Valve Teases New ‘Index’ VR Headset Coming in May

I’ve replied elsewhere to all of these points, but to clarify: these are all speculation. Nothing is confirmed. My interest was why folks are so confident in rumor in this regard.

The portion they’ve shown does look very similar to the leaked images we saw last year, but this doesn’t change the fact that all of the specs which were reported at the time were still unconfirmed, essentially rumor and speculation.

True. Anyone upgrading from an existing Vive setup can use any headset they want in combination with Knuckles then. Or conversely a Rift or WMR user could add a Lighthouse setup to use Knuckles.

That scenario does beg the question to me though whether Valve has made Index with a true inside-out tracking system that doesn’t require external Lighthouse emitters necessarily, but can track itself and Knuckles internally from the headset cameras. If not, this does seem a strange anachronism in the face of the usability and convenience that Rift S and WMR tracking represents.

To my knowledge yes, Valve hasn’t baked in the ability to use whatever headset/controller combo you want, but that it is certainly possible with a reasonable amount of enterprising effort. Something on the level of using hacked songs with Beat Saber, which doesn’t seem to be terribly much of a problem for someone with the incentive to solve it, or at least google how and implement the solution.

The more I think of it, the less enthused I am at the prospect of Valve continuing down the Lighthouse path actually. I understand it’s fantastic on a technical level, but to what degree is it better than Quest or Rift S in this regard? And is it possibly worth the tradeoff of convenience true self contained tracking represents? Being able to pack up and use your laptop and headset anywhere you go seems a boon, let alone the all-in-one console functionality of the Quest, and the prospect of an ad hoc wireless tether, admittedly a feature as confirmed as any the Index currently boasts, with the exception of John Carmack himself boasting of working to this end.

It will definitely be interesting to see where body/face tracking goes. For telepresence it’s a very important element, but doesn’t need to be perfect. Predictive algorithms pieced together with tracking from on-board cameras could be enough for that, or possibly ultrasound, electromagnetic or some other 3D imaging. If you want a fully fledged martial arts game where you’re accurately kicking things, or a dancing or platforming game where foot placement needs to to be precise, you may need Kinect or Leap Motion style tracking rather than Lighthouse. It’s a good question though, the tech for body tracking theoretically already exists in those products but for some reason has not been implemented in a consumer experience at least.

It’s not rocket science, but it’s also a lot less practical and convenient to pack up and move around. You also can’t use them in rooms with open windows, or spaces that are too wide open. Small things make a difference with consumer products. Folks made a big deal out of the moderate differences in setup costs and usability between the original Rift and Vive as well. Self contained tracking systems seem undoubtedly the method that has the best chance of breaking through to the mainstream, eventually even Valve will have to get on board.

It’s a matter of degrees really. Obviously Lighthouse is a great tracking system, it just seems fated to be replaced by self-contained systems.

Yep, this is the source of my curiosity. People know literally nothing about the actual specs, yet seem convinced it’s going to represent something very specific.