Wireless HTC Vive prototype could be nearly here

The first generation of VR hardware still isn’t available on the UK High Street, and already a second generation is being touted.

Destructoid reports that a Bulgarian tech company called Quark VR claims to be working with Valve on a wireless version of the HTC Vive. The Vive is the most technically accomplished of the current VR offerings, but the huge gathering of wires that tether the headset to the PC certainly hinder its impressive room-scale tech.

Quark’s tech uses a small transmitter that allows the Vive to communicate wirelessly with a PC. The device can either be attached to the headset or carried in a user’s pocket.

The company confesses that the wireless connection of course poses a latency problem, adding: Getting the experience to feel seamless through wi-fi, keeping in mind the inevitable connection delay, was a huge challenge, but we’re getting extremely close to being able to show it in action.”

We’re not yet at the stage where there’s any guarantee that the prototype will be successful enough to be incorporated into the next iteration of Vive, but certainly the cable problem is one that VR will need to solve if it hopes to make a mainstream breakthrough.

Vive’s competitors have presented other solutions to the problem, however. Some in-development VR headsets incorporate a computer, nullifying the need to communicate with an external PC. There are even solutions that allow users to strap a PC to their back. Clearly, though, these designs present their own problems – mainly weight, heat and battery life.