Extending the Vive tethering cable - anyone tried it?

[doberlec]

Looked at some Vive installations on VRLA this weekend and I could swear that I saw some folks using longer cables than ship with the devkit. Any idea/tips how we can extend the tethering cables? Would like to suspend the HMD from the ceiling of our client demo room :)

[BoFHay]

An undocumented feature is that you can daisy chain two Vive Pre tethers but you need the 2nd control box in the middle.

[hardlab]

We're suspending our Vive from a ceiling hook in the middle of our tracking space (which keeps it off the floor and can reach 90% of our space) and just connecting the hub to our PC using some long HDMI and USB cables. Had to use a powered USB cable though. We're using tape at the moment and some of those spring coiled key fobs to do some strain relief. Not pretty but it works.

[BokBokLabs]

I've got my cables suspended from the ceiling as well. I'm using a retractable dog leash to pick up the slack and it works pretty good.

[indienerd]

Now that is a really big deal! Hope HTC will sell the boxes (just as Lighthouses) as separate units too some time.

[doberlec]

Thanks for the tips guys. The words 'retractable dog leash' were a bit unexpected, haha :D

[zalo™]

We used 10 ft. extender cables before the repeaters at VRLA in all six of our rigs without any runtime problems (related to the extension) during the show (occasionally the HMDs would flash red upon boot-up, as if they weren't getting enough power; this was fixed by isolating the cables from other cables to reduce EMI).

[Gounemond]

Originally posted by zalo:

We used 10 ft. extender cables before the repeaters at VRLA in all six of our rigs without any runtime problems (related to the extension) during the show (occasionally the HMDs would flash red upon boot-up, as if they weren't getting enough power; this was fixed by isolating the cables from other cables to reduce EMI).

Did you extend the part between PC and the control box? Or from the controlbox to the HMD?

[zalo™]

From the PC to the Control box; I wouldn't use anything longer than 10ft cables (and we didn't need extend the power).

[Shadow]

I just wanted to clarify a few things. Please do not extend the tether cables between the breakout box and the HMD. These cables are already at the maximum safe distance without signal boosters and you might have subtle poor behavior if you extend those cables.

Also I'd caution about running the tether down from the ceiling. In our experiments we have found that people have more issues with it interfering with their arms or head than the normal cable on the ground where people quickly learn to step around/over it.

In theory you can use somewhat longer cables between the PC and the breakout box. If you are using the existing dev-kit you need to be really careful about the USB cable and use a powered USB hub because the dev-kit breakout box does not have its own repeater for USB. This is fixed in the Vive Pre. We haven't officially tested this but have used this a couple of times when we were not able to position the computer right at the edge of the tracked space (so we put the breakout box still at the edge of the tracked space and ~10ft cables to it). Please be careful about what cables you use since we have seen issues with some cables not meeting USB/HDMI specs correctly.

[Jad]

Originally posted by Shadow:

Also I'd caution about running the tether down from the ceiling. In our experiments we have found that people have more issues with it interfering with their arms or head than the normal cable on the ground where people quickly learn to step around/over it.

Yes I would also caution against the overhead cable design at this point. In addition to potential interference issues, the bend radius due to hanging it over a wall or suspending it from the ceiling may lead to additional strain on the cable.

[Miss Stabby]

All we need is an autonomous roomba style floor robot that both does signal cable extension, amplification and cable management ;)

[Diablo Blanco]

good idea Stabby!... one question, will it be able to shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level ?