to 1 failure of 1.0 over 2 year prior. There have been revisions of 2.0 base stations from units supplied to HTC and perhaps ongoing revisions for Valve's units for Index?


PCVR: CV1 || 4 sensors || TPcast wireless adapter || MamutVR Gun stock V3
PSVR: PS4 Pro || Move Controllers || Aim controller
WMR: HP Reverb

ShocksVR
Superstar

Wildt said:




TomCgcmfc said:

Actually the $899 is for the Vive Pro starter kit w/1.0 base stations/controllers.  Probably ok for most unless you have a pretty big play area.  The full kit w/2.0 base stations/controllers is now listed at $1199.



So annoying.  Shouldn't even be selling v1.0 base stations in my opinion.  I remember all the talk about v2 being cheaper to manufacture.


Dunno if the user is talking out of his bum, but there's a comment related to this article that might explain it:
From my understanding things didn't go as planned and failure rates of 20-30% at factory (Flex @ Buffalo Grove Illinois - assembled in USA using foreign sourced components) meant production is off schedule. Some redditors report waiting from before Christmas for replacement 2.0 base stations with no ETA, and a number of these reports were for 2.0 dead on arrival or failure soon after powering up.
Speaking to developer at event recently using Vive Pro, he said they'd had over a dozen 2.0 base stations fail within a year, compared to 1 failure of 1.0 over 2 year prior. There have been revisions of 2.0 base stations from units supplied to HTC and perhaps ongoing revisions for Valve's units for Index?





That gives context to a STEAM Discussions thread I came across a few weeks back: https://steamcommunity.com/app/250820/discussions/0/1742265551915562955/
Base Station 2.0 don't last??



i7-7700k, Zotac RTX 3080 AMP Holo (10G), QuestPro, Quest 2
Previous: Oculus GO, Oculus RIFT - 3 sensor Room-scale, Oculus Rift S

Digikid1
Consultant
But it is still a POS HTC product.

TomCgcmfc
MVP
MVP

Digikid1 said:

But it is still a POS HTC product.


The Base Stations (1.0 and 2.0) are actually Valve products.  HTC just buys these from them.  Fortunately my Vive Pro's 2x v2.0's work perfectly and are very quiet.  I use SteamVR bluetooth to automatically turn them on/off and I can barely hear one of them give a quiet windup noise during startup.  I was told by a Vive technician  that they do their own QC on these (1.0 and 2.0) and if necessary, return them back to Valve.  So, maybe this is why there seems to be fewer issues with Vive supplied ones, who knows?

As far as the quality of VR headsets go, the Vive Pro is pretty hard to beat imho.  Now that I've installed the latest Etsy Gear VR lens mod on them (~$70, see etsy dot com) the clarity and sweet spot is even better (without any distortion or eyestrain btw).  Blacks/contrast in dark game environments now looks even better than my good old cv1 @2.0SS. 

The Vive controllers are not nearly as nice to use as my Rift cv1 touch controllers but at least they do work, and are very well made (and very robust) imho.  Hopefully new/improved Index controllers and/or new Vive controller will be available in the near future. 

I'm still very happy to be using a 2x headset setup with my Rift cv1 (which I still have a spare new cable for) and Vive Pro.  Thanks to the on/off button on the Vive link box, together with OTT's ovr/audio switching options these play well together (one at a time of course, lol!).  It's nice to be able to select the best headset of the job.  I currently still use my cv1 on all Oculus Store apps because I find that even the latest Revive is still a little flaky, esp. controller mapping.  I gotta say that thanks to the large number of Oculus supported apps on Steam and VivePort (which thanks to all my recent Vive purchases I still have ~1.5 years more free Infinity subscription) I cannot remember the my last Oculus Store purchase (think it was Vader 1).

As far as my Vive Cosmos goes the inside-out tracking is still a big disappointment.  I recently put my Cosmos into storage (under my pool table) and I only intend to bring it out again once Vive sorts out the tracking issues.  Actually, the Vive Wireless adapter works very well with the Cosmos, even better than with my Vive Pro for some reason.  So, maybe when Vive gets the tracking sorted out I will have a 3x headset setup (cv1, Pro, Cosmos Wireless), lol!

Anyway, just my $0.02 worth.
i9 13900K water cooled, RTX4090, Z790 MB w/wifi6e, 32Gb 6400 ram, 2x2TB SSD, 1000W PSU, Win 11, QPro, Q3, w/Link and Air Link, Vive Pro1 with Etsy lens mod and Index Controllers