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I've had multiple rift owners tell me to get a vive because 'it does room scale'. Their website still doesn't mention anything about the touch enabling better tracking and room scale experiences! How could they screw up marketing this bad?

To be honest I'm still not even sure if I'm wrong about it supporting room scale, I've seen articles mention it but their website gives me doubts.

As I understand it, Oculus Touch is intended for two front-facing trackers (it comes with a second tracker to go with the Rift tracker). And the tracking seems pretty good while you're facing them. However, the three-tracker and diagonal-tracker setup is experimental, and the diagonal-tracker setup (Vive does the diagonal-tracker setup with its "lighthouses" to enable room-scale) is necessary if you're going to have games that encourage you to turn around or otherwise occlude the headset and the Touch devices with your body.

That's funny as I've seen people say Rift room scale is okay if you set up the cameras to be opposing (as instructions say). That said, if you buy an extra camera and get three it's mean to be VERY good room scale. Of course that's another 80 bucks, and officially above the Vive's price!

I think Oculus doesn't want to dillute it's marketing and reach the largest core group, so front facing standing. Many people don't have 5 by 7 feet free. We're currently at the stage of enthusiasts though, which have more money and space than typical users, and will move shit to make space (I sure did), which could definitely be a mistake...

The answer is complex which is why the marketing is so muddled. These guides cover "experimental" 2 and 3 sensor 360 degree tracking (https://support.oculus.com/help/oculus/199906947113632/?help...). You can buy a 3rd sensor, in additional to the sensors that came with Rift and Touch on the Oculus store for $80. The feature is considered experimental because the tracking setup UI isn't fully finished IIRC.

I have both a Vive and a Rift+Touch and to be honest the Vive handles tracking much better than Touch. I think Oculus is correct to classify room-scale as experimental with Touch.

I think that Oculus is avoiding marketing room-scale because Touch legitimately does not do it very well compared to the Vive:

* It almost certainly requires a third camera, which adds another $79 to the cost.

* Even with the third camera, the controllers lose tracking fairly easily if they're oriented away from the cameras (e.g., orient them towards your torso, but with nothing blocking the line of sight to the cameras).

* Even with the third camera, you end up with a smaller tracking volume than with the Vive.

* Lots of Touch owners are reporting serious tracking issues by just setting up two sensors in opposing corners. Others say it works fairly well. Your results will most likely be random.

* The Rift cable is barely long enough to work well if you're actually walking around your space rather than just standing still.

* In the same vein, Oculus does not sell or endorse any extension cables for the Rift HMD. I've seen folks try out a lot of them with mixed success.

* The sensors have to be plugged straight into your PC, which with three cameras uses up a lot of USB ports.

* Even with the third camera, you'll only get one extension cable from Oculus, so the two existing sensors will still be pretty tethered to your PC.

* Even with the extension cable, it's not easy setting up the cameras in optimal locations throughout the room.

* Oculus does not supply any mounting brackets or sell any brackets on their website for mounting against the wall.

* The Rift and Touch do not come with any linking box, nor does Oculus sell one separately.

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With all that said, Touch is a fantastic product and deserves the glowing reviews it's getting. It's just not designed for room-scale. It's workable, but not ideal.

Totally agree. I had a Rift set up in the office (seated) with Touch (very impressed) and brought it home at the weekend to try roomscale (with a third camera) and was utterly frustrated by the glitchy tracking. With the Vive (in the same room) I've never experienced a single glitch in nearly 60hrs of play. I hated running all the cables back to the PC as well. It's worth mentioning as well that the sensor USB ports all have to be USB3 as well. That means it takes up 4xUSB3 ports for roomscale!

Also many motherboard USB controllers are incompatible with both Rift and the Vive: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3zrtgs/psa_your_usb...

AFAIK neither company mentions this in their supported PC specs, though the Rift compatability tool will warn you if you have incompatable USB ports.

I would really have liked to have known this going into my Vive purchase - I've owned it for 2 weeks and have been able to use the device twice in that time.

Would a PCIe USB card work? I'd be pretty upset if I had to buy a new motherboard.

Yep, that's the plan. The recommended family of cards isn't sold in Australia so I'll have to import one.

The other issue is my older motherboard/CPU combo which may or may not be able to support the extra PCIE use.

Overall, fun times.

I have a Fresco PCIe USB card (afair that was what they've recommended) and it works just fine.

I bought a DK2 to play with it and get a "sample" experience. I'd buy in a second if there were a killer app, whether that be some sort of communication platform or big game. Thus far it strikes me as a gaming peripheral first and foremost, with the problem that nobody will spend big money to develop a big game for it because the platform isn't big enough. Think the Playstation Move controller - lots of promise for the technology but not enough sell through to get people to use it for much other than a gimmick to an existing game.

This is why I wish they would stop focusing on games. Looking at the Vive and Rift websites the #1 thing they're looking to sell people with is games. Why not utilities? Why not COMMUNITIES?

I wish they would make a big push for something that could expand our ability to meet with other people virtually. Why not a MUCK where you can speak with and interact with other people in a virtual space? It seems like there is so much more potential for self expression and interaction than people are building right now. AltspaceVR and Playstation Home were examples of this, but really doesn't bring a whole lot to the table that you couldn't get in any other MMO game.

If someone is making something like this and you need a backend or web developer, drop me a line :)

I'd love to work on a AR/VR "social network" (for lack of a better term). Facebook's SocialVR experiments are probably the closest to an actual attempt at doing something like this. I think AltspaceVR, Linden, and other smaller players building Metaverse style virtual worlds are somewhat misguided because they focus on fantasy over reality, which I think has a niche but doesn't appeal to a more mainstream audience.

One of the most exciting VR apps is Google Earth VR, which highlights that the "killer app" for VR will have telepresence at its core.

There's vTime, although it's primarily focused on mobile VR for now.

https://vtime.net/

It's something I'm actively working on: https://www.primrosevr.com

The demo at the bottom of the page is a virtual meeting room. It is... unfortunately broken right now and I've been too busy supporting VR clients to fix it yet, but perhaps you can see the idea there.

You're perhaps not misquoting Iribe but I think your statement is a bit misleading. He said 1 million units for the lifetime of CV1, and they plan to keep the CV1 around for at least a couple more years[0]. We may see more people buy Rifts as PC needed to run them get cheaper.

Also, PSVR has sold many units, but is 2 million short of their projection[1], which is pretty abysmal. I wanted them to succeed, like every other VR enthusiast since they're the lowest more reasonable entry point as millions of people have PS4's, but that just doesn't seem to be the case... :(

[0] People have pried for when CV2 might be expected and Oculus usually say "Lifetime of Rift's will be between smartphones and gaming consoles" Phones refresh every year, consoles every 8-ish, so something like 3?

[1] over the life of the first consumer version of the Oculus Rift."

You're right about the lifetime numbers rather than first year numbers. It's still likely they will hit 1 million units before Rift is end of lifed. Sales are definitely slower than Vive, but its possible they will catch up now that Touch is out.

As for PSVR, I've seen reports that they are actually supply constrained (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/14/sony-expect-playstation-vr-sh...) and the smaller market size isn't due to lack of demand. It might also be because there still isn't much content available for PSVR and Sony is waiting for a larger lineup and for more PS4 Pro unit sales.

> I wonder if they should have made a "Super DK2". Lower quality headset hardware but Rift quality tracking and touch support at a lower price.

As the owner of a DK2, I can say that would have been a much wiser strategy. They CV1 costs roughly twice as much as the DK2 but the increase in cost is mainly attributed to adding features rather than improvements to the weaknesses of the DK2.

The biggest drawback to the DK2 was its low display resolution and having tried the CV1 and Vive, the bump to 2160x1200 made little improvement. The switch to a standard RGD pixel layout from the DK2's pentile display made more of a difference than the resolution itself. The increase in refresh rate also added little benefit over the 75hz of the DK2 in my experience.

I was massively disappointed by the news that the CV1 was forgoing the leap to 4K but I was still willing to buy in to the superior pixel layout and positional audio if the price difference mirrored the tiny improvement in the overall experience. I was expecting a $400 headset and was floored by the $600 price point.

Now I'm just clinging to my DK2 and hoping Oculus doesn't completely kill support for it while I wait for another challenger to recognize this huge gap in the market. I would have already bought thr OSVR HDK2 if it broke the HDMI spec and allowed for a true 75hz+ refresh rate.

"The biggest drawback to the DK2 was its low display resolution"

I disagree. The biggest drawback of the DK2 and every other VR headset on the market is that the headset itself is big, bulky, and uncomfortable.

VR manufacturers really need to get the headsets down to around the size and comfort of regular glasses to prevent them from being tossed in the closet with the rollerblades and other novely items which are too annoying to use on a regular basis.

Once the novelty wears off, people will stop using it if it's not comfortable and convenient.

I agree. I also think that the mass appeal of VR is much lower than most tech enthusiasts believe. It's a novelty that everyone probably wants to try once just to see what it's like, but I don't think many people really want to play games or regularly immerse in experiences that way. It decreases your environmental awareness far too much imo, and I think that long-term, many people will believe it's creepy to be that sucked into a device, and walking around with a huge block attached to your head.

I've heard some people say that AR is really where VR can make mass-market appeal and I'd certainly agree that prospects for something like an environmental HUD a la Glass are much better than an "immersive" experience that leaves you blind to the real-world.

I agree, this is certainly not a demand driven product, I've played around with VR since the 90's and for some use cases it is unimaginably useful, yet for daily consumer entertainment the experience is not physically comfortable enough, interactive TV was not popular, people generally fill their time with lay back viewing, even when given more 'exciting' alternatives. Look at videogames, despite the potential we are still mostly stuck in realistic looking scenarios that permit us to play out violent fantasies, their are scant few titles that explore the deeper side of human experience, the indie scene is much richer in this regard, there is so much growing up to do in the 2d medium I am sceptical that adding a dimension will resolve these entrenched issues.

Yeah, they focused on comfort, when the primary market was early adopter gamers who don't really care about that. They could've been earlier to market and sold better if they had focused on raw performance and features.

Clean up the fit and finish and minimize VR sickness for the mass market 2.0 product. Early adopter products are about keeping people engaged with content and unique features.

The fundamental problem with both the Vive and Rift is resolution. If resolution was there, it would be an entirely different experience because you could work inside the Rift. Until this is fixed, it's just a niche.

Still ~$600 people might be tempted to opt for VR (Oculus/Vive). But lot of people miss the fact that the cost is in the range of ~$2000 when combined with VR unit + PC hardware you would need to run your VR. Given this PSVR becomes more interesting given that more or less there is a huge base of the PS4 installations and VR headset will seem like upgrade.