Anyone Else Going Wireless?

FNSArcade

If you have wireless stations close together you need to go in and set different channels on the wireless if you are having issues with connections. Problems is there are only 3 channels last time I checked.

Most of my issues right now though are stemming from the controllers not connecting all the time, bad usb cables, new usb cables possibly ruining the batteries.

The only issues I have had with tracking is reflective surfaces, and it was hard to deal with since they decided to decorate the VR area.

Also note, WiGig is very directional / line of sight, make sure your antennas are pointing where the player will be and nothing is obstructing it. WiGig doesn't even seem to be able to pass through a single layer of drywall.

The PC's I am running are all the following spec: Intel 8700K 16 GB Ram 500GB NVME Samsung SSD's 1TB Western Digital Black EVGA 1080Ti GPUs Gigabyte Z370 Gaming 3 Motherboards

VR-ARRIVAL

FNSArcade

Hi FnsTech, From an earlier post of yours, it looks like you are using the Vive Pros with the wireless adapter. Performance-wise (when the controllers were connecting and you had power), would you give it a 10/10 compared to a cabled system (ie. no latency as you move your head side-to-side)?

KeithJ

We have tried the TPCast, both the consumer version and the business edition. The consumer edition is only meant for someone that has 1 system, maybe 2. Any more than that and we found that we had a lot of issues with gray screens. We returned the CE and they gave us the BE in place of it for all the headaches that we had with it. We have since put it in place, and didnt have to many issues with it right away. Was working great in 2 booths so we decided to incorporate it into the other 2 booths. Worked for a weekend, then the issues started. Grey screens, the software would loose connection but show it was working, just a few different things that made us take it down. We are thinking that maybe the drop ceiling metal framing is causing some kind of small Faraday cage and interfering. The router is after all mounted above the drop ceiling to the roof trusses. We have since decided to set it aside for now, and maybe go back to it once we get our free roam area setup and can mount the router below the drop ceiling. Will let you know how that goes when we get there.

gameovr

KeithJ

The tpcast has a few quirks to be sure, it was like learning how to set up the lighthouses all over again. It does need direct LOS to work, but the signal will "bounce" so even though we have physical walls in between our stations, they are all open on at least 1 side so once you get 6 or 7 clustered close together they start having trouble pairing up when we swap batteries. Once they are paired they work perfectly. The constantly greying out is from the wifi signal not the 60 ghz signal from the transmitter. First, check to make sure they are all operating on different bands, second, reset the router, if you are still getting grey screen, check the cord from the battery pack to the headset, we have had a few fail and getting a lot of greying out is usually a symptom.

FNSArcade

VR-ARRIVAL

I'm a fairly avid gamer and I have played alot with our wireless system. It doesn't seem or feel floaty or laggy to me. I would have to go back and hook up a wired setup and play for an hour or 2 before I could get a real answer, but it does seem to work very well, though from what I understand you go to 60 FPS instead of 90, but I have to fact check that to be sure.

Edge

ActionVR

I am currently experimenting with other cables. It seems that the much thicker 3.0 cables create an issue with movement of the stiffer cable but a much improved transfer of information. Less issues with dropouts but a few more instances with unplugs by customers accidentally hitting the more rigid cable.

colincentrevr

A report on our wireless experience. I bought the TP Cast for Vive and Oculus when they came out for my home and was impressed with the Vive, not with the Oculus version which had many issues that their tech support knew about and could not fix. Sold it before it got fixed (if ever). We have 12 x Vive Pros in open use (2 x 12m x 16m areas separated, 6 in each) and made three in one side wireless, with a view to making the 12m x 16m area one big space for the titles that support it (we have 2 currently). The cable from the battery to the headset proved immediately unreliable so we quickly reduced it to two, creating a spare. We use it daily, but my staff are not fans. I wanted to roll it out on as many as possible as I have the Intel and Pro at home and love it, but the reliability and 3 channel restriction is slowing our implementation. Having said that, we are getting through Vive Pro cables at an alarming rate, but have recently changed our cable management system to one that really protects the cables a lot more so hoping that will help. HTC are so great for bringing us all the world of VR that we have, but also so terrible that they just ignore customers, because they can, without recourse. What a frustrating industry we are in, but easily the most fun one I think. Happy to share any of our experiences with anyone.

FNSArcade

So I have some things else to add to the wireless discussion (I may make a separate post about this later after I gather more information and observe our setup)

HTC does not sell extra USB A to A cables for the battery to wireless adapters, all 4 of ours broke in under 3 months.

HTC said I should be able to just get extra cables from most tech stores, but they are a non-standard cable. They claim this will not affect the warranty ( at least the advantage+ that we have )

Some of the USB 3.0 variants of the aftermarket cables may have damaged multiple ( 10 ) of our battery packs. (They won't turn on an HMD or even charge a smart phone, but will run something like a USB desk fan, it appears the QC 3.0 circuitry has failed). I switched to simpler USB 2.0 Male A to Male A style cables since that is actually closer to the original HTC cable and so far the battery pack deaths have ceased. HTC is warrantying the batteries, but it's ground shipping.

Battery packs last 2 - 3 hours tops. You can buy spares from HTC for $70 or you can get Anker QC 3.0 packs for about half that price that last just as long. I would not go with anything cheap or off branded.

VR-ARRIVAL

FNSArcade

Interesting you mentioned about the HTC Vive Advantage warranty @FnsTech - when I wanted to add our wireless adapters to the Advantage warranty, HTC Vive said that the Vive Wireless Adapters weren't included in the HTC Vive Advantage Warranty scheme.

FNSArcade

VR-ARRIVAL

Not sure if they cover the wireless adapter or not, but with the + you can choose X number of things to warranty I think. Though. don't quote me on that. They are replacing quite the quantity of batteries for us though, which should be under factory warranty to boot.

PatrickRinaudo397065

based off reading this, sounds like wireless adapter isn’t really worth the effort sadly at this point>? haha

thevrclub

PatrickRinaudo397065 Air Link and in particular Virtual Desktop have made Vive wireless obsolete. Better compression algorithms means no need for WiGig and bulky accessories

PatrickRinaudo397065

thevrclub so your saying, you use quest for license games?

thevrclub

PatrickRinaudo397065 yes same licensed PC games I used with my original HTC Vives

PatrickRinaudo397065

thevrclub i thought that wasn’t possible?

thevrclub

PatrickRinaudo397065 check out my post here on how to set it up: https://community.springboardvr.com/d/1348-tips-for-using-quest-2-in-your-arcade-with-pc-vr

PatrickRinaudo397065

thevrclub thanks, quite the book you wrote😛…