StarVR One — specification and verdict
The StarVR One renders 1830x1464 per eye on two AMOLED panels at 90 Hz and spreads them across a 174-degree visible horizontal field with only 80.65 degrees of binocular overlap. That trade is the whole point of the device: a trainee sees peripheral movement no other headset shows, but text and fine detail are thinner than on a 2020 headset with half the field. Integrated Tobii eye tracking drives foveated rendering, and the marker-based system runs at a 1000 Hz tracking rate, which is why simulator and human-factors labs bought it. It is a PC headset fed by two DisplayPort and two USB 2.0 connections and tracked by two SteamVR 2.0 base stations, so nothing about it is portable.
Nothing here is a fleet device. Every seat needs a workstation with two DisplayPort outputs, two mains-powered SteamVR 2.0 base stations mounted in the room and a fixed, calibrated space you do not move. There is no vendor MDM, no kiosk mode and no enterprise licensing programme to buy into today. The launch price was 3200 USD for the headset alone, without controllers, PC or base stations, and StarVR never ran a distribution channel in Poland or Germany worth the name.
Do not buy it for training. Our courses are standalone Android VR applications and they do not run on a PC-tethered SteamVR headset at all, and beyond that the manufacturer's own domain no longer resolves, so there is no support path, no RMA and no firmware future. If you need the wide field for a simulator research rig, buy it used with eyes open; for workplace safety training, buy a current standalone headset instead.
How it compares within its class
The axis runs from the lowest to the highest published figure among the VR — PC-tethered devices in this catalogue. The grey tick is the median of that class.
Median for this class: $899, from 45 models that publish the figure.
Controllers and hand tracking
Nobody publishes what this device ships with
Bare hands
No hand tracking.
Full specification
An em dash means the manufacturer does not publish that figure.
- ManufacturerWho makes it — and who you buy support from.
- StarVR
- CategoryWhich kind of product this is. It decides which rows below make sense at all.
- VR — PC-tethered
- Device typeWhere the computing happens, and therefore what you need to run it.
- PC-powered VR
- AnnouncedThe day it was shown, which is not the day it shipped.
- 2018-08-04
- ReleasedYear the model went on sale. Older is not automatically worse in this category.
- 2020
- AvailabilityWhether you can still order it new today.
- Discontinued
- Support endsThe date the manufacturer stops supporting it. Decisive for a fleet you are about to buy.
- Support ends: not published by the manufacturer
- PanelThe screen type. micro-OLED gives deeper blacks and higher contrast; LCD is brighter and cheaper.
- OLED
- OpticsThe lenses in front of the panel. Pancake stays sharp closer to the edges than older Fresnel, which decides how much a trainee has to aim their head to read something.
- Optics: not published by the manufacturer
- Eyes coveredOne eye or both. Over a full shift this is a real difference in fatigue.
- Both eyes
- Resolution per eyePixels delivered to each eye. Higher means small text and labels stay readable.
- ≈1830x1464*Road to VR
- Refresh rateImages per second. Higher feels smoother and helps people prone to motion discomfort.
- 90 Hz
- Field of viewHow much of your view the image covers. Bigger is more immersive, not automatically better for work.
- ≈174° horizontal*VRcompare estimate (advertised 210° H / 130° V)
- Pixel densityPixels per degree of view — the honest way to compare sharpness between a headset and a pair of glasses. Higher is sharper. Only shown where somebody published it; we never compute it ourselves.
- Pixel density: not published by the manufacturer
- BrightnessIn a plant or outdoors, brightness decides legibility more than resolution does.
- Brightness: not published by the manufacturer
- WeightThe device alone. Anything above roughly 150 g is felt within an hour.
- ≈450 g*Road to VR
- Visible field of viewWhat the eye actually sees through the optics, by axis.
- 174° horizontal · 114° vertical
- Rendered field of viewWhat the device draws. Never smaller than what you see.
- 177.55° horizontal · 117.45° vertical · 176.68° diagonal
- Binocular overlapWhere both eyes see the same thing — this is where depth happens.
- 80.65°
- Average pixel densityPixels per degree across the image. More is sharper.
- Average pixel density: not published by the manufacturer
- Peak pixel densityThe sharpest point, usually the centre of the lens.
- Peak pixel density: not published by the manufacturer
- Subpixel layoutHow the coloured dots sit in a pixel. A stripe looks cleaner on text than PenTile.
- Subpixel layout: not published by the manufacturer
- Foveated renderingWhether detail is dropped outside where you look, to save performance.
- Eye-tracked
- PassthroughWhat the front cameras give you: colour, grayscale, or nothing.
- Passthrough: not published by the manufacturer
- Passthrough camerasResolution, density and frame rate of that camera feed.
- Passthrough cameras: not published by the manufacturer
- IPD adjustmentMatching lens spacing to the eyes. Motorised is fastest when one headset passes between people.
- IPD adjustment: not published by the manufacturer
- IPD rangeHow far the lenses travel to match eye spacing. A narrow range excludes part of any group of adults, which matters when one headset is shared.
- 53–77 mm
- Works with glassesWhether people who wear glasses can use it — fits over them, or takes prescription lens inserts.
- Works with glasses: not published by the manufacturer
- Vision correctionHow somebody who wears glasses uses it, and in what dioptre range.
- Vision correction: not published by the manufacturer
- DimensionsWidth, height and depth of the device itself.
- Dimensions: not published by the manufacturer
- Weight with strapWith the strap it ships with — the weight you actually wear.
- Weight with strap: not published by the manufacturer
- Head strapSoft band or a rigid one. Decides how the weight sits over an hour.
- Rigid strap with a dial
- MaterialsShell and facial interface, in the vendor’s words.
- plastic · foam facial interface
- ColoursColours the manufacturer sells it in.
- Black
- Haptics in the headsetVibration in the headset itself, not in the controllers.
- No
- TrackingWhether content stays put in the room (6DoF), follows head rotation (3DoF) or is simply fixed.
- SteamVR 2.0 base stations, marker-based
- Base stationsWhether boxes have to be mounted on the walls before it works.
- Required
- Tracking camerasHow many cameras it uses to know where it is.
- Tracking cameras: not published by the manufacturer
- Tracking rateHow often position is recalculated. Higher is steadier.
- 1000 Hz
- Depth sensorA dedicated sensor for distance, on top of the cameras.
- Depth sensor: not published by the manufacturer
- Hand trackingWhether bare hands can operate the interface, without a controller or the phone.
- No
- Eye trackingThe headset knows where the trainee is looking. Enables sharper rendering where they look, and attention analytics.
- Yes
- Face trackingTracks facial expression — for avatars, not for training scenarios.
- Face tracking: not published by the manufacturer
- Body trackingHow much of the body the device knows about. Estimated legs are not tracked legs.
- Body tracking: not published by the manufacturer
- Controllers includedWhether motion controllers come in the box, or are bought separately — or the device is hands-only.
- Controllers included: not published by the manufacturer
- Controller tracking6DoF controllers track position and rotation, so a hand reaches in space; 3DoF only point. “None” means hands only.
- Controller tracking: not published by the manufacturer
- Other input methodsWays in beyond controllers and bare hands.
- Other input methods: not published by the manufacturer
- Runs Skillsive appsOur own statement about whether Skillsive training applications run on it today.
- No
- Suitable for trainingOur judgement on whether it survives real deployment: comfort, hygiene, fleet management.
- No
- Kiosk mode / MDMVendor tooling to enrol devices, push an app and lock the headset to it. Practically required above ten devices.
- No
- Business tierAn official business tier, so devices belong to the company rather than to employees’ personal accounts.
- No
- Swappable facial interfaceRemovable, wipeable face padding. A consumable, and the difference between shared use and complaints.
- Swappable facial interface: not published by the manufacturer
- CertificationsIndustrial certifications stated on the manufacturer's own page. Empty means unconfirmed, never "probably fine".
- Certifications: not published by the manufacturer
- PortsPhysical sockets and charging contacts.
- 2x DisplayPort · 2x USB 2.0 · headphone jack
- Wi-FiThe Wi-Fi generation — it decides how well wireless streaming holds up.
- Wi-Fi: not published by the manufacturer
- BluetoothFor controllers, headphones and accessories.
- Bluetooth: not published by the manufacturer
- Video from a computerWhether a computer can drive it, over a cable or wirelessly.
- Over a cable (2 X DisplayPort, 2 x USB 2.0)
- AudioBuilt-in sound. Matters most where somebody has to hear a remote expert while working.
- Headphone jack
- MicrophoneBuilt-in microphone — the other half of talking to a remote expert.
- Microphone: not published by the manufacturer
- MicrophonesHow many. An array picks a voice out of a noisy hall; one does not.
- Microphones: not published by the manufacturer
- Price bandThe band it sits in, rather than a price that goes stale.
- Enterprise
- Launch priceThe manufacturer's launch price. Fixed history, so it never goes stale.
- $3200
- Price by configurationWhat each configuration cost at launch.
- Price by configuration: not published by the manufacturer
- Price todayApproximate current net price in USD — a general figure, since these barely differ between regions once tax is stripped out. A snapshot from the date shown, not an offer.
- Price today: not published by the manufacturer
- Comfort (from reviews)How it wears over a full session. Scored from agreement between independent reviewers, not from our own testing.
- Comfort (from reviews): not published by the manufacturer
- Edge clarity (from reviews)Sharpness away from the centre of the lens. Scored from agreement between independent reviewers.
- Edge clarity (from reviews): not published by the manufacturer
- Tracking reliability (from reviews)How tracking holds up in poor light and fast movement. Scored from agreement between independent reviewers.
- Tracking reliability (from reviews): not published by the manufacturer
- Hand tracking quality (from reviews)How usable controller-free hand tracking is in a training scenario. Scored from agreement between reviewers.
- Hand tracking quality (from reviews): not published by the manufacturer
Who this device is for
Simulation, defence and human-factors labs that specifically needed peripheral vision and eye tracking in one PC headset around 2020, and are still running it because the rig around it was built and calibrated once. Nobody rolling safety training out to industrial sites should be looking at this device.
What is missing, and what the manufacturer does not publish
StarVR advertised 210 degrees horizontal and 130 vertical, while the measured visible field is 174 by 114 — the gap between the marketing figure and the optics is unusually large here. No controller specification, cable length, dimensions or end-of-support date is published anywhere we could reach, and starvr.com no longer resolves, so we could not upgrade a single number to a live manufacturer page or confirm the year it was withdrawn.
StarVR One in independent reviews
Reviews we consider worth your time, each with a note on what the reviewer actually tested and why it matters for a training rollout. We do not own this hardware, so the tests are theirs — the reading of them is ours.
- VoodooDE VR - english version -2020
The only full independent review of a headset sold into the business sector at a price that kept it out of most hands. It also states what the package did and did not include, which matters when the base stations are a separate purchase.
Watch on YouTube - MRTV - MIXED REALITY TV2020
Very likely the first unboxing of this headset published anywhere, showing what the price actually bought. For a device this rare, footage of the object and its contents is a large part of what is knowable.
Watch on YouTube
Nothing is sent to YouTube until you press play. Once you do, Google receives your IP address and device data and may process them outside the EEA — see our privacy policy for the details.
StarVR One — frequently asked questions
- Does the StarVR One really have a 210-degree field of view?
- That was the number StarVR advertised, alongside 130 degrees vertical. The measured visible field is about 174 degrees horizontal and 114 vertical, with roughly 178 degrees rendered horizontally. It is still the widest field of anything in this catalogue, but 210 was never what the eye actually sees through it.
- Can I still buy a StarVR One and get support for it?
- No. It shipped in April 2020 at 3200 USD for the headset alone, and today the manufacturer's domain does not resolve and there is no sales or service channel we can point you at. What you find is used stock sold as-is, with no firmware updates and no RMA path behind it.
- Do Skillsive VR training courses run on the StarVR One?
- No. Our courses are standalone Android applications, while the StarVR One is a SteamVR headset that needs a PC over two DisplayPort cables plus two base stations mounted in the room. There is no Android runtime on it and no way to deploy or manage our content, so we mark it incompatible.
Compare this device
Consider these too
The nearest devices in the same class, ranked by availability and launch price — not by our opinion of them.
The manufacturer publishes no specification page for this device, so the figures were checked against a third-party database on 2026-08-08. Third-party specification database
Product and company names used here are the trademarks of their respective owners and appear only to identify the hardware being compared. We are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of these manufacturers. Illustrations are our own.