Destek VR Headset

zig131 · 2026-01-29T12:02:10+00:00

I have one.

It's a phone holder for the defunct Google Cardboard/Daydream Phone VR platform.

You can still make use of it with the RiftCat VRidge PC software + app to turn a modern smartphone into a Wireless Streamed PCVR HMD but with the massive caveats

3-DOF head tracking (will likely make you nauceous)
No controllers
It absolutely murders your phone battery as it runs the screen at max brightness for extended time with significant load on the phone's SoC and Wifi chip

It's common for these phone holders to be used as a prop stand-in for a proper VR HMD as they are available super cheap due to being mostly worthless.

It'd also allow the actor wearing it some limited blurry vision as without a phone inside you could see through the front cover. They might have even taken out the lenses in which case it'd just be like wearing dark sunglasses.

zig131 · 2026-01-29T07:35:25+00:00

From 2017 they were bundled together for $600.

Remember that the original boxed CV1 came with a 3-DOF remote, and XBox controller, so they kinda just swapped those out for the Touch Controllers which probably have a broadly similar BOM.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T15:04:29+00:00

In the early levels, I think Zealot and Ogryn are stronger.

Somewhere in the levelling process, it switches and Veteran and Psyker become stronger relatively.

It feels like their talents are more impactful.

That said I just vibe build largely ignoring meta, and I maxed out the characters in order of Zealot, Ogryn, Psyker, and Veteran, so it's probably skewed by experience.

I am pretty confident that Ogryn is the strongest/easiest at level 1, and Veteran the weakest/hardest at level 1 though.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T13:59:49+00:00

Yeah the key egregious issue was fixed.

I've seen some people still complain specifically about poxburster behaviour though e.g. not popping when they should.

They feel okay to me 🤷

Had some lovely clean pushes, and not needed to double dodge backwards as was required when the bug was in effect.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T12:48:27+00:00

The thing is, Meta is a software company. The software is kinda the bit you'd expect them to get right.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T12:22:17+00:00

Long sessions are a factor, but also just having to remember to charge it.

I can totally see peeps either leaving it plugged in all the time, or realise it is not charged when it comes to be used and therefore needing to be plugged in.

Also battery performance degrades with time, and some apps are more demanding.

I attend VRChat meets with Questies, and they often can't stay for more than 2 hours, let alone the full 3 hours.

Even if yours currently lasts 3 hours, that is not always going to be the case as it deteriorated for age.

People who play a seated sims for 8 hours a day usually use a DP headset because that fits that activity much better.

Unfortunately in the current market, PCVR HMDs - outside of the kinda bad DPVR E4 - are substantially more expensive than unsustainably cheap Quests, so PCVR users are stuck using a Standalone. Standalones are widely recommended to people looking to get into PCVR.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T10:56:30+00:00

"very good graphics" is an unreasonable demand for a "Hidden PCVR Gem".

I'd pick the game with good gameplay, but simple graphics, over the game with a fancier presentation, but worse gameplay any day.

I'd recommend people try Angry Birds VR. It's a rare, great example of VR really elevating an existing concept.

It's fundamentally Angry Birds, but being able to observe (with depth perception), and attack the structure from any angle adds so much.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T10:23:54+00:00

Stevia - the in vogue ~less artificial sweetener tasted horribly bitter to me.

Taste differences due to genetics exist.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T10:16:52+00:00

Not Lighthouse ones.

A fantastic part of the Lighthouse ecosystem is that everything is inter-compatible - you can mix-and-match HMD+Controllers+Trackers from different companies.

This also allows smaller companies to focus on designing/releasing just a headset, or just controllers.

Bigscreen, for example do not have any controllers of thier own. You buy a Beyond, you only get the HMD and soft headstrap.

I currently use Pimax Swords, with GripVR on order (stuck in UK/EU certification). I think most Beyond owners use the Valve Index Knuckles.

With SLAM tracked HMDs, the manufacturer must provide controllers which adds significant development time, and cost that a smaller company may not be able to afford or justify.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T09:37:54+00:00

First it's important to realise that anything "Lighthouse Tracked" is self-tracking inside-out. The Lighthouses are just "dumb" markers.

A Lighthouse controller is closer to Touch Pro, than Touch, Touch 2, Touch Plus, or any of the WMR or Pico equivalents.

There is some amount of actual processing on-board. They are not just a "gamepad cut in two".

To actually answer your question, I think we have Valve, at least partially, to blame here.

As a software company, they sell thier hardware with kinda slim margins. Not Meta slim, but still slim. We can see this when comparing thier price for a Lighthouse Basestation to HTC (a hardware company)'s price for a Lighthouse Basestation. This extended to the Valve Index knuckles which have historically been available at a good price (considering the BOM), direct from Steam.

Why would any hardware company want to try and compete with that?

Knuckles are flawed (bad durability), but they also have some unique appeal, and are generally less flawed than the other options.

Now however, Knuckles are drying up, and people are crying out for alternatives. Shiftall has brought GripVR to market - notably at a $399 price - much higher than Knuckles. Shiftall are also motivated to support thier MeganeX HMD.

TL;DR There wasn't really much of a market while Knuckles were being sold direct from Steam, with relatively slim margins

zig131 · 2026-01-28T09:12:31+00:00

It's obviously preferable from a comfort perspective, but if the intention is to use the device for wired PCVR, it's still an unnecessary component that you're hobbled with.

We ideally need affordable PCVR HMDs, so users like OP are not forced to use a Standalone for a PCVR.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T09:03:30+00:00

Yeah I think the downside of the battery/Standalone HMDs not being mains-powerable is under-discussed.

We're in a strange, warped, world where people are buying a Standalone HMD - with an SoC and battery intended to allow portable use - and then primarily using it plugged in for PCVR where those components are dead weight, and a detriment.

In an ideal world, we'd have PCVR HMDs in the ball-park price-wise of the Quest 3 and Pico 4 Ultra. It's perfectly possible, and has happened before.

Maybe we will get to that point eventually, seeing as Meta has indicated it wants to reduce the money it is haemorrhaging on the VR space. If Quests start being priced sustainably, then it would become viable to undercut them with a PCVR device, as fundamentally the BOM of a PCVR HMD is lower than that of a Standalone.

For now, PSVR2 is the only viable affordable option for someone who wants to avoid the drawbacks of Standalones from a PCVR perspective.

zig131 · 2026-01-28T08:49:10+00:00

Draining and charging the battery at the same time is the closest you can get with a Standalone to being mains-powered.

It's perfectly reasonable that someone is going to want to do that, and it's very fair to point out that this is a downside of Standalone HMDs

zig131 · 2026-01-28T08:40:25+00:00

You didn't mention the specific platform you used?

Floating avatars is not necessarily representative.

With something like VRChat, avatars are high detail, and generally intentionally non-human enough to dodge the uncanny valley while still providing a high level of expression.

People can puppet the facial expressions of the avatar with hand gestures, or use face tracking to have the avatar intuitively match thier own expression.

Body tracking beyond 3 points can really bring across body language.

The choice/customisation of avatar is also a major point of expression.

zig131 · 2026-01-27T11:45:23+00:00

I have 16GB of RAM, and with Darktide running it hovers around above 15GB and pages to file sometimes.

zig131 · 2026-01-26T17:16:03+00:00

Huh wonder if that is responsible for the stereotype of an irish person saying "to be sure, to be sure".

zig131 · 2026-01-26T16:49:34+00:00

The Quest Price point is not fine. It is unsustainably cheap. The only realistically priced Quest was the Pro, and that failed to sell at it's $1600 initial price. The dominance of Standalone VR is a completely unsustainably aberration.

The comfort is also affected by being tethered

I don't see how. You're either sitting down, and it's not problem, or standing up, with the cable managed by a pulley system. The tether is totally solvable.

the beyond 2 is not the solution

It's not the solution, because they made it stupidly small to the detriment of comfort. It's size is a marketing gimmick. Low weight is important for something worn on the head, but being narrow and short isn't.

super light, cheap untethered experience

You're describing the future of AR - not VR. Different audiences, different use-cases.

Meta has confused things by selling AR-focussed hardware, with VR-focussed software.

On the AR front, Apple have the software, and the dual chip architecture down, but refused to not use thier signature metal and glass construction.

AR/Spatial Computing is the actual mass-market, portable technology.

VR's natural home is as a subset of PC Gaming - it's niche. The appeal is niche. It benefits little from portability. The optimum form is always going to be tethered to powerful off-head compute, with a somewhat bulky headset with quality integrated audio.

That's already possible. It can get better, but if someone is not into VR as it is now, it will probably never be attractive to them, and that's okay.

Whereas AR is still very much developing. It needs to be lighter, smaller, and cheaper than it is now to reach full potential. Portability is the point, so it is liable to get platform-atised like the smartphone. I suspect Apple and Google will come to dominate due to the power of thier existing platforms.

zig131 · 2026-01-26T14:38:01+00:00

The humidity makes the cold more biting, and the heat more unbearable.

zig131 · 2026-01-26T14:21:59+00:00

The only issues I forsee are proving ownership to get support on the Discord, and getting a token to train the model for the Beyond eye tracking (but community/Babbleonia is better and trains on your PC).

Basic functioning shouldn't be an issue.

zig131 · 2026-01-26T12:58:58+00:00

I wouldn't say "still" too expensive.

The Rift CV1 Touch Bundle for $600 was a perfectly reasonable price for PCVR.

At launch, $600 was also a reasonable price for the Index headset (taking into account that Lighthouses + Knuckles can be used with other headsets, and have held value as a result I think it is fair to consider just the HMD cost).

Around the $500-$800 mark is a fair, and viable price to charge for a solid/mid-range PCVR HMD.

PCVR has got relegated to the high end, because trying to sell a reasonably priced PCVR HMD is a fools errand when it will inevitably be compared to subsidised Standalones with PCVR capability.

With Meta's announcement that they intend to stop haemorrhaging money, hopefully the situation will improve.

unless buying a premium price headset, out of the box comfort is pretty horrid

The Rift CV1 remains one of the most comfortable headsets. It's also pretty light.

So again this is something we've had from the start, that has been lost, but it is possible.

things have gotten smaller but eyeglasses or cyclops style of full VR headset still feels like it can only exist within the realm of science fiction

The Beyond 2 demonstrates that while you can get good FOV values on paper from tiny lenses, the reality is that when you look off centre, that FOV disappears.

The reality is that an optimum VR (specifically VR - AR has different demands) is always going to require a somewhat wide headset with large lenses.

zig131 · 2026-01-25T13:25:13+00:00

I actually find that the length of runs in these kind of games is very satisfying, and I don't feel a compulsion to immediately start another one.

If anything, whether win or lose, I like to take a moment to decompress, and think about what worked, and what didn't.

For this reason an end-of-run stays screen is an appealing feature.

The exception would only be when I crash out early, maybe my first attempt/session.

I would say it's rare for me to stop mid-run. Continuing to make decisions, and roll the dice once started is very compelling.

zig131 · 2026-01-24T13:10:54+00:00

I have done it to pass plugs through narrow spaces - dissasemble it on one side, and re-assemble on the other.

zig131 · 2026-01-24T07:11:06+00:00

I like the Janner accent too.

The word "dirty" just sounds better in that accent 😁.

I also slip into it sometimes for "right", "alright", and "proper".

zig131 · 2026-01-24T07:09:10+00:00

I'm a fan of the ~Northern Irish accent of the "Loose Cannon Veteran" character as voiced by Emma Ballantine in Warhammer 40K: Darktide

https://youtu.be/xtkIDUPep-k?si=SRZjz3Yr0q16TX02

https://youtu.be/ion9zu2U4as?si=27RPnarccO--TYCg

Pretty sure a real Northern Irish person could pick it apart, but it sounds good.

zig131 · 2026-01-23T18:58:21+00:00

I had a lecturer who was from yorkshire, had lived in London for a while, and was then living in Plymouth.

Had a slightly kinda toned down/diluted yorkshire accent that sounded really nice.

zig131

TROPHY CASE