Almost two years after launching in other parts of the world, the Valve Index is finally coming to Australia. It’s coming exclusively to EB Games when it releases on August 18th.
You can pre-order the numerous sets at the below links. Just as a reminder, you will need the headset and base stations (as well as a gaming PC) in order to use it.
- Valve Index Complete Kit – $1,899.95
- Valve Index Headset – $999.95
- Valve Index VR Headset + Controllers – $1,499.95
- Valve Index VR Base Station – $249.95
- Valve Index VR Controller 2 Pack – $499.95
The Valve Index is widely regarded as one of the best VR experiences. It has dual 1440×1600 RGB displays, full 120Hzz compatibility and built in speakers.
Whilst there have been ways to get this headset into the country, this will be the only way to have a full local Australian warranty. EB Games is giving a two week money back guarantee for those that are unhappy with the headset too.
We’ll keep you posted on more details are they hit, but obviously it’s great to know that the set is finally coming to Australia, for those VR enthusiasts that want the best.
VALVE INDEX FEATURES
- Optimised pixel layout: The headset’s dual 1440×1600 RGB LCDs provide 50% more subpixels than OLED, resulting in greater sharpness for the same rendering cost. In addition, the fill-factor is three times better than OLED, greatly reducing “screen door” effect.
- Higher frame rates: The Valve Index® Headset runs at 120Hz with full back-compatibility to 90Hz, as well as an experimental 144Hz mode. Higher framerates improve realism and optical comfort, allowing longer and more comfortable play sessions.
- Extremely low persistence: Valve Index displays have a reduced illumination period of 0.330ms to 0.530ms (framerate dependent), allowing imagery to remain just as sharp when your head is in motion as when you’re standing still. This is a 5x improvement over first-generation PC VR HMDs.
- Optimised for FOV: The best way to improve field of view is to position the optics as close as possible to the eyes. Physically adjustable IPD (distance between eyes) and eye relief (distance from lens to eye) lets you optimize the field of view for your face. With these features, as well as the dual-element lens and canted optics, this headset provides 20° more FOV than the HTC Vive for typical users.
- Dual-elements lens: The custom lenses built into the Valve Index Headset maximize field of view without sacrificing edge-to-edge clarity. High geometric stability allows you to look around the scene by moving your eyes (not just your head) with minimal shape distortion.
- Canted optics: Instead of a mount perpendicular to the user’s eyes, the headset’s displays cant outward by 5 degrees. This improves outer FOV while balancing the inner FOV.
- Off-ear immersion: Designed to provide a more natural way to experience audio, Index Speakers do not touch the ears, allowing sound to freely flow and interact with the geometry of your own head and ears. With this earspeaker design, audio feels greatly externalized – virtual sound sources appear to come from the environment around you, rather than from inside your head.
- Long-session comfort: No physical contact means cooler temperatures and a huge improvement in comfort, no matter how long you play. Each speaker’s position is also adjustable and can be moved to the audio sweet-spot for all heads.
- Ultra-nearfield flat panel speakers: The composite honeycomb-panel speaker drivers in the Valve Index provide their full-frequency range across a nearly 180-degree dispersion pattern. This allows us to accommodate the widest possible diversity of ear and head shapes without sacrificing sound quality.
- Antimicrobial fabrics: The soft surfaces that touch your head and face are made with high-quality, woven antimicrobial fabric, which is soft on the skin and easy to clean. Ergonomically designed padding means pressure is evenly and comfortably distributed.
- Adjustments for every head: You can adjust Valve Index for your head size, face angle, and ear position. Then fine-tune your visual experience with IPD and eye relief adjustments.
- Cameras: The Valve Index HMD includes stereo, global-shutter RGB cameras made for computer vision, enabling applications like high-quality stereo pass-through. We are excited to see what the computer vision community creates.
2x Valve Index VR controllers: Designed from the ground up to enable natural interactions, high-fidelity hand presence, and long-term comfort. Interact with your environment, objects, and people just like you do in the real world. Valve Index Controllers combine complex sensor inputs to give you smarter hands in VR, unlocking a wide variety of new interactions, experiences, and gestures.
- Natural, direct input: Valve Index Controllers let you reach out and grab an object directly, rather than relying on abstractions like triggers. Hold up two fingers to make the peace sign, or drop objects by just opening your hand – just like in real life.
- Sensor fusion: Each controller uses 87 sensors to track hand position, finger position, motion, and pressure to determine user intent. All of these signals, combined with fine-tuned software and algorithms, give us a better understanding of how a player is holding and using the controllers.
- Throwing: Enabling natural and accurate open-handed throwing was a high priority for the team, and we used every sensor at our disposal. Optical and motion sensors provide velocity and trajectory, capacitive and force sensors help determine the intended release point, and our fine-tuned algorithms and software bring it all together into a usable input / output. The end result is an intuitive and natural-feeling throw.
- Open-hand interactions: The hand strap allows you to open your whole hand to drop or throw an object. This strap is easy to secure, and it adjusts at three points to fit a wide variety of hands – so you can focus on the game, and not hanging onto your controller.
- Long-term comfort: Since these controllers are worn instead of held, during a play session you can take breaks – fully relaxing your hands because they don’t need to constantly grip the controllers. As with all Valve Index hardware, the controller straps are made with an anti-microbial, moisture-wicking, and easy to clean fabric.
- Standard gaming inputs: With a full complement of buttons, triggers, and thumbsticks, all of your favorite Steam titles will just work. With the new SteamVR Input System, developers and players can re-bind and customize controls for any controller with any game.
- Squeeze-ability: The main body of each controller is your grip input, with built-in force sensors tuned to detect a wide range of forces from a light touch to a firm squeeze. This not only improves natural actions like grabbing and throwing objects, but introduces new interactions like squeezing and crushing. If a developer or player prefers the grip to behave like a binary button, they can do so with haptic output.
- Track button: The oval button on the face has force and capacitive sensors so it can be used as a trackpad, a scroll wheel, or as a simple big binary button with haptics. The force sensor enables analog actions such as pinching or pressing.
2x Valve Index VR base stations: The new single-rotor design provides a wider FOV and increased range. Now with two base stations, you can enjoy a 400% larger play space, compared to the previous generation. Add a third base station to cover a tricky spot in your room. If you need even more space, add a fourth base station to expand your play area up to 10×10 meters.
- Best-in-industry room-scale tracking: The highest quality tracking has gotten even better with Base Station 2.0, now with improved range, field of view, and scalability.
- Laser tracking: Valve Index® Base Stations further improve the industry-leading SteamVR tracking technology. Fixed lasers sweep 100 times a second to track photonic sensors on the headset and controllers. This ensures the highest resolution (sub-millimeter) experiences across all postures and actions without fear of occlusion.
- More compatible*: Now with a single coded laser sweep and no omnidirectional blinker, base stations co-exist with your other IR devices and have better immunity from depth cameras and motion capture systems.
- Increased range and FOV: The new single-rotor design provides a wider FOV and increased range. Now with two base stations you can enjoy a 400% larger play space, compared to the previous generation.
- Expandable: Add a third base station to cover a tricky spot in your room. If you need even more space, add a fourth base station to expand your play area up to 10×10 meters
