Displaylink is ready to make wireless virtual reality setups, well, a reality

By Brendan Hesse January 11, 2018

It isn’t CES without virtual reality, and this year we saw the first steps toward making wireless VR a reality. At its CES booth, VR company Displaylink explained to us how it aims to bring a fully wireless VR experience to both single and multiplayer VR gaming setups in the near future.

The Displaylink XR setup is designed from the ground up to offer total freedom of movement — no cables, no toppling over furniture, or accidentally yanking over your PC. It’s also the technology powering HTC’s official Vive Wireless Adapter, which works with both the upcoming Vive Pro and legacy Vive headsets.

So, how does Displaylink make this possible? After all, most high-end VR headsets have been notorious for being a tangle of cords, tethering you down to small play areas near your PC, and presenting potential hazards and obstacles to playing. Including a wireless option would require a very quick wireless connection, because of the massive amount of data streaming from the PC to the headset and back again.

“Enabling the very best wireless VR user experience requires a combination of the best technology and partnerships,” said Frank Soqui, general manager of VR and gaming at Intel. “Intel 802.11ad WiGig radios working in conjunction with DisplayLink’s XR codec take HTC’s Vive to a whole new level.”

To do that, the Displaylink technology uses Intel’s WiGig technology — think of a typical WiFi connection on steroids. Connectivity runs over the 60GHz frequency band, which is great for preventing interference with existing Wi-Fi networks. Bandwidth fluctuations are bad for graphics, but Display link’s codec dynamically adjusts the bandwidth in real time, to deliver 90 frames per second with its current build, and up to 120 fps in the future.

You’ll have to wait a little while before you get your hands on one of these wireless adapters — they won’t hit store shelves until the third quarter of 2018. Still, keep an eye out — pre-orders will likely open in advance of the official launch date.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Virtual Reality

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Brendan has written about a wide swath of topics, including music, fitness and nutrition, and pop culture, but tech was…

Computing

Pimax’s 12K QLED VR headset wants to take virtual reality to the next level

Pimax's new 12k QLED VR headset.

It seems that virtual reality may be about to become even more real than ever before -- all thanks to a new VR headset. Pimax, a company that manufactures VR equipment, announced the upcoming release of a new 12K QLED VR headset that will feature technologies such as eye tracking, full-body tracking, and refresh rates of up to 200Hz. The headset, dubbed Pimax Reality 12K QLED, is part of the company's venture into the metaverse and a step toward bringing true realism to using VR.

During today's Pimax Frontier event, the company's representatives talked at length about the goals behind the product -- naturalness, self-awareness, and freedom. Pimax wants to bring these qualities into virtual reality and the metaverse, allowing people from all over the world to interact and explore virtual worlds together. While VR technology already allows for some of that to happen, Pimax wants to take it to the next level with its new invention -- the Reality 12K QLED VR headset.

Computing

The Best Black Friday virtual reality headset deals in 2019

HTC Vive Pro review

Virtual reality didn’t take off quite as quickly as the early hype led many to believe it would, but in recent years, there have been some great developments in the world of VR. From new-and-improved headsets to a recent number of great VR games (the most exciting of which might be Valve's upcoming Half-Life: Alyx), this technology has become considerably more accessible, and you thankfully no longer need to shell out a small fortune to get a good VR setup. Ongoing Black Friday gaming deals make this prospect even more enticing.

Just a few years ago, there were only a couple big names in the virtual headset market (Oculus and HTC), but a lot has changed recently. Today, numerous brands including HP, Dell, Samsung, and Lenovo have thrown their own hats into the VR ring, and the cost of these headsets has come down dramatically as competition has increased and the hardware has become more polished. This has also prompted the big players like Oculus to release some more budget-friendly alternatives, and Sony even made its own excellent (and affordable) VR headset just for the PlayStation 4.
Best Black Friday VR deals

Computing

How to convert WMA to MP3 on Mac, Windows, and Web

The JBL Tune 760NC wireless headphones on someone's head.

Remember when Windows Media Player ruled the earth? Before the world was inundated with versatile playback tools like VLC and countless other platforms, most users flocked to the built-in OS media players provided by Windows and Apple (the latter being the minds behind QuickTime). In fact, you’ve probably come across a handful of WMA files in your life of using computers.