Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsHTC Dropped the ball on the Vive Cosmos...Do Not BUY!
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2019
Bottom Line Up Front: I CANNOT recommend the HTC vive Cosmos; a lot of problems and it is way overpriced.
NOTE FOR HTC: I hope that the HTC engineers and department heads read this and take note as I really am very, very disappointed with this headset and I honestly believe that HTC dropped the ball on the development of this unit; and rushed it to market without the appropriate testing. I returned my unit to Amazon for a refund.
Summary: I have been an owner of the original Vive for more than a year. My entire family enjoys using the original Vive. And we have not had any problems with the original Vive.
I have been following the Vive Cosmos since it was announced and was looking forward to a system that supposedly has better improvements than the original Vive. Boy, was I wrong. Ordered it on 23 Sep and received it on day of release, 3 Oct 2019. Opening the box and removing the headset, I immediatley noticed how light the HMD is but I found it to be very cheaply constructed and flimsy and the face plate rattles. It just did not feel like a solid headset as the original Vive does. I followed the instructions and installed the required software with no problems..my sytem, I7-8700K CPU, Nvidia GTX 108Ti, and 32 GB RAM; while the resolution is definitley much sharper than original Vive, everything else is a negative...at least to me and my family. While everyone has different likes and dislikes, let me explain the negatives from my use of the Vive Cosmos (used for two days).
Fit: yes the halo strap is comfortable but with the design of the flip up, I just could not get a good sweet spot (clear focus across what my eyes were viewing in Origin or Steam VR or game) without really cranking down the knob on
the back of the headset which was painful. The problem is with this ability to flip up the HMD it does not allow for the HMD to sit flat and close to your face, resulting in severe light bleed from the nose area. I tried different adjustments for hours...all to no avail. Even with the knob cranked down as tight as I could get, there was still light bleed from the nose area and a lot of pain on my head from the severely tightened head strap. And no I do not have a big or small head, I am average; my entire family had the same problems I was having above.
Resolution (The ONLY POSITIVE aspect of the VIVE COSMOS albeit blurriness was an issue at the edges of the eye lenses): yes, much sharper than the original vive but with a very small sweet spot thus leaving a lot of blur on the edges of the lens. I again tried different adjustments to include adjusting the IPD (distance between pupils of the eyes). My IPD is 68. The COSMOS allows and IPD adjustment of 61-73.
Controllers: I did not think the controllers were too heavy nor do i think they were awkard to use. However, the issue with the controllers is they require two (2) AA batteries per controller. I did get about 6-7 hours of use before I had to replace the batteries. Also very few games work with these controllers as they are not mapped for many games. I tried over 10 games and only two worked without flaws...some would not work at all.
Tracking: Not good....first the lighting issue--display kept popping up saying that the environment was too dark. My room has five (5) LED lights in the ceiling and a huge picture window of solid glass. There was enough light in my room to light up an entire drop zone! Tracking was jittery/clunky when using the controllers and many times I lost tracking and it would take 2-3 seconds to regain. I am of the opinion that inside out tracking is just not as accurate as outside in (i.e., using base stations...with our original Vive we have never had an issue with tracking day or night or with any app or game.) I understand that HTC did release a firmware update to address the problem with the lighting...but my question to HTC is why didn't this issue surface during testing...was the COSMOS properly tested,,by who and under what conditions??? Also, HTC is planning on releasing a HMD modular plate sometime in early 2020 (read that to mean maybe by June of 2020) that will allow tracking from outside in and thus allow the user to utilize Valve index or original Vive controllers....well, my next question to HTC is why wasn't this released at the same time as the VIVE Cosmos on 3 Oct....I suspect because it all comes down to HTC attitude of wait and see how many COSMOSs we sell and then if sales are good let's release the external tracking mod.
In summary, the Vive COSMOS definitely improves on resolution display over previous headsets but that is it...everything else is negative compared to the original Vive; and it just DOES NOT go far enough to justify a $700.00 price tag. HTC is all about money and it is a shame because they have the capability to come out with the best VR sytem over any other company...including Valve. But there greed of money will hurt them and I predict that the COSMOS will bomb unless HTC Vive COSMOS undergoes some major renovations as pointed out by the many negative reviews of the COSMOS, and undergoes a major price cut. Last, to reinforce my point about their greed.. why is HTC discontinuing the original VIVE??? The original VIVE sold between 35-45% of all VR HMDs...so why abandon it vice reinforcing it and continue to support it! This is really very sad to me as I would like to see HTC be very, very successful in the VR market...but the decision makers in that company are OUT of TOUCH with reality and this could be the beginning of the end for HTC's VR quest.
