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HTC Vive Focus 3 Standalone Headset Gets OpenXR Beta Support
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The HTC Vive Focus 3 standalone headset now has beta support for OpenXR content.
OpenXR is an open API standard for VR and AR development. It was developed by Khronos, the same non-profit industry consortium that governs OpenGL. OpenXR includes all the big companies in this space such as Meta, Sony, Valve, Microsoft, HTC, NVIDIA and AMD, but not Apple. It is officially released in 2019.
The promise of OpenXR is to allow developers to create applications that can run on any headset without having to specifically add support by integrating proprietary SDKs. Developers still need to compile separate builds for different operating systems, but all modern standalone VR headsets use Android.
Meta ditched its proprietary Oculus SDK in favor of OpenXR last year, so Vive Focus 3's support for OpenXR should make it easier to port Quest apps. HTC still sells the headset for business only—the $1299 price includes a two-year business license, extended warranty, and priority support.
However, there are still barriers to releasing VR apps to other stores. Platform-level APIs such as friend invites, parties, leaderboards, cloud saves, and avatars still vary. Porting requires a lot more work than the OpenXR ideal can offer.
Running OpenXR applications on the Vive Focus 3 currently requires joining the beta program. For developers, HTC has instructions for creating OpenXR content in Unity on the Vive forums.
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