Tundra Tracker, a SteamVR Tracking puck born out of a successful Kickstarter last year, was sold to the general public for the first time yesterday, March 10th. Tundra Labs says that all available stock was sold out in only three minutes after launch.

Update (March 11th, 2022)

Tundra Labs announced in a tweet that their “very limited inventory” of trackers sold out in just three minutes yesterday.

Like many companies, Tundra Labs says it’s suffering from key component shortages, and as such has been forced to buy some parts from third-party brokerages instead of directly from the supplier, which it says is due to larger companies getting priority.

Tundra Labs says its first wave of orders will ship “approximately 8 weeks after purchase,” with inventory tentatively scheduled for May 10th, 2022. The company hasn’t mentioned when it plans to open up orders again for its pint-sized SteamVR tracker, however in a previous update a 4-6 week lead time was quoted, which would put the next availability window sometime in April.

Update (March 4th, 2022)

Tundra Labs says it’s opening up sale of a limited number of Trackers starting March 10th. The company hopes to pace availability every 4-6 weeks thereafter.

Here’s the initial March 10th release schedule below:

Bundles have changed somewhat from the original Kickstarter. Now a three tracker bundle costs $360 and a four tracker bundle $480. Read more on Tundra Labs blogpost for additional details on pricing and availability.

Original Article (October 27th, 2021): The Tundra Tracker Kickstarter raised nearly $1.4 million earlier this year to bring to life a VR tracking puck for the SteamVR Tracking ecosystem which is the first direct alternative to the longstanding Vive Tracker. The device can be used to track arbitrary items inside of VR, with many aiming to use the tracker for full-body tracking to enhance social VR experiences.

Tundra Tracker (left), Vive Tracker 2.0 (right) | Image courtesy Tundra Labs

Though shipments for the Tundra Tracker have slipped from their initial estimate of September, the campaign has seen an incredibly quick turnaround compared to most hardware-based crowdfunding projects which often take years to complete; the latest estimate from Tundra Labs is that the first shipments should begin in early November, which would be just over five months from the completion of the Kickstarter campaign. Here’s the current shipping estimates from the company:

  • November 10th: Early Bird Shipments begin for Americas Region
  • November 22nd: Early Bird Shipments begin for Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand & SE Asia
  • November 29th through December 31st: Regular Backer Shipments

Tundra Labs says the delay from the original September estimate was in part caused by electricity shortages in China which impacted manufacturing. However, the company says that a “very small” number of Tundra Trackers have already been shipped to some ‘early bird’ backers in China.

SEE ALSO
iPhone 16 Adds Spatial Photos and Spatial Audio Capture for Vision Pro

For those receiving their Tundra Tracker after today, the device should be ready to go right out of the box thanks to a SteamVR update which has added official support for the tracking puck to the main branch of the software in SteamVR version 1.20.4.

Additional reporting by Scott Hayden.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • ViRGiN

    Cool. More obsolete hardware for furries, weebs and neckbeards to exclusively use in VRChat and NeosVR, because nobody ever has used anything like that outside those.

    A whatsocalled “social” apps for the most anti-social people in real life.

    • Plou

      I disagree. Please explain this

      • ViRGiN

        Looks like a one off event. Okay, cool moves but i don’t like the execution here. And it’s not even while wearing vr headset apparently.

        With 11 points and all hardware needed, rokoko is a better, professional solution. Nobody is using Vive trackers for motion capture because it’s horrible to work with, all the calibrating etc.

        • Plou

          The event was just one tweet. The twitter account is of a long running association that teaches break dancing in VR. Look at their tweets, you’ll get the sense of real, frequent, meaningful, long standing full body tracking usage.
          Cheers

    • kontis

      So, you are saying that people who actually need “VIRTUAL” social life, because they struggle with “REAL” social life are using “VIRTUAL” social technology to find happiness?

      Wow, that’s incredible. Simply wonderful! Someone actually made the world better with new technology!

      Maybe we should start talking about a nobel peace prize for VRchat developers?

      Thank you for telling us!

      • ViRGiN

        You can have your vrchat all day long, I’m waiting for another social space that doesn’t creep/cringe out on every corner. And best bet, horizon is going to be exactly that.

        • asdf

          neos has some furries but is 100x better than vrchat in those regards

          • BananaBreadBoy

            I’m sorry, “some” furries? If anything, the furry stuff is more ingrained in NeosVR. Plus there’s the whole drama with crypto they’re going through.

        • guest

          Well just wait until the Meta-ads start, you will wish it was just warm and fuzzy in VR, but its going to be sick drug company ads and previews of zombie killing in your face, just like what much of TV has today!

          • ViRGiN

            Yeah and? Still no furries and weebs.

          • PK

            you’re extremely uninformed. vrchat is ruled by anime avatars, furries are one of many much smaller minorities. and many i don’t think are “furries” they just like animal avatars. and they ones i now ware wonderful people making cool stuff they’re partaking in sex acts in public, not that i’ve seen. i think the probe might be you’re judging this on some memes, and you don’t have friends inviting you do any of the countless hangouts and events happening in private spaces on the platform each day. every kind of person is in here and since i avoid public spaces i don’t encounter hardly any negatives at all.

          • PK

            also i don’t trust numbers shared by facebook on user engagement. in know what they called engagement when i used to try to advertise on facebook and it was not accurate. they built a popular headset sure, and many of those will try out horizon but facebook is to bad at building something good from scratch that i don’t think it can compete against the vrc’s and rec room’s of the world.

          • ViRGiN

            i’m pretty damn sure “anime” falls under “weeb” category.

            you could say that pretty much about everything. “you’re just hanging out with the wrong people”. just like you can still play search and destroy and tdm in pavlov; but nobody can deny that it’s primarily dominated by something like ttt and mcdonalds, full of 12 years old. the original spirit of the game, aka “csgo” is long gone.

          • ZarathustraDK

            Anime avatars are a common aesthetic and functional preference. They allow you to present as a humanoid without getting into the uncanny valley territory of photorealism while retaining full emotive functionality.

            You’re trying to present it as some kind of fetish or deviancy, which is tantamount to me presenting horizon-users as uninspired low-effort-people with a kink for paraplegic amputees floating around in Harkonnen suspenders.

          • PK

            nobody can deny? i barely know the word weeb, i have a faint understanding of it that may be wrong. i don’t know what csgo is. or ttt, and not sure why you’re bringing up mcdonalds. i’ve been using vrc for over seven years and none of that has anything to do with my experience there.

            12 year olds, sure in public spaces i’m sure you’d find lots of those. but nobody i know hands out in public spaces. vrc does need to finally roll out Groups as they’ve promised, to help new users find others with similar interests. they should have done that years ago.

            the best way to get something better out of this platform is to go to an event that’s up your alley, ideally with someone who’s familiar with that specific community to help introduce you.

          • Cercie

            Spewing so much hate on your way into the comments section really says a lot about the fragility of your own character. Not going to change your mind though. Someone once said you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

          • ViRGiN

            Your toxic positivity shows up. Months has passed, and not a single new software was created taking use of those obsolete trackers. And they are still not available for purchase. What a shitty “alternative” to another obsolete tracker.

          • Cercie

            It’s not toxic, it’s just positivity. You think all the people you hate are antisocial, but they’re interacting, with each other. They probably just don’t want to interact with someone as hate filled and hostile as you. Just a thought.

          • ViRGiN

            you can say that about every group, every thing ever. you’ve said a lot, while saying nothing. i posted that comment over a month ago;

            Tundra once again has not restocked their trackers; and once again; not a single piece of new software, or old software has added support for trackers.

            Yeah, you’re spreading toxic positivity; hoping that someone less informed actually goes ahead and buys these, potentially expanding the customer base willing to spend money on new software to make it actually worth it. NONE of that happened.

        • NL_VR

          Horizon is a school project compared to VRChat.

          • ViRGiN

            Yet it has 300k monthly users exclusively coming from vr, available only in like two countries. Looks like school project is far more engaging than weebs paradise. Mind telling me how vrchat has evolved the past two years after getting millions from investors?

          • NL_VR

            Ok but what exatly is fun in horizon?
            it looks like bad copy of recroom with bad avatars from Facebook.
            VRChat and Recroom at least bring fun worls to explore, lots of technical stuff and a lot of different avatars to chose from or even make your own.

          • ViRGiN

            Why did you completly skip the last sentence?
            How did vrchat evolved over the past two years after getting millions from investors?

            Is the only value of vrchat the entirety of user generated content, and vrchat itself with no mods or extra downloads offers nothing but just a platform?

          • NL_VR

            Alot has changed in 2 years.
            Tand question remains, what does Horizon bring to the table.
            It looks real bad and Boring.

          • ViRGiN

            And that’s your opinion. My opinion is vrchat could be so much bigger, but it’s entirely ruined by extremely dominating weeb/furry community.

            Your “a lot” explained nothing.

    • Anonmon

      Fine Mr. Virgin, I’ll indulge your facebook-cocksucking shitposting for just a moment to ask, what exactly do YOU want from VR then? Because newsflash, just like wider PC gaming, what any one person wants from VR is not a singular thing.

      Some people want a console like “It just works” experience of curated games and experiences, and don’t care about the soul selling to get it cheap. Some people want the perfect stereo viewer for playing their games, movies and such in stereoscopic 3D. Some people want the ultimate in immersion for their simulator setups coupled with HOTAS’s and wheels/pedals and such in a strictly seated experience. Some people want to visit and sight-see with their friends in virtual worlds in bodies of their own design/creation, with their bodies as close to directly translated to the virtual worlds as possible. Some people just want a personal movie theatre to watch all of their content in. Some people want a means to sculpt their digital creations as part of their creation pipeline. Some people want a relatively low cost and high quality mocap solution to do motion capture with (which to respond to a different post, yes, this is a use case real AA and indie studios employ, even AAA on occasion, and it works wonders compared to “Professional solutions”, price to quality wise.) And some people just want to play games the way they want to play games, as it has always been in the realm of PC gaming.

      Which even with that long list of possible use cases, I’m sure I’m leaving out possible use cases. Because that’s the thing, no one individual represents ALL of what a given technology like VR can be for people. Which is why it’s as wide spread as it is. And is also why there’s a wide berth of hardware and software catered to different kinds of use cases. Not everyone will want a given type of feature or ability from their hardware. Not everyone has a need for practically perfect Lighthouse tracking and would rather have the “It just works” of inside out, others want to have that tracking perfection coupled with a zero hassle integration of all other tracked peripherals in the same tracking volume.
      Different use cases for different people. Same with HMD’s, same with controllers, same with accessories. Which these accessories are clearly for the “Virtual worlds with friends” and mocap crowds, but I’m sure are not remotely limited to such.

      So I ask again, what exactly do YOU want from VR? Because I can guarantee whatever that is, someone else will have zero desire for. And that doesn’t make what they want wrong, because you know, people are different. They have a different use case they want to get enjoyment out of, and that’s how we get a technology like VR that isn’t just strictly the one limited thing any one entity dictates it to be. Which breeds actual innovation and drive to make the experience for all kinds of users better.

    • brandon9271

      Yeah, because full body tracking has no other purpose and wouldn’t make a game like Half Life Alyx more immersive.. Everyone is fully content being a pair of disembodied hands..

      • ViRGiN

        Dude, when body tracking is real and doesn’t require buying crappy trackers that reach requires separate recharging, it will be in demand. Whatever is available is only for nerds, there is no practical use cause technology doesn’t exist. Why alyx doesn’t support trackers? Why pavlov doesn’t?

        • brandon9271

          I agree that the currently available system is way too expensive and impractical for mainstream adoption but it’s a step in the right direction. The reason trackers are mostly used in VR Chat is because that’s what support them. Pavlov players would buy them if they were supported

        • Charles

          “when body tracking is real and doesn’t require buying crappy trackers”
          See my reply above.

          • ViRGiN

            That’s not good enough.

      • Charles

        What a lot of people don’t realize is that you can get decent arm and body tracking WITHOUT any trackers at all. The software just needs to be written with good inverse kinematics to predict the orientation of your arms based on controller position relative to headset position.

        In fact, this is usually the case EVEN WITH trackers – most people only use trackers on the legs and sometimes on the belt.

        The only reason you need trackers is if you want precise positioning of your legs/feet, if you want to be able to lean over and have your lower body positioning accurate, or if you want to be able to walk in place precisely (yet there are now decent walk-in-place simulation techniques that don’t need trackers). If you’re not planning on looking at your legs while walking, or on having legs and other people seeing them, there’s not much of a benefit to using trackers.

        One good implementation of full-body tracking that works well without trackers is “Island 359”.

    • Scabbage

      Oh no, not more hardware options for consumers! What has the world come to?!?

      • ViRGiN

        It was supposed to be be “affordable”, it’s borderline the same coming from unknown company that very well may not exist next year.

    • NL_VR

      crybaby

    • Ookami

      Blade and Sorcery

      • ViRGiN

        Name 3 more. There must be something more.. right?

    • John Doe

      Nobody cares about incel, neckbeard gamers, because you’ll never be the majority

      • ViRGiN

        said a vrchat user dressed in 150 year old little girl

  • ApocalypseShadow

    Wrist technology is definitely on the right track. Can lead to other things.

  • BananaBreadBoy

    Nice! Good to a see a Vive Tracker competitor getting good traction.