The HP Reverb is now finally available in selected places. I have spent the last weeks asking whoever people something about it, and today the awesome Joanna Popper notified me that it is finally on sale online on HP Store. So, if you are interested in a high-resolution headset, shop it now!

HP Reverb

Hp reverb headset (Image by Road To VR)

The HP Reverb is a high-resolution enterprise headset offered by HP. It is a headset that looks a bit like a Oculus Rift CV1, is powered by WMR reference design and has the outstanding resolution of 2K per eye!

It is the 2nd gen generation of HP Virtual Reality headsets. The first one was that cheap WMR headset that made people look like Robocop. With this new headset, originally codenamed “Copper” and now released with the name “Reverb”, HP aims at offering a comfortable product that can answer the need of enterprise companies of having a headset featuring an outstanding resolution. According to HP spokespeople, in fact, companies are less interested in big FOV and more interested in very high resolution, that is useful for better prototyping of industrial products, for instance, or for reading text instructions in VR training experiences.

HP Reverb specifications

The high resolution is the most impressive characteristic of the Reverb. 2K per eye is a huge improvement over 1st gen headsets

The main specifications of the HP Reverb are:

Display resolution : 2160 x 2160 pixels per eye

: 2160 x 2160 pixels per eye Display type : LCD

: LCD Refresh-rate : 90 Hz

: 90 Hz FOV : around 114°

: around 114° IPD Adjustment : only via software

: only via software Tracking : inside-out with 2 cameras

: inside-out with 2 cameras Connection : 1x USB 3.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.3

: 1x USB 3.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.3 Audio: integrated speakers and microphone

The price is $599 for the consumer edition (that will be available e.g. on Amazon) and $649 for the enterprise edition (available e.g. on HP website). The enterprise edition offers enterprise warranty, a leather-style face cushion and an additional 0.6M cable (for use with VR backpack PCs).

From the price, you can get that this is a headset targeted more at prosumers and enterprises (like the Valve Index) and not to the average consumers (like the Rift S).

Reviews

The headset has received until now mild reviews. It has been praised for being comfortable, and for having a massive resolution, that together with the high fill-factor of the LCD display, makes sure that the SDE is very low.

Anyway, there are some problems: my hero Ben Lang talks about strange visual artifacts: red smear, pupil swim, etc… And apart of this, the controllers are still the standard WMR ones with their tracking that is always “mediocre”, exactly as their comfort.

Release date mistery

The HP Reverb should have been released on “late April 2019″, then the date slipped to the beginning of May. But at the arrival of the 6th of May, the expected day of launch, nothing happened and the headset appeared as “out of stock” both on HP Website and on authorized resellers (like Amazon).

We thought about a last-minute delay, but the days after, the headset never went online. So I started contacting HP in all possible ways, but got no answer on this. I asked other more famous journalists (like Ben) to do the same, but they haven’t got an answer, either. No one understood what was happening with the Reverb.

This until last week a Redditor decided to publish a post to explain the situation. His nickname is u/Voodooimaxx and he claims being the Quality Program Manager for HP’s VR Team. In his long post, he says that the Reverb was fine, but as soon as they went from prototyping to mass production, they found some little issue in the units and so decided to recall all of them and to start shipping the units again when the problem would have been solved.

Production churned away and we tested those units as we would any other development phase, and we found something we didn’t like. I won’t go into details as to what popped up, and it was something small, and most folks would never have noticed, but it effected enough of our test samples that we decided to put the breaks on things until we got it fixed. (I think it’s fair to say there was a bit of panic in there too.) We knew we’d be under the microscope (“HP? Trying to make waves in the VR space?“) and wanted this to go out as close to perfect as possible. (We know we can’t please everyone. That’s just part of the game.)

He says that communication was bad because the VR team is still a little entity inside a so big company like HP. He claimed that the headset would have been available soon. After that, silence again.

HP Reverb comfort features. Comfort is very important for enterprise headsets, that have to be worn various hours a day (Image by HP)

HP Reverb is now available

It seems that he was right. Today, I’ve been contacted by the awesome Joanna Popper, that is HP’s “Global Head of VR for Location Based Entertainment” (damn, people in big companies have job names that are sooo long!), that warned me that the Reverb is finally available on the Italian HP Store! I had a look and noticed that it is also available on US Store and UK Store, but for instance it is not available on the French store and on Amazon yet. US store claims that shipping will start on June, 18th, while the UK store estimates a delivery from 10th to 17th of June.

/u/Voodooimaxx has posted a new post today and explained that enterprise companies were already available to buy the headset via HP representatives and that the worldwide release will be rolling out this weekend, starting from some countries on the HP store only. In some weeks, it should be available worldwide, both on HP store and on other resellers like Amazon.

Demand for the HP Reverb has greatly exceeded the estimates and greatly exceeded the supply. Enterprise customers have been able to order via HP salespeople and reseller channels already for a few weeks in many countries and those shipments have been shipping out. The retail and online availability was pushed back to balance the supply. The US retail and online product availability will start in the next week though it will be limited in number. (cough *I’d suggest staying tuned this weekend to HP site….😋) For other retailers, availability should start soon. We don’t have full visibility to their roll-outs schedules and plans. Worldwide product at retail and online availability will be rolled out over the coming weeks. We do anticipate demand to exceed supply for the next few months so recommend enterprise customers put their orders in as early as possible to allow for lead times and recommend that retail/ online customers act quickly when they see available product.”

All is well what ends well. If you need a HP reverb headset, go buying it today!

UPDATE: it seems that there is a new shortage of Reverbs on HP stores of some countries where it was available before. According to HP, it will be available again on HP stores and online retailers starting from July 2019.

(Header image by HP)

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