HTC VIVE Cosmos

I have owned the first version HTC Vive since its release and was expecting the Cosmos to be a significant advancement from the original. Unfortunately that is not the case. The “screen door” effect is still plainly visible, the headset is more finicky than the original, very narrow field for optimal viewing, and it still has a noticeable VR sickness after extended gameplay due to the “screen door” effect. If the headset moves a millimeter while you are playing all details are completely blurred out making it impossible to read written dialogue or see the graphically rich details of games. I do not think it is worth the cost to upgrade from the Vive to the Cosmos. Hopefully HTC or one of their competitors will create something truly revolutionary that justifies the cost of upgrading.

The display came with stuck pixels. It is fully functional but really, really frustrating.

There are so many flaws with the cosmos that its surprising it made it past testing. The amount of light you need in your room of choice has to be about the brightness of the sun for the headset to even work. The controllers dont track well at all and jump all over the place. Didnt come with the required cables for a vr ready laptop (stupid mini display port). Many games i was looking forward to playing dont even work with the cosmos (windlands 2). At least it looks nice both inside (assuming you can get it to work) and outside. Get any other headset.

I had nothing but issues using the Cosmos. Consistent with many other reviews the inside out tracking ended up being super inconsistent and would loose my hand position in the middle of songs playing beat saber (the game I bought this to play) which was incredibly frustrating and game breaking when you play on insta fail mode. I had read before purchasing that they had pushed updates to fix these issues which is what lead to my purchase initially but it seems that didnt work out. I looked into purchasing the elite faceplate and the lighthouses for external tracking, however upon researching the lighthouse I saw that while it supports the faceplate, it doesnt support base cosmos controllers, so I would have to sink in MUCH more money than I initially thought to get the plate mod new controllers and two base stations . Not doing that. As of 05/30/2020 on Amazon it cost $200 per station... $200 for the Faceplate... and $130 per controller $860 WTF???? The Cosmos Elite comes with all of that and only cost $900 ._. Maybe I have an abnormal head or something but the fit of the headset itself was also rather uncomfortable mainly around the back tightness dial and front forehead pad I could never find a good position to wear it to get the right IPD setting which resulted in some blur. I could also see outside the headset slightly by my nose leading to light bleeding through. The headphone snap design wouldnt allow for the headphones to close on my ears, they would always click back out to the open position away from my ears whenever I would try to click them into place, i tried moving the headphones forwards and backward on the adjustment rail but there was no set position they would actually work in. (lol I guess at least the audio quality was good) I personally didnt like Viveport home and found the in VR settings to be lacking. but I got around SOME of that by using steam Vr home. I would have liked to be able to rescan my room setup from inside VR instead of having to do it from my desktop. I also noticed that when I layed down to watch youtube in the virtual desktop app on steam (because why not) the screen would go black until i jolted my head around, I guess it thought I took off the headset cause I was being still?? what? The display was the only thing keeping me from returning the Cosmos, it WAS sharp enough to read despite my vision impairments and the frame rates were smooth.... Then today I turn my headset on and everything is kinda pixelated and brightly washed out almost like I cranked a gamma dial to max. Could be a hardware issue with this specific unit, could be a driver issue on my end, I couldnt find anything matching this problem on google so I spent some time trying to fix this on my own to no avail. In the end I decided the constant issues were in no way worth the $700 I paid. Im returning the headset and am going to hold off on future purchases from HTC which sucks because this was my first experience with one of their products and had been wanting to get a Vive for a long time now.

I purchased this knowing about the various tracking issues thinking it would be fixed as it has been out for sometime. Well it has not been and does not look to be improving anytime soon. At this point just get the Rift S of your IPD fist within the parameters on theirs. If you want wireless look for a Vive Pro or wait until the Valve Index comes out with one and is more available. Pros - - The resolution and clarity are excellent. The ability to read text is very good. - the ability to go wireless if you pay the large price tag for a wireless adapter. Cons - - Tracking is awful and has tons of issues. Even opting into the beta did not help and just added more issues. I was unable to use any 2 handed weapons in games. Even with all of the beta updates there has been almost no improvement to the tracking. - I was not able to find the sweet spot because the headset cant be moved back and forth from your eyes. Also I was not able to get the headset to a very comfortable position because of the way the headband sets on the head. The way it tilts is very annoying. - I played in a well lit room and still had issues with the headset saying there was not enough light. - The IPD adjustment on the side of the headset would not always pop up when I was trying to adjust it. Super irritating trying to get it to adjust the correct spot for myself.

What I disliked about the product was the not available mini display port the adapter for gaming laptops. What I liked was the high resolution screens and pass_through mode. I used it for Flight simulator and space exploring.

In terms of user satisfaction, this headset just falls short. I used mine for flight sims and the visuals are just atrocious. With this headset, you wont be able to read any of the gauges in the cockpit or any of the data on the PFD. It also seems to require A LOT of light in the room in order for tracking to function at an almost respectable level, so if you have this headset, get the brightest lightbulbs you can find. Make it look like broad daylight in the room, and then open the curtains (make sure the sun is shining and there are no clouds...) I wish I had done more research before I bought this headset. It does have one nice feature that I havent seen on any other VR headset. There is a button on the left side that you can push to see the real world without having to take the headset off or flip the visor. Sadly, thats about where the accolades end. After I did a lot more research I wound up getting an HP reverb G2, which is probably what I should have got in the first place since I primarily use VR for flight sims.

I love my this thing so cool and fun but my head is a little to big so vision is a little blurry but I’m pretty blind and I can see better in vr then in real life without my glasses so also this is only one I found that even goes as big as it does (vision is based off I separation distance or something and most don’t go nearly wide enough for my head)

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 didnt 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 wasnt 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 lets 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 HTCs VR quest.

The inside out tracking HTC advertises for this unit is nowhere near ready for consumer use. This thing loses track of its controllers during nearly every movement youll make. You may be able to play some game, but enjoying them is a much different matter. This issue can be fixed if youre willing to spend around $900 to upgrade it or scrounge around and take chances on used peripherals. First youll need a tracking faceplate. This is sold separately for $200. In order to work, it needs two base stations. These are sold separately for $200, each. You will need both. Then, because the faceplate also cant track the Cosmos controllers, youll need to buy the older model controller at $130 each. That comes to $860 just to get it to do what it needs to function normally. Maybe most telling is the fact that HTC sells the Cosmos Elite with a faceplate, base stations, and the correct controllers for $900. The simple existence of the faceplate tells me they know the inside out tracking system does not work and the Cosmos Elite package tells me that they know the standard Cosmos is not a functional product. The Cosmos Elite is a more reasonable and honest portrayal of what the Cosmos system can do and should cost, although its still very expensive by comparison to its competitors. The Cosmos standalone is nothing more than a dishonest and overpriced platform to sell you expensive peripherals which are actually essentials without which the system is nearly unusable. Poor form, HTC. I returned this, and will have to think long and hard before buying anything else from this company. Even though the Cosmos Elite package appears to be a better offering that will work as advertised, the standard Cosmos has left me extremely suspicious of HTC.