This bit of news is a little more pleasant for Valve. According to Engadget, the HTC Vive has passed FCC approval. HTC recently announced that the product would launch in April, slipping from its original launch date, Holiday 2015, by a few months. This was due to a “very, very big technological breakthrough” that was in no way elaborated on.
The linked FCC report calls the device the “HTC Base station.” This likely refers to the Lighthouse laser tracking system that are monitored by light sensors on the headset and controllers. The public notice includes the FCC warning label, which mentions that the device is a Class 1 laser system. There are five classifications of lasers, from Class 1 through Class 4 (with Class 3 split into Class 3a and Class 3b). Class 1 means that the laser is completely incapable of producing harmful radiation. Class 4 can cause fires. Since HTC's device is Class 1, this means that either the laser's intensity is too low to cause damage, even with sustained viewing, or the laser never produces a harmful amount of radiation in a way that could be viewed under normal operation. For instance, a laser printer is a “Class 1” laser, because everything occurs within the device. Laser pointers, on the other hand, are typically Class 2.
This raises an interesting question about how the lasers are used. They are clearly emitted into open space, because the sensors are on the visor. This suggests that the lasers are either very low power, or the beam is manipulated in such a way that it cannot be pointed into someone's eye for a meaningful amount of time. How? No idea.
HTC and Valve are expected to fully unveil the product at CES. PC Perspective will be at the event, and we'll probably have more information at that time.
Doesn’t lighthouse use
Doesn’t lighthouse use infrared lasers that are not visible to the naked eye?
Infrared lasers are more
Infrared lasers are more dangerous. Visible spectrum forces the eye to blink before a harmful amount of energy burns the retina. Infrared lets it keep cooking.
It is low intensity, it
It is low intensity, it spins, and it is designed to shine across the whole room. It is not focused on a small point like a laser pointer. I don’t think there would be any way to expose your retinas enough to cause damage, even if you were close to the emitter. The gizmodo article I was looking at has a slow motion gif of the device (or some version of it) with LEDs that apparently flash at 60 Hz and the spinning laser emitters. The drums look like they might be spinning at 30 rpm (half turn per LED flash). Even if you are looking right at the laser emitters, the exposure time would only be for a small fraction of the rotation period. They also don’t have to be very bright. They just need to trigger the receptors on the headset which presumably are designed to only respond to the specific laser frequency. If the laser light was focused on a small point, it would be difficult to hit the receptors on the headset. Spreading the energy across the whole room should ensure that it is harmless even though it uses a laser internally. I would say that it is mostly harmless. Taking it apart and shining the un-diffused source laser in your eye might be dangerous though, depending on how bright it actually is.
Yeah, all of those reasons
Yeah, all of those reasons could contribute to it being a no-risk, Class 1 laser. I'm still curious about the specific reasons why, though.