Gentle heads up to backers. dont buy htc tracking pucks

if you got full packages dont preorder the vive tracking pucks. In their infinite wisdom htc decided to release them with steam 1.0 tracking so they wont work with pimax or future base stations designs. Why htc hates their customers so much is an absolute mystery to me.

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Also htc cancelled their next HMD

they must have seen the pimax 8k and was like “what the hell are we doing?”

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… and just announced another piece of Vive - Focus :slight_smile:

HTC is now working on a Vive standalone; taking sn Oculus approach.

HTC is shit. VIVE is shit. I’m sick of them giving us low specs only telling that barely 120-140 FOV is possible when clearely 200FOV is possible, oh and dat low res. I can’t wait for my Pimax 8k!!!

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damn right wooooooo!

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Thanks for the heads-up ! I was about to order the HTC 3 Tracker pack…

I gave up on htc after owning Htc desire. The phone was great then they got cheap with the Zoe camera. Was tempted before they down graded the camera with there phone with the Nvidia Tegra… But it seems lucked out sincrle Nvidia failed penetrating the phone market.

I thought the 8k was compatible with the old stations etc?

As long as you use the old Vive (Steam 1.0) base stations you can use 1.0 controllers including these trackers with the Pimax 8k. These “pucks” definitely won’t work with Pimax (Steam 2.0) base stations.

it is. to keeps things straight, there are two components in play. lighthouses, and everything else. The light houses are like a reader and they read everything else.
1.0 lighthouses can read both 1.0 and 2.0 devices. 2.0 lighthouses can only read 2.0 devices.

They have made the pucks 1.0 devices.

So if you got an 8k, but are using older vive lighthouses everything will work fine. But if you got the 8k in a bundle then the 2.0 lighthouses wont be able to read the pucks, as they are 1.0 accessories.

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It makes no sense that the pucks would not work with 2.0 Base stations. The pucks just now became available outside of preorder. Have you confirmed this via an HTC source ? or just second hand ?

Its because HTC has not released any v2.0 tracking devices. Htc is gemeration 1 tracking & lighthouses. So with them not releasing v2.0 lighthouses (not compatible with Vive & Vive wands). HTC doesn’t need to support v2.0 tracking until they bring out a v2.0 headset of which time you will have the option to keep your v1 lighthouses & accessories or buy all new v2.0 accessories including tracking pucks (good money maker).

Pucks were also first released in 2017 Q2

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/6fhe38/steam_vr_tracking_20_more_then_2_base_stations/#ampshare=https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/6fhe38/steam_vr_tracking_20_more_then_2_base_stations/

quote - “Pucks were also first released in 2017 Q2”
yes but, that was for developers… hte commercial release is Feb. 2018. Even then the 2.0 tracking was well into development and before that.

Yes but when pucks were being developed so was tracking 2.0 so this makes no sense to me. Older hardware like the original hmd, wands etc… I get that, but something that was developed a long side of 2.0 tracking does not have 2.0 support ???

HTC has no incentive to go out of their way to support Valve’s new tech, because the Vive itself won’t work with the new base stations. If they made the Vive Trackers 2.0-compatible, they would just be helping other headset manufacturers (like Pimax!). Unless HTC was preparing to release a new 2.0-compatible headset themselves, which they haven’t even hinted at (in fact, they’ve been experimenting with inside-out tracking instead). Also, the pucks have been around since January, just not to consumers, while Valve didn’t announce 2.0 stations until June, and their design would have to change for the new sensors.

Don’t forget, HTC is not Valve, the Vive Trackers were HTC’s product while 2.0 tracking is Valve’s, so they weren’t designed side by side.

HTC basically admitted the things weren’t 2.0-compatible here: Vive Trackers Now Available For Pre-Order

‘We’ll address the 2.0 stations as they are available in market,” an HTC spokesperson wrote in an email. “2.0 is really about larger play spaces and enterprise. We’ll have more to announce for support once that tech is available, but for consumers we wanted to get Tracker into market as soon as possible.”’

Simply Put Valve created Lighthouse tracking system. Htc has no real benefit to use Valve’s v2.0 system as they currently have no new headset coming out to take advantage of it.

Yes v2.0 laser tracking is backwards compatible but lighthouse v2.0 is not. As it is i can see some Vive users buying valve’s new lighthouses mot realizing its not compatible as they will be cheaper.

& HTC knows like the wands & headset; folks will buy all new stuff when available. Bought v1 puck? Now you will have to buy a v2 puck a year later.

The same reason why you usually can’t use previous console’s controllers with new one. Its just marketing.

PiMax is just ahead of the game by adopting v2.0

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Think of it this way. They want to sell their trackers with their lighthouses. While i agree they should build them with v2.0 trackers. Now if Feb 2018 is official release then pester them in troves & they might use v2.0.

The v2 tracking system works completely differently… It requires the accessories to emit an IR pulse in order to track your movement, whereas v1 base stations track you based off syncing data. Since v1 accessories don’t emit this pulse, they cannot be tracked.

The only sensible reason to upgrade if you already have a VIVE is to create a larger play area. If that doesn’t interest you v1 tracking will be just fine.

Additionally, v2 base stations will be cheaper because they require less components to build. This is why the v2 base stations are not compatible with v1 accessories (because it’s actually not possible).

@brian91292 Hi Brian, Sorry this is not the case V2 accessories don’t send any optical pulse. V2 light houses base stations don’t emit the synchronizing pulse anymore because the new sensors are able the get synchronization information in the demodulated laser signal in the brief time the signal hit the photo sensor. The laser beam is sending time info for spatial triangulation to the controller, quite ingenious!

By the way pimax must be using this reference design by triad ( if you look at the price of the SDK it’s the same price of the Pimax 8K 499$ just to say that we’re having a good deal here :wink:

https://www.triadsemi.com/product/steamvr-tracking-hdk/

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Just a side note here, it would be possible for HTC the make the new HTC V2 Light houses compatible to the V1 version if they wished. Aka like the first Valve V2 dev units these new light house could have the synchronization led array apparatus.

Steam/Valve has not interested to do such things because to my knowledge they don’t have any V1 hardware accessory on the market