TPCast’s second generation wireless VR solution wants to turn Oculus Quest into a streaming PC VR headset.
TPCast Air was announced at CES 2019 in Las Vegas today. Whereas the Chinese company’s original products made the HTC Vive and other PC VR headsets wireless via streaming, this new device will beam high-end VR content into less powerful standalone headsets.
The company says it’s starting out with streaming to Oculus Go. Go is a three degrees of freedom (3DOF) headset with one controller, though, so don’t expect to jump up and start streaming Superhot to the $199 kit. The kit supports SteamVR and is focused on enterprise and location-based customers, thus TPCast says this service would be best for “real estate, home decoration/interior design, education, and other industry applications.”
However, the company’s press release also notes that support for Oculus Quest will be added in the future. Arriving later this year, Quest is another standalone but it has a full 6DOF range of movement thanks to inside-out tracking. Specifically, TPCast says this integration will allow users to freely walk and interact with each other. The company says it could be put to use in VR arcades.
We know that Quest won’t be able to plug into a PC to double as an Oculus Rift. Oculus did, however, debate offering a streaming solution similar to what TPCast is describing. According to Oculus’ John Carmack, it could turn into an official feature, but ‘no promises’ as of yet.
TPCast Air is on display on the CES show floor. We’ll look to get you some impressions later this week.
