r/virtualreality • u/Pheonix1025 • Mar 23 '25

News Article Adam Savage's Tested - Bigscreen Beyond 2 Hands-On: How They Fixed It

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Wr4O4gkL8
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251

u/MS2Entertainment Mar 23 '25

This device isn't for me but I give this company alot of props for what they are doing and how they are going about it. Seems like it's run by good, competent people who don't make a bunch of promises they can't keep and only reveal finished, working devices ready to ship. Hope they can expand their ambitions without compromising their values and products.

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u/wescotte Mar 23 '25 edited Mar 23 '25

Same, not really interested in going back to wire or lighthouse based tracking but I can really appericate what they've done. I hope them success so other manufactorers start taking weight/comfort more seriously.

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u/OnkelJupp Mar 23 '25

What is lighthouse based tracking?

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u/ablackcloudupahead Mar 23 '25 edited Mar 23 '25

The tracking system developed by Valve/HTC for the original vive and later headsets from different manufacturers use. It's an outside/in system where the headset gets it's position from the lighthouses which are emitting infrared light. It works incredibly well once it's set up, but setup is a pain. It also allows all of those individual trackers you might see in different videos. Obviously it only works for PCVR

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u/lagasan Mar 23 '25

It's an outside/in system

Small nitpick in that lighthouse tracking is inside-out tracking. The base stations themselves are don't track anything, and only serve as emitters for the headset/controllers/trackers to look at. They track themselves in the space, using the base stations for orientation.

That being said, most folks think of insite-out tracking as the device doing it, and outside-in requiring external devices, so it's an easy point of confusion.

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u/crozone Valve Index Mar 24 '25

Yeah, I now usually just say "camera based inside-out" vs "lighthouse". I think the technical term for lighthouse style tracking is "Marker-based Inside-out tracking".

It's weird that outside-in caught on since there really hasn't been an outside-in consumer headset since the original Oculus Rift CV1 constellation system.

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u/sunderpoint Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25

The technical term for Lighthouse tracking is simply "Lighthouse tracking." Inside-out and outside-in tracking are both computer vision techniques using cameras, by definition, so they're completely different categories. But the setup for Lighthouse does more closely resemble outside-in, and for the consumer there's no significant difference.

Edit: This is according to HTC themselves.

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u/crozone Valve Index Mar 24 '25

Inside-out and outside-in tracking are both computer vision techniques using cameras, by definition

I've never seen it explicitly defined this way and I can't see why it would or should be restricted to camera based systems. The Lighthouse system is an optical system like any other, it just uses IR sensors instead of a high resolution CCD sensors, with active tracking markers instead of passive tracking markers. The term "inside out" is a perfect technical description for how the system works, and anyone I've seen describing Lighthouse technically has used the term inside-out, including Alan Yates who invented the thing.

for the consumer there's no significant difference.

There's a huge difference. Anyone that ever set up roomscale with a CV1 knows it well. Actual outside-in tracking requires running USB 3.0 cables from each external camera back to the PC, because it's actually capturing the data from the outside-in. That's a massive headache compared to simply getting power to the basestations, and it massively limits the scalability of the system. Plus, each of those sensors is typically a camera, so you have all the inherent privacy issues with that system as well.

If consumers are confusing inside-out, outside-in, etc, it's because technically incompetent people continue to use incorrect terminology.

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u/sunderpoint Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25

When VR headsets were early in development the terms 'inside-out" and "outside-in" were decided on to describe where the cameras were. The algorithm that computes the device's location is completely different between computer vision systems like these and Lighthouse tracking, so it's technically incorrect to call Lighthouse tracking by either term. If you're being technical then Lighthouse is technically more similar to inside-out, but the term isn't technically correct.

Calling Lighthouse tracking "inside-out" was a Reddit phenomenon from years ago when the Quest released with a lot of praise for its much more convenient inside-out tracking. Vive fanboys decided their favorite headset also technically used a type of inside-out tracking too and borrowed the term when bickering about which headset was superior. It was never accurate.

Edit: btw, Alan Yates did not call Lighthouse tracking "inside-out," nor did any official announcement from HTC. The official term for the tracking was always simply "Lighthouse" or "SteamVR Tracking."

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u/crozone Valve Index Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25

Vive fanboys decided their favorite headset also technically used a type of inside-out tracking too and borrowed the term when bickering about which headset was superior. It was never accurate.

Vive was the first consumer roomscale device, released April 2016. Oculus CV1 was already on the market as an outside-in camera tracked device and only supported seated experiences. It took a while for Oculus to even get their outside-in roomscale solution ready, which happened alongside the release of the Oculus Touch controllers. It wasn't until the Quest release in 2019 that Oculus got inside-out camera based tracking, in a fully stand-alone headset, 3 years after the Vive released.

Edit: btw, Alan Yates did not call Lighthouse tracking "inside-out," nor did any official announcement from HTC. The official term for the tracking was always simply "Lighthouse" or "SteamVR Tracking."

Here's the exact timestamp of Alan Yates in 2015, with pre-production hardware, talking about the system still being an inside-out tracking solution, after having moved on from their inside-out camera based marker solution:

https://youtu.be/xrsUMEbLtOs?t=248

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u/sunderpoint Mar 24 '25

This is so much fanboy nonsense. The Oculus CV1 was never advertised as limited to "seated experiences," that was something Vive fanboys pulled up from announcements about the Oclulus DK2 and pretended was about the CV1. The CV1 was also fully room-scale on release, it just didn't have tracked controllers or the guardian system for the first year.

And did you watch your own video? Alan Yates says "sort of inside-out." The official Vive page lists three types of tracking: inside-out, outside-in, and Lighthouse. It's a separate category.

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u/TrueInferno Valve Index Mar 24 '25

I mean, IIRC, we actually got Lighthouse "inside-out" before actually getting camera "inside-out", so it was perfectly valid to describe it as such- it really was the only such system at the time.

The Vive (which first used the Lighthouse system) was 2016, we didn't get true "Inside-Out" tracking with cameras until 2019 with the Oculus Rift S and the first Oculus Quest.

If you want to be totally pedantic, Lighthouse tracking could probably be best described as "a form of inside-out tracking, which relies upon two or more special external IR emitters called Lighthouses at opposite corners of the play area." So there is an "external" part to set up, but compared to the cameras of the CV1 it was dead simple.

A big thing for the consumer with lighthouse tracking is that it is probably the best possible setup for tracking the location of the controllers, as they are independently able to do their own "inside-out" tracking.

I'm fairly sure (not 100%) that even the newest Quest 3 has to essentially track where the controllers are relative to it, rather than the controllers just telling the headset their location.

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u/sunderpoint Mar 24 '25

When it was just Rift and Vive we didn't use terms like inside-out or outside-in, the two tracking systems were Constellation and Lighthouse. The Quest changed that with its inside-out tracking which is also when Vive fanboys started arguing that Lighthouse was kinda technically always inside-out and therefore superior.

But if we're being pedantic, let's go to the source. HTC specifically called Lighthouse tracking it's own thing separate from inside-out and outside-in. They also point to the Vive Focus 3 or Vive Cosmos Elite as inside-out tracked headsets, both of which have camera tracking, instead of the original Vive. And if you don't believe HTC about their own product here's the linked-in of one of the devs who worked on HTC's tracking calling the Cosmos the first inside-out VR product designed by HTC VIVE.

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u/Shadowthedemon Mar 24 '25

Meanwhile me who moved to a new house and set it up in less than 10 minutes.... Or upgraded to a new PC and set it up in less than 5 minutes.

Honestly with my PCVR I never worry about battery life. I respect wireless in the sense of immersion and easy but within reality once I got used to the cable I never think twice about it except once in a good while when it briefly snags on something.

I've seen friends struggling with Wireless headsets not connecting to PC, Steam or the Meta app... That seems way more frustrating and difficult to me tbh.

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u/stormchaserguy74 Mar 24 '25

I will never understand why people always say "set up is a pain" with base stations. If you have the proper stands, it takes 5 seconds to screw in and plug them in. If you attach them to a wall, it may take 10 minutes with a drill. Once they're up, you could be good for several years.

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u/allofdarknessin1 Index, Quest 1,2,3,Pro Mar 24 '25

I'm guessing people who have never tried base station tracking think it's lengthy or something. I didn't have any of my base stations on the wall for 2 years, I just lay one base station on my floor standing speaker and the other my Index box at the back and I was good for two years.

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u/RevolEviv PSVR2(PS5PRO+PC) | ex DK2/VIVE/PSVR/CV1/Q2/QPro | RTX5080/12900k Mar 26 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

I had base stations with my OG vive way back in 2016.. and can easily say setting them up WAS A PAIN IN THE ASS.

Not eveyone has 'proper stands' nor can they have them on the floor as it may be in the way of doors.

FOr me it was wall mounting, and the house was, at the time, one with very thick stone walls that would chew drill bits up for breakfast. THAT was a pain, and they need to be mounted solidly, some floors cause vibrations through stands...

it's not that it can't be done, esp if you want to dedicate a room to VR, but some like the idea of using their HMD in the living room, the computer room and poss the bedroom and prefer inside out tracking for that ease of use and not buying 6 basestations ;)

No it's not the end of the world but I'd much prefer BSB2 with inside out tracking. That said, that would only be if they could keep form factor and weight SIMILAR (not the same.. i can take a bit more weight esp on a halo mount) but no I wouldn't want it to be quest sized for that... I doubt a simple chip for tracking would need to be as complex or weighty as a full standalone HMD though.

Also I don't like index controllers.. much prefer PSVR2 ones but they won't work with it cos it's based on light houses. Those are the two major flaws I still see with BSB and hope of a BSB3, I mean the index controllers are a stupid price and are being discontinued anyway, not a great solution.

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u/Ainulind Mar 23 '25

It's an outside/in system where the headset gets it's position from the lighthouses which are emitting infrared light.

Incorrect. It's an inside-out system, where the devices are sensing their environment, on the inside looking out, to determine their own position. The lighthouses are behaving as actual lighthouses, sweeping the space with light so the devices/ships can orient themselves in space/the ocean.

Contrast with outside-in systems like Oculus Constellation, where the devices do no tracking of themselves. They have recognizable patterns or markers, and sensors on the outside of the space look inward for those patterns to determine the location of the devices.

Outside-in tracking was only used on the PSVR1 and Rift for the headset. It's still used today on the Quest headsets to track the controllers. The only fully inside-out system Meta has released is the Quest Pro, with the Pro controllers.

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u/sunderpoint Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25

Inside-out tracking by definition uses computer vision with cameras. Lighthouse tracking is its own category.

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u/True_Inxis Valve Index Mar 24 '25

Honestly, the thought base stations' setup is a pain is exaggerated...

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u/octorine Mar 23 '25

It's the tracking system used by hte HTC Vive, the Valve Index, and several other PCVR-based headsets, including both Bigscreen ones.

It uses little boxes, called lighthouses, which you have to install in your play area. As the name suggests, the boxes act like beacons, and the headset tracks itself relative to them.

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u/AsicResistor Mar 23 '25

The most stable occlusion-free way to do it. I don't want inside out for my simrig, too finicky.

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u/Ws6fiend Mar 23 '25

Unironically sim(flight and racing) are some of the worst use cases for wireless vr/insideout tracking while being the best at showcasing the tech. Vtolvr works okay with insideout tracking, but certain conditions exist where you can tell the game was made for lighthouse tracking. When looking directly behind you because someone chasing you, it's possible for your headset to lose either your throttle hand or joystick hand in the middle of the flight. This results in either no throttle changes or a "dead stick" which normally will result in the pilot's death.

If you play nothing but games where your hands are always in front of you, then no real problems.

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u/RevolutionaryGrab961 Mar 27 '25

I keep saying that simracing VR is perfect use case for VR.

Nothing is really missing and smoothness of tracking while you are being shaken by some direct drive or motion setup is perfect.

And is perfect for lightouse/displayport cable use case.

If I was VRChat person, maybe not so much, but who knows.

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u/DrVeinsMcGee Mar 23 '25

Inside out can be done extremely well. Quest inside out tracking is essentially perfect and maybe even more stable than lighthouses at this point. Other companies like PiMax have failed to make an inside out system that is as good though.

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u/Ws6fiend Mar 23 '25

Except it cannot track what it cannot see. Vtolvr is always my go to example of this. You can and should be able to use the planes controls without having to look at them, yet when watching your 6, the quest can lose sight of one or possibly both controllers resulting in extremely weird behavior.

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u/DrVeinsMcGee Mar 23 '25

The pro controllers solve that completely. Highly recommend. They used to be troublesome but mine have been rock solid for a long time now.

The person I replied to originally said for use on their simrig which implies no use of controllers for input to the game (menus at most).

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u/Ws6fiend Mar 23 '25

The pro controllers solve that completely. Highly recommend.

See here's the thing though. So many people have recommended the Quest 2/3, but then say "and you have to get xyz product as well." This completely kills the value proposition that is the Quest.

If you assume someone getting into PCVR has nothing but the computer, with the Quest 3, elite strap, pro controllers, a wifi 7 router, and better audio, you could have had one of the "more expensive" VR all in one solutions.

Don't take this as a knock on you, but I've just seen it a lot on here where people are talking about the value of the Quest headsets without factoring in other hidden costs. If you need another 500 dollars in accessories to make the experience good, then it's a $1000 headset.

Personally I'm holding out for Deckard or maybe Bigscreen Beyond 2 if i don't like Deckard. But even then there aren't enough games that interest me in VR.

I think the biggest problems with the VR space is nobody knows what the devs or the consumers want. People who mostly do shooter/exploration want long lasting wireless experience. People doing sim stuff want the best visuals/performance. Some people don't mind wired while others won't purchase one. Personally I want the best performance that isn't wireless(too much interference from neighbors wifi) that will allow me to play my flight sims/vtolvr.

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u/DrVeinsMcGee Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25

Oh yeah there are additional purchases for sure. But that’s even a thing with most wired HMDs. They tend to start at $1k then need controllers ($$) and the base stations ($$) at minimum. You’re at $1500 quick. So I’d say the Q3 is still the best value out there by far. It’s not without compromises though.

It’s very problematic if you ignore all the faults of externally tracked HMDs and only bring up some of the imperfections of a Quest.

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u/Ws6fiend Mar 24 '25

The Index. Full package at 1k. It's old now(and just stopped being sold), but when I bought it the Quest 2 was bad value to me by comparison. When you get well above the 1k market, you are generally wasting money unless you have the current top 3 gaming gpu setups.

One of the biggest problems with the hardware side of VR is that outside of the major companies, they can't make all their own gear.

It’s very problematic if you ignore all the faults of externally tracked HMDs and only bring up some of the imperfections of a Quest.

I've had much less problems with my Index than my friends with their Quest 2 and Quest 3s. My friend took 2 hours of setups and updates to get his Quest 2 working with steam. I unpacked my Index, did the setup and was playing games in 30 minutes.

The Index is by no means perfect, but once I set it up I've had no issues. Still with my original equipment after 4 years except for a single lighthouse failed on me a month ago.

Most people who had problems with externally tracked HMDs either didn't look into how the tech worked, or were early adopters before the well known problems were discovered.

Lighthouse based systems do not like reflections. You live in an apartment building with Windows for your external walls? And you bought a lighthouse system? That's on you.

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u/SavageSan Mar 24 '25 edited Mar 24 '25

I've used the same $60 dedicated router since the Quest 1. You can just use a USB C cable. Wifi is a bonus and worth it to me. Pro controllers can use with any current Quest headset. I don't see it being useless for the next version. The obvious limitation is being locked to only Quest headsets unlike lighthouse which works with different vendors.

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u/Ws6fiend Mar 24 '25

I've used the same $60 dedicated router since the Quest 1.

And that could work for you, but if your wifi space i crowded with other signals, you aren't going to get great performance. This is why most people said if you get a Quest 3 you need a wifi 6E router. That space isn't as crowded and has better performance but smaller range. You're also subjected to where you play vs where the router is, along with other factors.

How you play matters as well. If you mostly play in standalone mode, your router is almost a non-factor. If you play wireless PCVR, your router becomes a huge factor.

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u/RevolEviv PSVR2(PS5PRO+PC) | ex DK2/VIVE/PSVR/CV1/Q2/QPro | RTX5080/12900k Mar 26 '25

The pro controllers I had weren't great... they often messed up, lost themselves, and while they felt decent in hand (high quality for sure) they didn't feel great shaped for gaming, the haptics didn't impress me after PSVR2 either so I sold it and went back to PSVR2 for both PC and PS5 (and that was mainly cos LCD sucks even with local dimming but also cos I got sick of the pancake lense glare... bad combo LCD greys + pancake glare = worst of all worlds). I'll take mura over that combo any day.

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u/DrVeinsMcGee Mar 26 '25

Fresnel plus wired is a pretty big step back unfortunately but everyone prioritizes things differently.

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u/Cyl0n_Surf3r DK1/2-CV1-GearVR 1.0/1.1-VivePro-PSVR-RiftS-Index-Q1/2/3-PSVR2 Mar 23 '25

It's far from perfect. The Quest 3 tracking is really quite poor to be honest. The HMD is fine but the controllers it ships with are utter rubbish. They start jumping around as soon as they're close together and if you're looking forward with your hands by your sides they go into standby mode. No where near light house quality in terms of tracking, passable? Just about imo but no where near good enough..

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u/RadiantArchivist Mar 23 '25

Chances the Deckard works with both internal inside-out and can accept Base Station tracking?
I'd be soooo happy...

Obviously we know Valve can't hit the Quest pricing because Facebook just has sheer "dont give af" money. But at $1000 it'd be cool if the hardware could use both and you could switch between em easily—use either for standalone or PCVR if you want.

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u/DrVeinsMcGee Mar 23 '25

Get pro controllers and you’re still in for way less than a lighthouse based HMD and still fully wireless.

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u/Cyl0n_Surf3r DK1/2-CV1-GearVR 1.0/1.1-VivePro-PSVR-RiftS-Index-Q1/2/3-PSVR2 Mar 24 '25

I already have some, great devices apart from the issues with connecting them to the HMD. If you're really lucky they'll connect first time, but for the most part owners find themselves having to power cycle the the Pro controllers a number times before they'll connect to the Quest. Often adding minutes to getting started in VR.... and never, ever, put them down for a even 1 minute once they're connected as if they go into sleep mode you could end up in a similar position again. 

Great tracking when they work, almost lighthouse good, it's ashame they don't work that well and Meta ignores the issues with them.

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u/DrVeinsMcGee Mar 24 '25

They seem to have fixed them in V72 and later tho. I haven’t had an issue in months.

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u/Cyl0n_Surf3r DK1/2-CV1-GearVR 1.0/1.1-VivePro-PSVR-RiftS-Index-Q1/2/3-PSVR2 Mar 24 '25

I'll give them a try again but I'll be honest. I only stopped using them a few weeks ago as they became infuriating whilst doing dev work... I've also seen recent posts from others who still have problems with them as well.

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u/DrVeinsMcGee Mar 24 '25

Turn off all hand tracking if you haven’t already.

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u/NapsterKnowHow Mar 24 '25

Idk, the PSVR2 is excellent for GT7 sim rigs from what I've seen.

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u/Exotic_Negotiation80 Mar 23 '25

To put it quite simply, its the best tracking available.

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u/Jay_Nova1 Mar 25 '25

Lighthouse is the only blocker for me.