VR Lighthouses 3.0 - Camera for Full body Tracking

[Azmodean(CF)]

Anyone know if Valve has any intention of upgrading its lighthouses to have a cameras for full body tracking?

I know this has been done to some extent using the XBOX connect, but if valve did it, it would be main stream and another reason why the Steam VR is the best solution.

[BOLL]

At this point the base stations operate in a passive mode, they provide a tracking reference for active devices, they do not have a live data feed to the PC. This has the benefit of only needing power, no USB cable going back to the PC. They do have Bluetooth but that's for power management and I think firmware over the air.

Just maybe, they could add the watchman module to them for this data, and keep the camera tracking processing internal, but then you'd still have to do sensor fusion stuff on the PC with all the streams you get. Also, you'd need watchman receivers, one per base station, which in my case is four.

Also, if you want to use the base stations for more than one PC, which is entirely possible today, it will get a bit complicated if you also want the body tracking for that.

Honestly, it feels like cramming this into the base stations is like making them into one of those TVs with built in VCR/DVD, just two devices attached together. It might be a better idea to just make the body tracking device separately, especially as I imagine optimal placement of it would not be the same as for base stations.

[Azmodean(CF)]

What an awesome response.

I had not considered a multi PC setup, so had not thought of that issue.
You maybe right with your arguments, it would just be nice for Valve to develop something in the form of full body tracking.
That could be added in to my system in the form of an upgrade :)

Four base stations, you must have a nice play space. :)

[BOLL]

It's my living room, I live alone, so it gets used as a VR space 😅 It's not a big apartment though, but with things spread around along the walls I get 3x3 meters. Having four stations is mostly because... I could, and to reduce tracking loss in corners, I don't spend much money on trips or much of anything, so I could afford it. I do enjoy VR quite a bit and hobbies are where money goes. 😋