Vive Wave

VIVE Wave
Information
Type	VR software development kit and runtime
Industry	Virtual reality
Developer	HTC
Operating System	Android 7.1 or later
Supported Devices	Vive Focus, Vive Focus Plus, Vive Focus 3, Vive XR Elite, Vive Flow, Vive Focus Vision, and third-party Android-based VR headsets
Release Date	November 14, 2017
Website	developer.vive.com

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VIVE Wave (styled VIVE Wave, formerly written Vive Wave) is an open software development kit (SDK) and runtime from HTC for building virtual reality applications that run on Android-based headsets. HTC describes it as an API and runtime that lets developers create VR content on Android, with an open interface intended to allow interoperability across different mobile VR headsets and accessories and support for mainstream game engines. It is the native software platform of HTC's standalone Vive Focus line and is also used by third-party headset makers.

HTC announced VIVE Wave on November 14, 2017, at its Vive Developer Conference (VDC2017) in Beijing, alongside the standalone Vive Focus headset. The platform was positioned to unify a fragmented Chinese mobile VR market in which many manufacturers ran proprietary software, by giving them a common runtime and a shared content channel through HTC's Viveport store. Twelve hardware and content partners committed at launch to integrate VIVE Wave and Viveport into future products: 360QIKU, Baofengmojing, Coocaa, EmdoorVR, Idealens, iQIYI, Juhaokan, Nubia, Pico, Pimax, Quanta and Thundercomm.

Purpose and design

VIVE Wave provides a hardware abstraction layer between VR applications and the underlying Android device, so that a single application can run on a range of headsets without per-device porting. Comparisons at launch described it as combining functions of Google Daydream and OpenVR for the Android standalone space, targeting low motion-to-photon latency (under 20 milliseconds) and asynchronous timewarp across heterogeneous hardware. Road to VR later characterized the platform as analogous to Android for smartphones: headset makers can focus on hardware while tapping a common operating layer and an existing app catalog, lowering the barrier to entry for building a standalone VR device.

The SDK targets Android 7.1 "Nougat" (API level 25) or higher. It ships in several forms: a native (C/C++) SDK, a Unity XR plugin package, and an Unreal Engine plugin, distributed as the modules com.htc.upm.wave.native, com.htc.upm.wave.xrsdk and com.htc.upm.wave.essence. Through these integrations the SDK exposes headset and controller tracking, 3DoF and 6DoF input, Hand tracking, Eye tracking and tracker support, and (on supported devices) passthrough for mixed reality content.

Supported devices and partners

VIVE Wave is the software platform of HTC's standalone headsets. The first-generation Vive Focus, a standalone 3DoF headset built on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip, launched in China before a wider release in November 2018 and ran VIVE Wave; the 6DoF Vive Focus Plus, Vive Focus 3, Vive XR Elite, Vive Flow and Vive Focus Vision followed on the same platform.

Beyond HTC's own hardware, the platform was offered to other manufacturers. At GDC 2018, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 845 VR Development Kit reference headset added VIVE Wave support, letting partners ship Wave-based devices from the reference design. In June 2020 HTC and Qualcomm expanded the arrangement, optimizing VIVE Wave for Snapdragon chips, including the Snapdragon XR2, and offering testing and support so that any Snapdragon-based VR headset could adopt the platform.

Relationship to OpenXR

HTC is an official adopter of OpenXR, the cross-vendor VR and AR standard managed by the Khronos Group, and the VIVE Wave runtime has passed the OpenXR conformance test suite. The Khronos conformant-products list records "VIVE Cosmos" with the "VIVE Wave runtime (PC)" as OpenXR 1.0 conformant on Windows (December 2020), with HTC America's Android submissions covering the "VIVE Wave runtime (AIO)" on the Vive Focus 3 and later the Vive XR Elite and accessories both recorded in March 2023. An OpenXR public beta for the Wave runtime on the Vive Focus 3 had opened the previous year, in April 2022. In practice the Wave runtime backs HTC's OpenXR support on its standalone devices, so applications can target either the proprietary Wave API or the standard OpenXR API on the same hardware.

HTC distinguishes the two paths in its developer guidance: VIVE OpenXR is the recommended, portable route for content meant to run across multiple vendors' headsets, while the VIVE Wave SDK is oriented toward HTC's All-in-One devices and tends to surface VIVE-specific features earlier. HTC has marked its older, non-XR-plugin Wave integrations as legacy and directs new mobile and PC VR projects toward combined OpenXR Unity and Unreal packages.

Status

VIVE Wave remains in active development as of 2026. HTC published Wave SDK 6.1.0 in August 2024, adding mixed-reality development features such as passthrough mesh clamping to reduce GPU load, and version 6.2.0 is the current documented release. The component packages reached release 6.2.0-r.9 in January 2025.