There is two kind of people using VR, people using lighthouse, and the others.
Aside of doing a joke for the introduction, i believe there is a real topic to discuss about this.
Right now the new headsets going out in the market are either standalone or not and using camera based positionning or lighthouse.
For my part i have been sticking with my Valve Index for a while and loved the use of lighthouse for the headset / my Kunckles and my Vive 3.0 trackers.
Constructors have the choice between those technologies and we even see new headsets using lighthouse like the new Bigscreen Beyond 2.
The main problem i see today is the lack of availability for the hardware. Vive base stations are either being sold by Valve (that don’t seem to sell anymore) or by HTC (for now).
So what do you all think, in what directions will future headsets go, and is there a stable future for this technology?
Today i’m wondering on those topics with the annouce of the latest BigScreen Beyond VRChat edition. Why would i buy a headset if it may become unusable if i can’t get my hands on the base stations.
Valve closed their lighthouse factory and sold the equipment (source: SadlyItsBradley on Twitter). HTC will continue making them as long as (enterprise) customers keep buying them and the HTC headsets they’re bundled with (latest is Vive Pro 2 from 2021) - at their price.
Constructors don’t really have a choice if they can’t drop millions on inside-out software R&D to not look bad next to Meta or Apple. They must use Lighthouse or even more expensive and fiddly enterprise systems like OptiTrack.
Lighthouses don’t use any space magic (like uOLED, pancake optics, advanced software) just finely tuned ordinary components. If there’s a market then anyone with a license from Valve can make them.
If we’re talking within a decade then you’re safe. The biggest problem is that nobody is actively developing the system and pushing it further.
I really hope so that this technology sticks for now. I wished that manufacturer would be transparent on that topic so we can know that their products won’t be out of date a few years after.