HTC Vive XR Elite Virtual Reality Headset + Controllers

I have been waiting for this headset for several months and it is a big disappointment. The Bad: 1. The right lens has two dark specs that are either dead pixels or dirt inside the lens. 2. Vive streaming app is very buggy and does not work very well with Steam VR. 3. Controller support on steam vr games is a big challenge. Many of the games are unusable with the controllers and you need to do a lot of tweaking and hopefully get them to work. 4. Before I got the controllers paired I tried to log into my account with hand gestures and the keyboard. This was totally unusable with missing keystrokes and erratic pointer movement. I had to pair the controllers to get this accomplished. 5. Headset draws more power than the usb 3.0 port on my computer can supply and I slowly saw my battery drain while connected to the computer via usb. Need to try other ports before making a final determination. 6. Face mask is not very comfortable but could be tolerated. Need to look at other solutions. The Good: 1. Very light headset especially without the battery pack. 2. Foldable and very portable. All you need is a power source. 3. Works very well with usb c dongle providing power delivery with a wired ethernet connection. It detects the ethernet connection as a tethered usb port. 4. Picture quality is excellent depending on which app you are using. Summary: In conclusion I think that this product was released prior to being ready. The software issues could be resolved if you are willing to wait for fixes, but there is no excuse for the quality issues with the lenses. I like the ergonomics and portability of the product enough to keep it because I believe that the software issues could be resolved in time however I will be replacing my defective unit. Hopefully Amazon will have one to replace it with. Update - March 29, 2023 ----------------------------- Spent several hours with the headset mainly without the battery pack in glasses mode working with steam vr. Following are the results. 1. The Headset pinches on the sides of the head making my head sore right above the ears. This was after several hours of use and now after 12 hours of resting, my head is still sore to the touch. The nose bridge pinches my nose making it difficult to breath but got used to it. 2. I installed the Vive Streaming App beta version and it works better than the released version. 3. Controllers started working with most apps after I disabled the compatibility setting in the streaming app. For some reason the default setting after installation was with compatibility on. This was a major accomplishment since it made the product usable. 4. Most steam vr games I tried worked fine once I got the controller issue resolved in 3 above however I could not get Flight Simulator 2020 to work even though it works fine with the Quest 2 and Pico 4 on the same system. Got a lot of stuttering and the streamer kept on losing connection. 5. Streaming both wireless and usb tethering mode worked fine. I barely noticed any difference between the two. I have mixed feelings about this headset. I think the comfort and software issues could be overcome. I really like the size and portability and modularity as well as picture quality once you get your sweet spot.

Ive been a long time HTC fan, owning the Original, Pro and Pro 2. I was very excited about the XR Elite and pre-ordered it as soon as I was able to. But when it arrived, I couldnt have been any more disappointed. -Gray display. No black means flatter world, with a very little 3D effect. Its the worst 3D Ive seen in a headset. -Extremely cheap feel and make, especially the controllers. -The faceplate keeps falling off because the magnets are too weak. -Glasses mode squeezes your temples so hard, inducing a migraine headache. -Required VIVE software will crash or wont run unless you change your audio to stereo first. It cant handle 5.1, for example. -Wireless VR is all but impossible, even with the best Wifi. Low resolution, artifacts, blue screens, and eventual crashes. It doesnt take much or long for the crash. -Below-average see-thru camera. The world looks flat. I dont understand all the hoopla, as the cameras nowhere good enough for an XR experience. -Speakers sit too high, allowing in too much ambient noise. -Still has screen door effect. -Awful battery life. The only good thing about it is that its light and reasonably comfortable. Everything else about the unit is low quality and subpar. For example, the temples on my unit for glasses mode still had plastic extrusions with sharp edges that flowed over the mold. Apparently HTC couldnt even bother checking and polishing the units. Every time I looked at the Elite, I couldnt help but feel ripped off. Its sad, because I really wanted HTC to succeed.

A few things I thought I was going to really enjoy about the XR elite were the tether-less streaming and adjustable diopters, as well as the potential to hack in steamVR tracking by rigging a base station tracker to the HMD somewhere. My suspicions were correct; even though I have never used an inside-out HMD, the tracking was abominable and would cut out often, regardless of lighting condition. This left me with the white/grey screen, and having to completely redo my playspace. Unfortunately, ALVR and similar projects were not ready day one. PCVR streaming also causes a noticeable performance impact, even on a 5800X and RTX4090. Pairing took hours of frustration and shoving my face as close as I could to the screen, because the pairing QR code would never scan! Sure this can be fixed with updates but my neck was sore and it was a 4 hour process before I even got into streaming. USB streaming is also temperamental. Also, hand tracking for this product does not exist. Its unusable, and the FOV of it is also ridiculous. It feels like 20 degrees of scope and you have to stretch your hand out in front of you as far as it will go. As for comfort, the face gasket, marketed to be this soft, plush fabric, has a hard and painful plastic inner frame, that is extremely UNcomfortable (painful actually) on your forehead depending on the shape of your face. It also continued to push my eyes out of the sweet spot. If I adjusted the headset to line up my eyes with the device correctly, the gasket would detach from the bottom and leave a 10-15MM gap - what?! The head strap was sorely needed to make it bearable for the 30 minutes I could stand to experience it. This needs to go back to the drawing board, and the newest media coverage of this device shows new experimental facial interfaces already. These are crutches that will not do much to fix the full scope of the broken UX of this product. What I would like to see out of this product, as with the flop of the cosmos, is a completely re-engineered facial and head strap interface. A clone of the orignal HTC vive facial interface and DAS was the best design I have experienced so far from HTC and was hands down the most comfortable VR experience. A copy-paste would be totally fine. Additionally, make it base station tracked. And make binocular overlap better than or equal to the original vive. FOV is also terrible but would get a pass as a first gen of a new form factor if everything else was fixed. Will any of this happen? No. Would I trust HTC and buy it if this came true? No. The XR Elite is what it is. What HTC is trying to do is just not going to work in its current state, trying to do too much and experiment too much. If it worked as advertised, and was actually wearable without discomfort, this would make huge waves. Congratulations on trying HTC, other projects will surely piggyback on the development of this device.

Preface to this review: I have an extreme negative bias towards Meta and refuse to use their products, so Im completely unable to compare this product to any of the Quest offerings. Ill primarily be comparing against the Valve Index. Furthermore, as other reviews have pointed out, the standalone experience is sorely lacking, and in my opinion HTC should have delayed the launch of this headset until they were able to get more apps into their storefront. Because of this, Ill only be focusing on the PCVR experience here. The HTC Vive XR Elite is not the best headset in any one category. Its not the best looking image (PCVR), it doesnt have the best controllers, it doesnt have the best tracking, and its not the smoothest experience out of the box. What it does have, is portability; both portability in travel and portability between users. We have a Valve Index already in our house, and sharing that experience is tedious to say the least, which means in the year weve had it in our house of 4, weve pretty much never shared a VR experience all together. That changed only a few days after the XR Elite arrived. The ability to quickly swap between different users of differing prescriptions, the ability to adjust the IPD to fit my (admitted hey-Arnold-esque) head, and the lack of a top strap to accommodate the widest range of hair styles make it an actually fun and immersive experience you can ***enjoy with your friends and family*** instead of alone. Ill admit the Quest lineup is probably pretty similar here, but as I mentioned above, I refuse to in any way support their parent company, and thus here I am. I believe that this product is perfect for those looking for a higher-end product as their first foray into VR, and many of the flaws the XR Elite has, I hope HTC is able to solve (primarily the lack of apps in the storefront). If youre listening HTC, one thing I would love to see is the ability to integrate with other controllers. The XR Elite can already track my hands, but it cant pair with Index Knuckle controllers and track those instead? Of course Id be giving up some precision the Knuckle controllers usually have by removing the base stations, but I cant see why it isnt possible. That, or release some higher-quality feeling controllers. All in all, I really wanted this to be a 4-star or 5-star review, and I think for the right person (such as myself) it definitely is, but as for the general public... Its a hard sell given that they probably dont share the same aversion to Meta as I do.

The goods: 1. I love the futuristic form factor, it’s not as awkward as VR devices were. 2. I was amazed by how small it is, XR Elite is pretty legit 3. Wifi 6E is enabled 4. Stable and low-latency wireless streaming (tethered streaming as good as always) 5. I am excited for the MR gasket, please make it affordable The concerns: 1. The Android interface need to be polished more … 2. The passthrough mode in a low-light environment can be improved

tried 8 hours to get vive elite xr to work, including 2 hours with vive chatbots. no go. returned item.

The only pro is that its lightweight. The controller are cheap plastic, the tracking is awesome, the screen is fun and hard to see even on its brightest setting, no exclusive games, no virtual desktop, laggy despite my wifi 6e, did I already mention the controllers that feel like they will fall apart at any second and also have terrible battery life? This takes three place of the pico 4 as the worst headset on the market (with psvr2 taking 3rd. I HATE meta, but the meta pro has great lenses and the sweet spot is enormous, this thing feels like taking a step back in time to a colorized virtual boy with better graphics but just as useless. Already requested a return. This is an embarrassment to HTC. If you buy, have no expectations..... And youll still be disappointed. These lenses are awful.

Very poor experience. I waited more than 3 months after I pre-ordered this crap and I returned it right the way back to them. Very disappointed.

Pros: The Vive XR Elite has a great form factor. Its lightweight, balances well while youre wearing it. I like the feel of the controllers. Video passthrough is pretty good. Its good enough to walk around the room, pick up things, and you can read text on your monitor if you get close enough. Controller tracking and hand tracking is pretty good. I know some have mentioned that the audio is not that great. I think its fine for what I use this for. I havent tried other VR headsets to compare though. Cons: I wear reading glasses, and read that the Vive XR Elite has adjustable lenses, so you could dial in your prescription. I was surprised to see that the clearest setting for me was dialing it to zero. The focus wasnt that great, but dialing any higher made it worse. I have an astigmatism, so maybe thats the issue. So if you have an astigmatism, this headset isnt for you? Hopefully there are some options in the future that will fix this. The stand-alone game options are pretty limited. Looking for more in the future... Connecting to the PC went smoothly, but the wifi connection is terrible. I have a 6G wifi router and the connection settings says its got an excellent connection, yet the VIVE Streaming Hub constantly says its dropping frames. *** Update *** I noticed my headset was flipping back and forth between my 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. I have disabled my 2.4 GHz network in my router and that has greatly improved the WiFi experience. Plus HTC has updated the software for the headset which also seems to have greatly improved things. WiFi is working very well now. FYI, I have a modern MSI gaming laptop with 32 Gigs of ram and an NVidia 3090ti. I play SuperHot, which is fun yet has very simplistic graphics. This game works for me about 20% of the time. Forget playing something like HalfLife: Alex. *** Update *** As I mentioned before since HTCs update and turning off the 2.4 GHz network things are much improved, including HalfLife: Alex. This game works great now even in WiFi. I tried using the headset with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. First with WiFi. It came through low resolution and was jerky. Then I played it wired in through the USB-C cable. It looked much better but alternated every second between normal frame rate and lagging, which made things like landing more difficult than it should have been. *** Update *** The HTC update seems to have greatly improved wired performance as well. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is amazing in VR. There are still cons though: Text in the cockpit is still fuzzy because I have an astigmatism and am unable to perfectly focus the headset. I tried Immersed, which is a vr desktop. The resolution and focusing issues Ive had make this unusable. This is my first VR headset, and I went by pre-release reviews of this headset, which can be risky, but I _thought_ HTC, with all their experience producing VR headsets, would come through on this one. I was very wrong. *** Update *** I am glad to say that HTCs software update fixes for both WiFi and wired and adjustments I made to my WiFi router have greatly improved performance. I have changed my rating from 1 star to 4.

Not sure about the histrionics of the current reviews, this is not a push the boundaries headset but is is the most versatile out there at the moment and capable. There is much to refine but I am pleased with the XR Elite and encouraged that many issues I have read from others have been sorted as I had absolutely no issues with streaming PCVR wired, mirroring phone(Samsung S22+), Immersed worked flawlessly, store is adding titles So it is always important to preface what I was looking for here in a VR headset. I am not telling you the headset is better than any other, that is always going to come down to your desired usage. For me, I already have an Index and Reverb G2 and firmly entrenched in PCVR. No interest in console and after those headsets couldnt downgrade visual and sound quality to consider Q2. QP was too uncomfortable and awkward for me, better visuals than Q2 but l wasnt impressed for the money, I was looking for a headset that could fit the following: PCVR wired PCVR wireless Mobile Mirroring VR Standalone VR Compact for Travel/Flight Movie Watching VR workspace in a pinch that was Viable Viable Passthrough That said the XR Elite was the closest from my estimation that fit the bill for me. Since I was entrenched in PCVR the Facebook Meta library is a non factor for me and I have no doubt the library will fill for HTC. For some critical categories for me: Comfort: It is light and once dialed in more comfortable than either of my other headsets but it took some effort to dial it in. While not horrible for me, expect third party face gaskets will improve this. I do find the full headset with pack much more comfortable. The glasses arms are not long enough for me and, while tolerable, is not comfortable. Also, the arms should rotate a bit to allow you to adjust the fit to your face better, especially in glasses mode. Visual Clarity: As expected it is not as good as the Reverb G2 though not far off, but much better than index. For my eyes, noticeably better than the Q2, and on par with QP though to my eyes XR is touch more clear. The one thing I did notice is light bleed of white text on dark backgrounds, this has been mentioned by others and can be bad in some cases. FOV: Seems roughly the same as QP, better than Q2, and definitely less than the G2 and Index, but honestly given the ease of use, lightness, and connection and overall performance with comparable (G2) or better visuals (Index) I feel for casual/social gaming use it will likely be my daily driver despite less FOV. To get more clarity/resolution with large FOV it will require ridiculous hardware (like a $1.5-2k 4090) to run it so dont expect affordable rigs anytime soon. No scuba mask effect for me that others have suggested. Sound: It is better than I expected here. Coming from Index and G2 it is no where near that but definitely better to my ears than Q2 and QP. I did notice that at lower to mid volumes it sounds pretty decent but at higher volumes you start to notice an imbalance with bass lacking. I was able to use BT headphones (Nuratrue Pros) to watch movies with no sync issues, worked beautifully. I have not tried it with games yet though. If there were sync issues, I wonder if BT 5.3 would help, dont know enough here to speak to this...maybe someone out there has more insight. For those complaining about no headphone jack, there is a very simple solution, a USB C to 3.5mm Headphone and Charger Adapter ($14). This allows you to provide power (up to 60w) and plug in wired headphones in either glasses or with the battery cradle mode. So ignore the whining on that! Passthrough: This was a bit more disappointing, clearer than any other but still not workable. If you look at a screen with text that has white background from a distance looks just white until you move it very close to the headset. Additionally everything looks oddly flat...depth sensor is still not enabled so we will see how it is in future. Resolution is still not great but passthrough is better than any I have tried to date. Hand Tracking: Work in progress. It is workable with some gnashing of teeth along the way. Also mostly available for menus and mirroring, not for many games at moment. The menu mouthing worked great for me, the pinching to click/select often selected when I didnt pinch. Likely due to angle of camera to my hand so may take some learning on my part. So how did XR Elite fare in each of my uses above? PCVR Wired: Downloaded the vive streaming app to PC, plugged in and up came my steam home and away I went into my library. Demeo, Walkabout Minigolf, Alex and others all worked without issue or hitch. PCVR Wireless: I did not get to try this properly, leaving for a trip, but was able to actually connect and start to play Walkabout with my PC wireless and the headset wireless on heavily shared wifi 5 but did get choppy quickly. If I wired the PC to router expect this would have resolved this so very promising, sorry cant offer more here. Mobile Mirroring: For me this was easy to set up, download the manage, connected to same wifi, selected mirroring and it paired and just worked with my Samsung S22+. It was clear and responsive with no issues. In landscape it really crunches your view and portrait seems unusually tall and thin but overall workable and watching movies was great in a non-noisy environment. Standalone VR: Worked great, visuals were better than I expected, but did not do much more that immersed, Cosmic Flow, and some other free options as leaving for a trip so didnt have much time. Others will undoubtedly be able to provide further insight here. PCVR is my main use so not as vital for me. Travel/ Flight Movies: Used a MS Surface with streaming cable and worked just spectacularly. Cant tell you how good this experience was especially with BT headphones...dont bother with just headset speakers on a plane or other noisy environment as even at full volume you could barely hear the movie. Also, movies via phone mirroring was not smooth, to stuttery/lurchy, though sound with BT was good too. Virtual Workspaces: Used Immerse for this and it is workable for sure. Will not be as efficient as working with multiple screens in IRL yet to me but still investigating. Need to figure out if can do virtual screens in passthrough to use actual keyboard and mouse and simply have screens fixed in your space. The resolution is not quite as sharp as I would like but working on the road it is definitely a viable option and could work for hours if I can sort out using actual mouse and keyboard. Passthrough: Discussed above, helpful but hope it improves with enabling of the depth sensor. Resolution while better than any I have tried to date is still not great. If AR is your thing there are better options. There it is, hope it is helpful to some out there considering this headset. This headset is not breaking any new ground in terms of FOV and resolution. For me this is the only one that ticked all the boxes for me to play my PCVR library but also be useful for Travel and have standalone with phone mirroring (compatible phones only). HTC achieved a good balance with this headset and for someone new to VR who travels for work this will be the best option out there at the moment in my opinion. Hopefully they can improve on the glasses mode with longer arms and for future versions adjustable arms at the headset connection to allow for a better fit and placement of in built speaker to your ears. I am looking forward to seeing how the software improves seeing they are actively addressing many of issues people who had it early have reported.