I was trying to setup my newly received 5k. During room setup my 5k+ shows not tracking. And issue seems to be light house not turning on. I started steam vr and notice I can’t control light house anymore due to no bluetooth management (even through I still have my vive link box connect to my pc through usb).
So does every just unplug their light house and plug it back in everytime they start their pc to turn on light house? Or is there another way which I don’t know about?
I bought in line switches for mine but just leave them running for days sometimes.
@stixvr said he needed to unplug & replug his lighthouses to “wake” them up.
Reccommend plugging then into a switch (ie remote switches).
Turn them off when not going to be used to reduce wear & tear on motors & such.
Should turn them off when not in use to prevent LHes burning out.
I have a spare pair, kind of interested in seeing how long they will run before breaking.
Ok, no way of controlling light house through steam vr anymore like vive. Guess I need to go buy 2 remote switch tomorrow…
I don’t have LHes but if you have Bluetooth built into your pc(or a bluetooth dongle) you might be able to setup some kind of control.
I would love to know how. I do have Bluetooth built into my mb. I don’t see anywhere for me to setup that for light house in steam vr.
Technically, one switch should suffice, because when you unplug B basestation the remaining one © will go into stand-by all by itself.
Plugging B will wake up C.
BTW: My basestations make high pitched noise, so I need to turn them off.
Problem of only unplug one doesn’t wake up the other one. I actually need to unplug both and plug both back in within short window time or else they both go back to sleep mode.
It might be my 2 light house were a bit too far apart. I sometimes gets error message about my 2 light houses were too far apart.
Remote outlets are a clever and inexpensive idea. I look forward to implementing something similar.
I have had my lighthouses mounted and plugged in and apparently active since the 1st week of the Vive launch. They have never gone down except when I had a power outage once. So I still consider that continuous usage since unpacked. No issues and still working perfectly since April 2016.
I agree. I just ordrered a set myself from amazon. Should safe me some trouble from going to power outlet all the time.
How far are they? This may also imply that they cannot see each other very well, in which case you should probably run a cable in between them to ensure the correct synchronization, but I guess, if it works for you as of now, getting two radio controlled power plugs would be easier then wiring the base stations together.
Kind of figured they may be fine. I would be interested in seeing if shutting them down may wear them out faster. The constant slowing down and speeding up may put greater force on them.
Only the linkbox of the Vives (normal and pro) can do that.
They have a bluetooth emitter that controls the Lighthouses.
But the linkbox ONLY do that when there is a Vive connected, so you must have all the kit plugged in which inviabilize all the original plan (Pimax + only the linkbox)
Absolutely correct but strangely enough, this functionality (BT power management via the HTC linkox WITHOUT Vive plugged in) worked absolutely fine back in October. It broke at some later point, either due to Windwos or SteamVR update.
Regarding the longevity of Lighthouses:
They are powered via repurposed HDD motors/actuators. That means that keeping them running continuously is literally best practice. Powering up and down causes inertia, and that’s when those actuators typically fail.
This is not an option for my use case as I have a plethora of IR controlled devices in the same space as the lighthouses, but for anyone that doesn’t and isn’t susceptible to noticing the high pitch whine, it should cause no concern regarding failure rate.
Check steamvr settings there is sometging about bluetooth in there.
Yes its there, exception when you unplug VIVE, it become red and show error message that you have no Bluetooth installed. That’s why I bring up this question.
I unplug vive HDMI cable, but keep the USB cable to linkbox connect to PC. Still Steam VR said no Bluetooth available thus won’t let me control my light house.
Yeah, this seems like a good idea. I just ordered a set of 5 with 2 remotes. These are useful, beyond the just base stations.