HTC VIVE Cosmos VR Headset with in built tracking and flip up desig
| Dimensions: | 19.3 x 43.7 x 25.2 cm; 3.22 Kilograms |
| Model: | 99HARL001-RET |
| Dimensions: | 19.3 x 43.7 x 25.2 cm; 3.22 Kilograms |
| Dimensions: | 19.3 x 43.7 x 25.2 cm; 3.22 Kilograms |
| Model: | 99HARL001-RET |
| Dimensions: | 19.3 x 43.7 x 25.2 cm; 3.22 Kilograms |
Previously had an Acer Mixed Reality headset. Basic, but enjoyed VR games and videos on Steam and YouTube … which was how it got damaged. Acer no longer makes them. Didn’t want Facebook or Pico, don’t want another MR headset with the Reverb – went for the HTC Vive Cosmos as it was ~500.
The HTC Vive Cosmos is a little bulkier. It was uncomfortable *at first*, but it’s worn in after only a few hours use and it’s indistinguishable from wearing my Acer – with the added bonus it doesn’t press on my nose. With only 100 pixels difference, the visuals are nevertheless sharper and more vibrant. The passthru image is in colour, but hazy just as with the Acer. A turny-knobs let you adjust the IPD on the fly. The Vive is mains powered, so you’ll need a spare socket. I’m accustomed to a cabled VR experience.
With six tracking cameras in the headset, the controller-tracking is far better than the Acer – neither arm has floated away or flown off into the distance. The controllers link to the helmet, so no bluetooth as I needed previously. The controllers themselves felt very different to Mixed Reality Controllers, but I got accustomed to them quickly.
You can use your Steam account to sign into Vive. The Vive Portal is a little barebones, but it works with SteamVR or Windows Mixed Reality and any games and media you have there.
The built-on headphones are rubbish – you can unclip them from the sides and remove them by popping of the forward headrest, then any standard 3.5mm headset will plug into the helmet. You can’t go from a standing experience to a sitting experience on the fly, so just include your whole computer desk in your boundary so you can sit down. There’s no way to manually turn the headset off – it goes to standby, but still uses some GPU like that so I just quit the ViveConsole on the desktop when I’m done.
Overall quite satisfied.
I absolutely love this thing. I’ve had it now for a few weeks and played over 20 hours with the headset alone.
I purchased it purely for sim racing and flying. Therefore the controller tracking isn’t a major issue for me. However if you’re looking to buy this please be aware that the tracking is a little jittery at times and I’ve not found a way to fix it.
Other than that it’s absolutely perfect!
I’m no expert but this has been a positive experience for me. People complain about the tracking on the Cosmos but its my first headset and it seems OK. Maybe the Valve is better but it costs a small fortune and maybe the Quest 2 is better but then you’ve got Zuckerberg monitoring every move you make so that’s out. Possibly the HP Reverb but that’s made by HP so definitely NO! If I could have got hold of a PS5 I may have gone with PS VR but I live in the UK and am not one of the 500,000 lucky people who’ve managed to get one so nope. Anyway I’ve played Saints and Sinners, Moss and Halflife Alyx and in truth I’m blown away – this is great fun and not too bad to set up.
Love it with in 15 minutes i was up and runing
The VR headset is excellent; I am very pleased with the product and the seller. Thank you.
Excellent headset only marred by the really awkward setup. Don’t expect this to work from the get-go but (windows 10 user here) if it does, you are clearly blessed by the driver gods. For me it took me several installs attempts and crucially reboots to get this going. Once it was set up everything was always fine, it’s not a fan of dark areas be warned, but a few lamps sort that out. This has worked fantastically on Beat Sabre and Half Life Alyx.
What I liked was the display quality images sharp clear easy to read text. Headset is comfortable.
I don’t like the price.
I don’t like the controller tracking,
However its not as bad as other reviews say just make sure you update firmware it does improve it.
I like that the headset is upgradeable to elite version should you wish at a later point.
Then, in late march 2020, I had a heart surgery and needed to isolate myself from my family in order to avoid Covid 19 as I am in a highrisk group. I started to look for a hedset again and I realised that the reviews on the Cosmos had swayed to more positive ones. All because some rather vast updates in firmware for the headset and controllers. Now it was a different ballgame!
I will break down what is important for me:
1. Comfort.
I have prescrition glasses. I need to wear glasses while playing. It works well for me, I have mediumsized glasses. The headset sits snuggly on my head once I adjusted it and it is easy to find a good fit.
2. IPD-adjustment.
My IPD, ie the pupillary distance, is 70 mm. This mean that some headsets are not for me. This headset have a turning knob that allows for adjustments of the lenses up to 73 mm. This is a huge thing for me! I never got a clear picture in HP Reverb.
3. Screen Door Effect.
The space between pixels can be seen as a screendoor effect in all headsets. I happens because we look att displays through a strong magnifying lens. Look at your phone with a 10x or stronger loupe to see what I mean. This headset have a small screendoor effect which I think is good.
4. Picture quality.
In short, great! Good colors and contrast. The resolution is OK. Half Life Alyx looks simply fantastic! As does FS Flightsimulator and DCS world.
5. Sweetspot.
Now this is tricky! The sweetspot is the headsetplacement you need to have to get optimal viewing and picture quality. Since I have glasses on while playing I need to fiddle a bit before I start playing to get a good sharp picture for each eye. Without glasses you will be able to get your eyes closer to the lenses in the headset. That will increase the chances of getting optimal viewing at once. Or finding the “sweetspot”. There is also thinner faceplates to buy to change the included thick faceplate to let you get even closer to the lenses.
With my glasses on I would say that the sweetspot is a little small and takes some work to get right.
6. Functionality and compability.
Headtracking and tracking och the controllers work great. Nothing to complain about. Again, Halflife Alyx, DCS world and a lot of games I tried works great. After two hours of gaming, the headset feels warm. If a lot of people will share it I would recommend buying extra face plates so each person can use their own.
Please note. If there are no details in your playspace for the cameras to pick up, tracking will suffer. Only bare white walls will be a problem.
7. Controllers.
I have tried a lot of games and the only problem I came across was when setting upp the Skyrim VR controller. In all fairness this was the first game I tested after DCS world and I had yet to learn how the Steam VR mapping app works. I had no patience so I choose my Xbox Elite controller and started playing. It is also a great experience!
Half Life Alyx worked out of the box and so did the other games I tried. My advice is to buy good rechargeable AA-batteries since you will use up a lot of them. I like the controllers! No fingertracking, but I haven’t missed it.
8. Price.
I bought this on an springsale at 560 pounds. For the price it is great value!
Having played the valve Index at my friends house I was going to buy that but the Covid 19 put a stop to that. It wil take 3-4 months to get the index delivered to Sweden where I live.
This headset has the same picture quality, but it has a more narrow viewing angle (110 instead of 135 degrees).
This headset has a screendoor effect on par with the index.
This headset have an IPD adjustment as do the Index.
This headset has a more narrow sweetspot than the index.
I got the headset for 560 with controllers and the Index complete package cost 1100.
Problems?
I had problems installing the headset.
I have a PC with a 8770K i7, 32GB ram, Nvidia 1080 GTi. The linkbox to the headset requires 1 USB3.0 and 1 Displayport contact. I have newer USB 3.1 gen 2 in my PC and the headset would not detect. No. Matter. What.
After updating bios, drivers and Windows 10, still nothing.
Then I decided to go totally against recommendations and use a USB-hub built into my screen for the linkbox. That has USB 3.0.
I also chatted with a flight sim guy at Youtube and he had the same setup as me. It worked great for him.
I checked off our hardware and realized that he had a Full HD screen and I run a 4K screen.
Once I lowered my screen resolution to 1920*1080 and used the USB-hub in the screen it all worked!
And it works perfectly ever since. Maybe it is bit too much for my pc to power the 4K screen and the headset at the same time.
This hassle is what cost the headset one star and my review therefor lands on four solid stars!
I hope all this will help anyone who is interested in this headset.
The Cosmos is great, and it comes with a great benefit: LESS CABLES. For those of you who don’t know, having the usual set of VR (vive, for example) means that not only you’re going to have to deal wth the cable running to your headset, but then also the cables for your controllers. Also, generally there’s only 1 cable running through the headset to a ‘splitter box’ that then connects three cables to the PC.
Overall, the sharp graphics are great, the depth of vision is great and it’s comfortable enough.
Owning a VR headset isn’t something that just comes out of a box, there is set up. For those who want try it, and actually enjoy this product, there’s a few steps that:
– SIGN UP FOR BETA UPDATES AND UPDATE BEFORE PLAYING: Seriously, so many people here complaining about the tracking, and sure I ran into a few problems like that myself but it all stopped once I updated using BETA updates. Do yourself a favor and do that to BEFORE you try the headset. It honestly solved a bunch of the tracking issues, and works 90% of the time as intended.
– WASH YER DAMN LENSES: That means inside and outside, using microfibre cloth and something with rubbing alcohol, like those glasses wiping cloths.
– KEEP THE SET AWAY FROM SUNLIGHT: It damages the lenses and the plastics, seriously. Keep it in a box or a darker part of the room.
– TURN IT OFF AT THE SWITCH BOX: There’s a little blue button at the ‘splitter’ switch box, make sure once you’re done and quit a game you click it. Otherwise the VR keeps on running on standby, shortening the lifespan.
– OVERHEAD AND UNDERFOOT: So many complain about this, but I found that all it takes is a lamp above me, and a lamp aimed at might feet from a little distance away. Does it make me look like a doofus? Yes. Does it work better? Absolutely. And no, you don’t need expensive lamps, just a good mixture of yellow/white lamps, go for something like LED lamps that are on the brighter side.
– CLEAN YOUR COMPUTER FROM DUST: Seriously, you want VR to run smoothly, give your computer a clean once in a while so the temperature doesn’t stutter it’s performance.
So, I was sceptical of getting this headset because of all the bad reviews. But, to be honest, it’s. Great little headset.
The tracking has come along leaps and bounds since I got it in January. Be sure to download the beta software to keep the tracking at its most current.
Beatsaber is great, Arizona sunshine is playable but I couldn’t get along well with Pavlov until the March update. Now it’s far more manageable.
I truly believe this will continue to improve over time.
One of the biggest advantages for me is the fact that I use this headset with my laptop. Hence, the inside out tracking is amazing for portability and something I could not be without.
Dopo gli aggiornamenti di gennaio (1.0.9.6) posso dire che il tracciamento stato reso efficace. Non la perfezione assoluta, ci siamo ancora distanti, ma comunque si riesce tranquillamente a giocare alla maggior parte dei titoli.
Nello specifico il problema che maggiormente affliggeva l’unita era, e tuttora in parte, il tracciamento dei controller, specialmente nella mira a due mani (come in Pavlov), nell’avvicinamento degli stessi alla testa e nella predittivit della loro posizione quando dietro alla testa. A parte la prossimit al capo, ancora un po’ critica, il resto sembra funzionare egregiamente, diciamo che siamo oltre l’85-90% come precisione. Sicuramente dando un po’ di fiducia vedremo la precisione arrivare ai livelli di altre piattaforme come Rift S.
Questo per quanto riguarda i problemi che affliggevano l’unit.
Parliamo ora del resto.
Design
L’hmd tendenzialmente ben fatto anche se le plastiche specie dei controller non sono quelle del vecchio Vive, anche quest’aspetto evidenzia il fatto che Valve ha lasciato per dedicarsi ai suoi visori.
Comfort
Il comfort per me ottimo, porto gli occhiali e comunque riesco ad utilizzare bene il visore, utile anche il controllo della distanza interpupillare. Nello specifico vorrei evidenziare che il sistema messo in posizione e bloccato sul capo da un arco Halo-like, molti lo trovano pi scomodo delle fasce del Vive originale, in realt trovando la posizione giusta riesco a far aderire bene il visore al volto cos da non far filtrare neanche un filo di luce dall’esterno. Trovo inutile per me la sollevabilit del visore avendo gli occhiali, non si riesce ad “aprire” agevolmente con gli stessi.
Per quanto riguarda il padding lo trovo molto morbido ed avvolgente, peccato che la parte sulla fronte non sia rimovibile per il lavaggio.
Infine chicca che trovo molto utile la piccola ventola che impedisce la formazione di condensa.
Nel complesso si lascia portare tranquillamente per quell’ora massimo 2 di sessione gioco in vr (di pi almeno io non riesco ad affrontare il vr senza pause).
Schermo
C’ poco da dire, ottima la risoluzione, screen door appena percettibile, diciamo che il miglioramento rispetto alla prima generazione si nota. Il fov non elevatissimo, paragonabile al vive ed agli altri visori in commercio. La frequenza di refresh pi che adeguata, non ho mai avuto fastidi correlati.
Nel complesso quindi lo consiglio se volete il massimo come risoluzione in ecosistema Steam VR risparmiando qualche soldo sull’index ed evitandovi i tracciatori esterni.
Terr aggiornata questa recensione in base alle novit e miglioramenti dei prossimi mesi.
A whole new experience in gaming. Can be used for other applications but excels in games that support VR. Pretty comfortable, up to about three hours without discomfort.
One star removed for the way the headphones are adjusted, irritating at best.