LG’s upcoming VR glasses for Steam VR

In February LG announced a VR glasses for Steam VR, which supports HTC Vive Valves tracking system Lighthouse. According to Valve, the VR glasses will enable a “high-quality VR experience of the next generation”.

We were beginning to wonder if we would see LG’s SteamVR headset again this year, but it’s just been spotted at a VR festival in Korea.

The official Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Twitter account just posted a fresh image of the headset and its controllers as shown at the Korean VR Festival. Take a look below.

Now, new pictures of the still nameless VR-glasses, which were shot at a South Korean Virtual-Reality-Event, have appeared on Twitter.

Overall it doesn’t seem like the kit has yet undergone any major revisions since it debuted at the 2017 Game Developers Conference in March, at least on a surface level. The black headset still sports the flip-up design that allows you to quickly remove the visor from your eyes, and the controllers still look like a more rigid take on the HTC Vive’s circular wands.
However, it is possible that the internal specs for the kit have been upgraded since we last saw it. When we went hands-on with the headset it boasted the below features.

• Two panels (one for each eye) with a resolution of 1440 by 1280 each
• OLED display from LG
• 3.64 inches diagonal
• 90 Hz refresh rate
• 110 degree FOV

Lighthouse 2.0 and Knuckles controller for the second VR generation at Steam

LG’s new glasses are expected to support the revised Lighthouse tracking, the Valve announced in June – anything else would be a surprise. The base stations of Lighthouse 2.0 are smaller, lighter and quieter and should be even more precise.

They can also be connected in series so that a larger tracking area can be covered. This is likely to be of particular interest to customers in the industry or to suppliers of VR-gaming halls – two areas where HTC Vive is currently almost alone.

Development kits for the device were said to have gone out to ‘select partners’ earlier in the year, though we’re likely looking at a 2018 release at this point. The real question is how the upcoming launch of SteamVR 2.0 will affect this kit. Besides a more efficient base stations that can support more elaborate setups Valve is preparing a new pair of Knuckles controllers with better ergonomic design.