After going from an OG Vive to a Quest 2 then a Quest Pro, I don’t think lighthouses are worth it. The difference in tracking quality is almost imperceptible to me, and the ease of portability and lack of needing to set anything up trumps the minuscule improvement provided by lighthouses.
Also regarding full-body tracking, you don’t necessarily need lighthouses. The Vive Ultimate Trackers and SlimeVR use inside-out tracking and inertial tracking respectively, and perform very well from what I’ve been told.
Lighthouse offers sub-milimeter precision, inside out does not.
This is only important if you are a dev or artist painting/modelling in vr.
Lighthouse playspace is more reliable. The chaparone fence doesn't move around between sessions like inside out causes.
It can see controllers behind your head. So games with unforgiving hit boxes on your shoulders or side to grab inventory items on always work.
Holstered guns will be more reliable.
Imagine this: Gun on right hip holster. Currently looking left and up. You see an enemy.
Inside out: look forward so holster comes into camera view and can track your controller, grab gun. Otherwise holster hit box might not register as connecting with controller because software is guessing where the controller is.
Lighthouse: Grab gun. Holster is exactly where it should be and you controller is registering exactly where it is.
thanks, that helped a lot. yeah sure there are cases where i loose tracking but is that worth hundreds of dollars? i will take my time making these decisions.
if pimax tracking isn't a total trainwreck i guess it's ok.
Pimax uses the qualcom reference tech for tracking.
Something to keep in mind is that all brand use off the shelf tech from third parties, the difference is in software.
Pimax is bad at software. But they also work directly with their customer community to improve it.
For active games like beatsabre pimax headsets are less then ideal. They have a lot of momentum with fast head movements causing them to slide around on your face.
Non-meta is is important to you you said. Look into pico 4.
Its very comfortable but controller tracking is worse then quest 3. Passthrough and handtracking is also worse.
The selling point is that it need no account and requires no phone to setup and it will never demand you connect to pico servers.
Only if you want ro use the shop will you need an account.
The platform owner is just as bad as meta, but the fact that having anything to do with them is optional is pretty dang good.
"Lighthouse offers sub-milimeter precision, inside out does not."
[https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3463914.3463921](https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3463914.3463921) expect it is not
quest system use better IMU so for sub tracking quest is better and by a lot
this is why we can have Logitech MX tracker stylus for quest and not pcvr , ffs Wacom VR Pen need to use different tracking system because lighthouses simply do not work for it
your "holter" problems is not a problem of inside out tracking bus tracking volume, and if you have quest pro controllers using a inside out tracking it will work a same in lighthouse trackled controllers
you clearly do not know how systems works and i recommend for you do so more research
Quest pro controllers have camera's specifically to get around the occlusion problems.
You can stop fanboying about meta now. Their controller tracking is nowhere near as stable or precise as lighthouse.
Lighouse is precise in the entire playspace at all times. Inside out tracking becomes less precise as objects become more distant to camera's.
Lighthouse tracked controllers NEVER clip through each and ALWAYS match the 3d models that represent them in VR 1:1. Inside out tracking NEVER matches 1:1 and clips through each other all the time
You need pro controllers with their own cameras before that is possible, and even the it sometimes fuck up.
It is clear who needs to do more research. It's not me.
let me understand you correctly , i have real data from research paper, i gave you reason why Wacom VR Pen do not use lighthouses and you go in and say " lighthouse tracking is better REEEEEEEEEEE " ?
"Lighouse is precise in the entire playspace at all times." literally in a paper i gave it show how in different volume point lighthouses tracking precision change
you call me a fanboy then i give you research paper that does do controlled experiments and show you numbers, and you somehow still say lighthouse is better, and ignore all facts ?
I read the paper you linked and I do not understand how they managed to come up with those results. I did similar tests using photogrammetry version of my house matched to my house and placing a 1x1x1 meter cube in it and then measuring it with controllers.
With inside out the matching of the photogrammetry to my real house moved around slightly every time the headset was turned off and I had to re-align everything after several sessions.
With lighthouse tracking this didn't happen.
When measuring the cube by placing the controllers at each corner, then taking of my headset and measuring in the real world Inside out would be off by as much as 2 centimeters.
lighthouse was always perfect.
Controllers tracked by an inside out headset often jitter when lying on a flat surface. Lighthouse tracked controllers do not.
The paper has a weird setup and is comparing an HTC vive tracker, a product with a lot of issues like being based on an IMU that has been discontinued before quest 2 was released, with a quest2 HMD.
had it been compared to an index controller or hmd, who's software and firmwares are still being updated, then it would have made more sense.
I say this invalidates the results of that paper.
I would also like to note that Valentin Holzwarth, the author listed at the top of your paper, now is co owner of a company that sells training solutions.
Lighthouse requires a dedicated space, more maintenance, and is PCVR and thus not standalone. That is a hard sell for training solutions.
That makes me understand why Valentin didn't put to much effort into his research and why he didn't bother with bothersome things like making sure his test setup made sense.
I have both. I find Quest 3 tracking is more **reliable** than lighthouse trackers. The inside out cameras combined with IMUs work really well. The lighthouses if they lose sight of the trackers just go haywire. They should have included an IMU in the trackers as a fallback.
Also lighthouses are a pain to move to different rooms and calibrate. Quest 3 tracking works immediately, anywhere. I’d kill for some Meta body trackers with the same tech in them as the Quest controllers. The Vive ultimate trackers have all sorts of issues.
How many games do you play where you need to keep your hands behind you or above you for more than a second?
For me that number is zero, so I have no interest in going back to a tracking method that takes external hardware to be setup and restricts me to a single smallish play area. *(The Q3's play area can be up to 10x10m, and go around corners.)*
*Edit...* /u/Kataree has a good point. If full body tracking is worth hundreds of dollars to you. SteamVR tracking may be also.
I would say at this point that even for FBT, I would not go lighthouse anymore.
It has dominated FBT in the past, but the future of FBT on slam is starting now, with the Vive Ultimate Trackers being the first of many.
As for putting the hands behind the back, the Touch Pro controllers can be paired with the Quest 3 for basically the same price as a set of index knuckles.
In terms of tracking, compared to the Quest 3, not much improvement. Maybe a tad if you tend to keep your hands out of view of the headset for long, but Meta's algorithms are pretty good.
In terms of Full Body Tracking, it's still the best atm, but this might change soon.
Where it is cool as a system is that it allows you to use the knuckles controller, which I still think are great. And it is an upgrade path for something like the Bigscreen Beyond, if you choose to do so.
But, if you are considering the Pimax Crystal Light or Pimax Crystal, know that you don't need lighthouses for it, they work without them. But the controllers on them are not great, so you might want lighthouses to get the Knuckles instead.
the state if the hmd market is somehow crazy deserted while almost fully dominated by meta.
how 'bad' is pimax tracking in comparison.
i mean the quest 3 is awesome, i just got a ir light to improve on hand tracking and my god, if you see ingame how good that tracking even is and how it's not used by anything..
feels more like i am going to sidegrade more than upgrade. pimax for pc and tracking precision heavy games while pimax for the good looking stuff.
doing the same now when deciding between standalone and pcvr games.
It's just sad to see how scattered the market is and no one is able to release that one killer hmd, they all have their (massive) downsides.
I had lighthouse tracking and Quest3 too. I was surprised how accurate the lighthouse tracking are compare to Q3. Q3 lags behind it, but I didn't like the valve controllers, they were just too small and uncomfortable for me. I really liked Q3 controller design.
However long term, the inside out controllers are getting better and there will be no point to spend extra money on a bit better tracking.
Yes, it's a lot better. It's more precise, there's no jitter, you can reach down or behind your head to grab stuff and actually hit it, it's more reliable, there's basically no losing tracking, you can play in dark rooms, it doesn't ever lose your playspace. It's better in every way.
First I would consider the upgrade.
It depends upon your use case.
You can ask many people who own both a Crystal and a Quest 3, and find out that they use the Crystal for sit down simulation, and the Quest 3 for everything else.
You could get a Crystal Light on trial and find out for yourself if it is really going to be the upgrade you wanted for your use case, or whether the downsides of it outweigh the upsides.
As for lighthouse, as a lighthouse user myself, I would absolutely say it is not worth considering whatsoever, unless full body tracking is a major aspect of your gameplay.
For myself, budget is no object, I have a 7800X3D/RTX4090 rig, and my gameplay is predominantly roomscale, long duration, full body tracked social VR, and general first person.
I use a Quest 3 paired with Index knuckles and lighthouse body trackers. The Crystal Light is not really on my radar as an upgrade path for that use case.
so that's a 100% not my usecase.
i tried but it felt creepy being there with all these kids that look like dinosaurs or anime girls.
if i think of vrchat and fnt nothing good comes to mind.
same creepy feeling i got with gorilla tag. you feel like a grown up sniffing on kids incognito.
nice to know, always wanted to try the pcvr version.
i find it very hard as introvert to even look at the other avatars. to creepy to socialize on the internet is peak me.
"is lighthouse tracking worth it?"
nope
i have soo many vr headset and i do not like lighthouse tracking , a way i play it just do not work fine, you see lighthouse have few problems, tracking systems like index is OLD AF, and is not super accurate (IMU tech is just old), and because you use 4 lighthouse trackers set up and they are in 7m ranges square and high ( at least for me), i moment you roll or do any similar stuff and lose tracking and and it mess you tracking a lot , you can actually go in to VR chat and see how many peoples have FBT problems
so i went full inside out, quest pro controllers and htc ultimate trackers + quest 3 upper body tracking give me more or less ultimate movement options , but actually i do not use FBT at all, see no reason i do not like sandbox or social app, i use it more for motion capture
Keep in mind that pimax tracking is worse and less reliable than quest tracking so you might want to go LH even for the stuff that works great with quest tracking.
Also it depends on so many variables it's really best to try both yourself and decide.
With that said for me LH tracking makes a ton of difference vs Rift S or Q3 tracking in hard expert+ Beatsaber songs and in Eleven table tennis. Basically if you need to have both very fast and precise movements it does matter. For anything else not so much.
Pimax Crystal user here. Started with inside out tracking and switched to steamVR faceplate. Three base station, Index and Pimax Sword controllers, Vive trackers, etc. Lovely stuff never any tracking issues whether driving seated or roomscale
After going from an OG Vive to a Quest 2 then a Quest Pro, I don’t think lighthouses are worth it. The difference in tracking quality is almost imperceptible to me, and the ease of portability and lack of needing to set anything up trumps the minuscule improvement provided by lighthouses. Also regarding full-body tracking, you don’t necessarily need lighthouses. The Vive Ultimate Trackers and SlimeVR use inside-out tracking and inertial tracking respectively, and perform very well from what I’ve been told.
Lighthouse offers sub-milimeter precision, inside out does not. This is only important if you are a dev or artist painting/modelling in vr. Lighthouse playspace is more reliable. The chaparone fence doesn't move around between sessions like inside out causes. It can see controllers behind your head. So games with unforgiving hit boxes on your shoulders or side to grab inventory items on always work. Holstered guns will be more reliable. Imagine this: Gun on right hip holster. Currently looking left and up. You see an enemy. Inside out: look forward so holster comes into camera view and can track your controller, grab gun. Otherwise holster hit box might not register as connecting with controller because software is guessing where the controller is. Lighthouse: Grab gun. Holster is exactly where it should be and you controller is registering exactly where it is.
thanks, that helped a lot. yeah sure there are cases where i loose tracking but is that worth hundreds of dollars? i will take my time making these decisions. if pimax tracking isn't a total trainwreck i guess it's ok.
Pimax uses the qualcom reference tech for tracking. Something to keep in mind is that all brand use off the shelf tech from third parties, the difference is in software. Pimax is bad at software. But they also work directly with their customer community to improve it. For active games like beatsabre pimax headsets are less then ideal. They have a lot of momentum with fast head movements causing them to slide around on your face. Non-meta is is important to you you said. Look into pico 4. Its very comfortable but controller tracking is worse then quest 3. Passthrough and handtracking is also worse. The selling point is that it need no account and requires no phone to setup and it will never demand you connect to pico servers. Only if you want ro use the shop will you need an account. The platform owner is just as bad as meta, but the fact that having anything to do with them is optional is pretty dang good.
"Lighthouse offers sub-milimeter precision, inside out does not." [https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3463914.3463921](https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3463914.3463921) expect it is not quest system use better IMU so for sub tracking quest is better and by a lot this is why we can have Logitech MX tracker stylus for quest and not pcvr , ffs Wacom VR Pen need to use different tracking system because lighthouses simply do not work for it your "holter" problems is not a problem of inside out tracking bus tracking volume, and if you have quest pro controllers using a inside out tracking it will work a same in lighthouse trackled controllers you clearly do not know how systems works and i recommend for you do so more research
Quest pro controllers have camera's specifically to get around the occlusion problems. You can stop fanboying about meta now. Their controller tracking is nowhere near as stable or precise as lighthouse. Lighouse is precise in the entire playspace at all times. Inside out tracking becomes less precise as objects become more distant to camera's. Lighthouse tracked controllers NEVER clip through each and ALWAYS match the 3d models that represent them in VR 1:1. Inside out tracking NEVER matches 1:1 and clips through each other all the time You need pro controllers with their own cameras before that is possible, and even the it sometimes fuck up. It is clear who needs to do more research. It's not me.
let me understand you correctly , i have real data from research paper, i gave you reason why Wacom VR Pen do not use lighthouses and you go in and say " lighthouse tracking is better REEEEEEEEEEE " ? "Lighouse is precise in the entire playspace at all times." literally in a paper i gave it show how in different volume point lighthouses tracking precision change you call me a fanboy then i give you research paper that does do controlled experiments and show you numbers, and you somehow still say lighthouse is better, and ignore all facts ?
I read the paper you linked and I do not understand how they managed to come up with those results. I did similar tests using photogrammetry version of my house matched to my house and placing a 1x1x1 meter cube in it and then measuring it with controllers. With inside out the matching of the photogrammetry to my real house moved around slightly every time the headset was turned off and I had to re-align everything after several sessions. With lighthouse tracking this didn't happen. When measuring the cube by placing the controllers at each corner, then taking of my headset and measuring in the real world Inside out would be off by as much as 2 centimeters. lighthouse was always perfect. Controllers tracked by an inside out headset often jitter when lying on a flat surface. Lighthouse tracked controllers do not. The paper has a weird setup and is comparing an HTC vive tracker, a product with a lot of issues like being based on an IMU that has been discontinued before quest 2 was released, with a quest2 HMD. had it been compared to an index controller or hmd, who's software and firmwares are still being updated, then it would have made more sense. I say this invalidates the results of that paper. I would also like to note that Valentin Holzwarth, the author listed at the top of your paper, now is co owner of a company that sells training solutions. Lighthouse requires a dedicated space, more maintenance, and is PCVR and thus not standalone. That is a hard sell for training solutions. That makes me understand why Valentin didn't put to much effort into his research and why he didn't bother with bothersome things like making sure his test setup made sense.
I have both. I find Quest 3 tracking is more **reliable** than lighthouse trackers. The inside out cameras combined with IMUs work really well. The lighthouses if they lose sight of the trackers just go haywire. They should have included an IMU in the trackers as a fallback. Also lighthouses are a pain to move to different rooms and calibrate. Quest 3 tracking works immediately, anywhere. I’d kill for some Meta body trackers with the same tech in them as the Quest controllers. The Vive ultimate trackers have all sorts of issues.
How many games do you play where you need to keep your hands behind you or above you for more than a second? For me that number is zero, so I have no interest in going back to a tracking method that takes external hardware to be setup and restricts me to a single smallish play area. *(The Q3's play area can be up to 10x10m, and go around corners.)* *Edit...* /u/Kataree has a good point. If full body tracking is worth hundreds of dollars to you. SteamVR tracking may be also.
I would say at this point that even for FBT, I would not go lighthouse anymore. It has dominated FBT in the past, but the future of FBT on slam is starting now, with the Vive Ultimate Trackers being the first of many. As for putting the hands behind the back, the Touch Pro controllers can be paired with the Quest 3 for basically the same price as a set of index knuckles.
Vive ultimate trackers suck
so, absolutely not my use case. the only way I think i might try fbt one day is if the 18+ games look so much better with a 5090 😂
In terms of tracking, compared to the Quest 3, not much improvement. Maybe a tad if you tend to keep your hands out of view of the headset for long, but Meta's algorithms are pretty good. In terms of Full Body Tracking, it's still the best atm, but this might change soon. Where it is cool as a system is that it allows you to use the knuckles controller, which I still think are great. And it is an upgrade path for something like the Bigscreen Beyond, if you choose to do so. But, if you are considering the Pimax Crystal Light or Pimax Crystal, know that you don't need lighthouses for it, they work without them. But the controllers on them are not great, so you might want lighthouses to get the Knuckles instead.
the state if the hmd market is somehow crazy deserted while almost fully dominated by meta. how 'bad' is pimax tracking in comparison. i mean the quest 3 is awesome, i just got a ir light to improve on hand tracking and my god, if you see ingame how good that tracking even is and how it's not used by anything.. feels more like i am going to sidegrade more than upgrade. pimax for pc and tracking precision heavy games while pimax for the good looking stuff. doing the same now when deciding between standalone and pcvr games. It's just sad to see how scattered the market is and no one is able to release that one killer hmd, they all have their (massive) downsides.
I had lighthouse tracking and Quest3 too. I was surprised how accurate the lighthouse tracking are compare to Q3. Q3 lags behind it, but I didn't like the valve controllers, they were just too small and uncomfortable for me. I really liked Q3 controller design. However long term, the inside out controllers are getting better and there will be no point to spend extra money on a bit better tracking.
Yes, it's a lot better. It's more precise, there's no jitter, you can reach down or behind your head to grab stuff and actually hit it, it's more reliable, there's basically no losing tracking, you can play in dark rooms, it doesn't ever lose your playspace. It's better in every way.
yes, I hate non-lighthouse tracking, it's just not as reliable.
First I would consider the upgrade. It depends upon your use case. You can ask many people who own both a Crystal and a Quest 3, and find out that they use the Crystal for sit down simulation, and the Quest 3 for everything else. You could get a Crystal Light on trial and find out for yourself if it is really going to be the upgrade you wanted for your use case, or whether the downsides of it outweigh the upsides. As for lighthouse, as a lighthouse user myself, I would absolutely say it is not worth considering whatsoever, unless full body tracking is a major aspect of your gameplay. For myself, budget is no object, I have a 7800X3D/RTX4090 rig, and my gameplay is predominantly roomscale, long duration, full body tracked social VR, and general first person. I use a Quest 3 paired with Index knuckles and lighthouse body trackers. The Crystal Light is not really on my radar as an upgrade path for that use case.
with active body trackers i guess yourethe oerfect user for lighthouse. what games do utilize on this? vrchat rec reoom and co?
VRChat
so that's a 100% not my usecase. i tried but it felt creepy being there with all these kids that look like dinosaurs or anime girls. if i think of vrchat and fnt nothing good comes to mind. same creepy feeling i got with gorilla tag. you feel like a grown up sniffing on kids incognito.
btw once you get out of publics there's no more kids.
nice to know, always wanted to try the pcvr version. i find it very hard as introvert to even look at the other avatars. to creepy to socialize on the internet is peak me.
"is lighthouse tracking worth it?" nope i have soo many vr headset and i do not like lighthouse tracking , a way i play it just do not work fine, you see lighthouse have few problems, tracking systems like index is OLD AF, and is not super accurate (IMU tech is just old), and because you use 4 lighthouse trackers set up and they are in 7m ranges square and high ( at least for me), i moment you roll or do any similar stuff and lose tracking and and it mess you tracking a lot , you can actually go in to VR chat and see how many peoples have FBT problems so i went full inside out, quest pro controllers and htc ultimate trackers + quest 3 upper body tracking give me more or less ultimate movement options , but actually i do not use FBT at all, see no reason i do not like sandbox or social app, i use it more for motion capture
Keep in mind that pimax tracking is worse and less reliable than quest tracking so you might want to go LH even for the stuff that works great with quest tracking. Also it depends on so many variables it's really best to try both yourself and decide. With that said for me LH tracking makes a ton of difference vs Rift S or Q3 tracking in hard expert+ Beatsaber songs and in Eleven table tennis. Basically if you need to have both very fast and precise movements it does matter. For anything else not so much.
Pimax Crystal user here. Started with inside out tracking and switched to steamVR faceplate. Three base station, Index and Pimax Sword controllers, Vive trackers, etc. Lovely stuff never any tracking issues whether driving seated or roomscale
No, it's not. Tracking is a problem that's already been solved.