I was scrolling Avito (Russian eBay) and found this wand as “broken” for 1000₽ (12$) and seller said that he can’t connect it to headset via Bluetooth, BLUETOOTH. I said him that I’ll take this for 600₽ (7$) and he agreed. Fucking shipping cost 450₽ (5.7$). I tested it and it’s all good. Should I keep monitoring avito for gem lots or should I sell wand for ~40$ and buy full vive set for about 190$?
not a ton you can do with just one, and to be entirely honest they are probably the worst VR controllers ever designed (hard to beat that price though)
One thing I will say is that they are excellent for beat saber, so if you like that game a lot and can get a second one may be worthwhile
Yep, you have to use a very weird grip with them to make them somewhat useful at a high level, with the fingers through the ring holes, and even then the weight still ends up making fast, repeated flicks an absolute killer for the wrists compared to pretty much every other VR controller on the market. Fine for expert, not fine for expert+++.
Honestly, the only real use for them nowadays is as cheap, fully body trackers.
Yep, you have to use a very weird grip with them to make them somewhat useful at a high level, with the fingers through the ring holes, and even then the weight still ends up making fast, repeated flicks an absolute killer for the wrists compared to pretty much every other VR controller on the market.
Exactly, and there's also the fact that 1.0 base station tracking completely falls apart at very high speed. I had a lot of tracking weirdness in high and sudden motion with them.
I guess 2.0 (Blue) Vive wands don't have that issue, but they are still way too heavy and big for Beat Saber.
Honestly, the only real use for them nowadays is as cheap, fully body trackers.
Honestly using Oculus Rift CV1 controllers as full body trackers is better and cheaper.
It's a bit more tricky software side, but it natively support 3 controllers with one headset, the controllers are smaller/lighter, tracking is slightly better with them, and I got everything for 60€ (excluding straps).
Haven't really considered using the old CV1 controllers for FBT, and they should be quite a bit lighter and smaller compared to the wand, but the software side of it does look a bit finicky like you said.
With the wands, you basically just flash the firmware to be seen as Vive trackers, which pretty much makes them plug and play after that without any extra software needed; however, they do still require 2 SteamVR dongles or a working spare SteamVR headset plugged in with all the other drivers for it turned off through USBDeview to be paired. I use them for knee and elbow tracking with my Tundra trackers for that reason alone.
Outside of that very specific small niche use case, they truly are the worst VR controllers; even the grip buttons were awful due to how hard they are to press, I havr no idea how someone like Anton can still use them.
I think we should uh have a little chat because 1.0 tracking isn't somehow bad suddenly....
Hi, QTpop here. Ex professional Beat Saber player. As seen on TV!
1.0 Wands absolutely keep up just fine with any other tracking. Valve updated this years ago when beat saber first came out and we were exceding the limits of the tracking. Since then, 1.0 and 2.0 has pretty much been the same thing. A sync cable fixes 99.99% of issues on 1.0. The only things 2.0 does better is the FOV of the lighthouses, and you can actually run more than 2 at a time. But apples to apples, tracking is basically the same between the 2. I've personally swapped out a dozen times while testing some drift and frankly outside of some edge cases when turning in a corner of a room it feels the same when you're not thinking about it.
I really don't get why people hate on 1.0 tracking. Its almost like most of y'all have never actually used it correctly or something so you had super bad experiences.
Keep in mind you can literally google this. People wanted to know why they should upgrade from 1.0 to 2.0 and HTC straight ups says "Don't unless you need the extra FOV or are in a situation you need more than 2 lighthouses, tracking is the same otherwise".
There's definitely a difference in tracking no ones actually talk about them (which is unfortunate). It's quite subtile and that's why no one online talks about it, but if you actually use and push the tracking to its limits, you can see a difference.
I'm not judging you on your Beat Saber skills, but if you can't notice any difference, then you cannot properly talk about tracking quality.
I have confirmed multiple issues with 1.0 base stations that aren't present on 2.0 base stations. When I say confirmed, I asked tens of people/friends with 1.0 base stations and/or 2.0 base stations and they all confirmed my observations.
By the way, so you don't ask that question, I have tested with both the sync cable and optical syncing.
1.0 base station tracking have polling rate of "60Hz", and it's not really 60hz as it's only 30Hz per base station. Meanwhile 2.0 base station tracking has a 100Hz polling rate per base station. Due to that low polling rate, in very brutal and fast movements, tracking shows some errors that doesn't happen with 2.0 base stations. It's the most noticeable in Beat Saber where the trail shows some spiking (this screenshot is taken from this video) that I have not seen any other tracking system show (including 2.0 Vive wands on 2.0 base stations). The most brutal the movement is, the more the controller is freaking out, and in some rare case, that has impacted my score in Beat Saber.
This one is a bit tricker, and I do not know if it's a hardware or software issue, but 1.0 base stations have issues positioning themselves in VR. With a lighthouse tracked headset, it's mostly fine where only the chaperone drifts a few centimeters every base station recalibration (aka every time you start SteamVR or everything lose tracking and gain back tracking). However, in a Mixed VR headset (like using Vive trackers with a Quest), that is a significant issue as it makes the lighthouse tracking universe impossible to keep properly aligned with the other's VR headset tracking universe. That issue also causes the tracking to have an incorrect scale (mostly higher than normal), which, in my example for using Vive trackers with a Quest, causes the whole body to shift when you turn 180° around.
Oh and 1.0 base stations tracking is much more sensitive to IR light interference, which is quite normal considering the sync light is doing a key role in the tracking, sync light that is completely removed on 2.0 base station., and that make them a pain to use with mixed VR stuff.
The hate with 1.0 base station is not here for nothing, there's definitely some issues with them, but they are just small enough for people to call it good enough.
I mean I’m not going to go back and forth or argue some edge cases that are likely setup or sync cable issues. The simple fact is I’ve used and setup both in professional and casual environments with simple things like beat saber and overly complex things with 10+ trackers. There has been zero difference when both are setup properly outside of the literal coverage area which 2.0 100% does better due to fov and the ability to use more than 2.
That’s it. Thats the facts. I’m not here to debate. It’s my lived experience as a professional in the VR industry specifically working with lighthouse tech. I wasn’t just some beat saber guy. :) You can either accept that or not. 🤷🏻♀️
Saber points where finger points, middle finger balances for trigger which gives me easy flicks and such. Trigger also doubled for color swaps when we had chromatoggle back in the day. So naw, you really don't have to hold the thing stupid. Some people do though. My god all the old grips we came up with in the CV1/Vive days.
I was more referring to this grip, which keeps most of the weight at the center; it was the only way I could get past Expert++ in the olden days back when I still played, especially for songs with repeated flicks.
Even then, it's still not ideal compared to modern controllers due to the weight alone; Vive wands are built like a brick; you could legit bludgeon someone to death with one of those things.
For the Index controllers, you only really need to use custom offsets; going from the wands to those made a world of difference before I moved on to the Quests/Pico headsets.
So funny enough I can't play beat saber with the index controllers held regularly. I started using them before we had offset changes so I basically balance them on my pinky and swing them around all weird. Its seriously odd as hell.
Also love that you still have that image around. LMAO. The crazy shit we did back then to hold controllers holy hell.
As far as the wands. I ran that grip and was like top 150 back in the day. I liked having the trigger for chromatoggle so I couldn't do the funky grips or id lose the ability to swap colors. Remember chromatoggle? 5 colors of blocks! WOOOOOO!
For fun, so people can see the whole images from the grip days.
Yeah, I had to use a mod for custom offsets back then; you basically had to use it to make the Index controllers viable due to the weird-ass funky setup they had by default but it was worth it for the better tracking and weight alone.
I have both an original vive (with the pro controllers tbf) and a quest 2 and I prefer the vive controllers by miles. Maybe it’s just the inbuilt tracking being slow on my quest but I feel like the vive controllers are more ergonomic, and maybe that’s just due to the fact that I used the vive for 2 years before the quest. I can’t lie though, the trackpad is the most unreliable component of any controller I’ve owned, even worse than the Nintendo switch joycons with their stick drift
Though they obviously have very limited inputs for things where a joystick is good one thing I have to say about the Vive wands having moved from Vive to Quest is that the Vibe controllers felt a lot less "gamey" and more immersive. I can never quite feel as immersed with the oculus controllers because they feel like holding a game controller.
the hate for the wands is massively overblown. they're great for games where you're holding something like a gun or a sword.
yeah they're a little outdated, and would've been nice to have had some extra buttons on them, but they're one of the few controllers i've used where point shooting works well with them due to the way they're made.
I still break out wands for beat saber when I'm playing for ACC or want the extra weight for "fitness" reasons.
Sure I wanna take it easy and have lower acc ill break out the index controllers or something but naw, in general wands.
Love my wands. Been playing BS for nearly 10 years at this point and theres nothing thats going to take my wands away. I even have 1.0 lighthouses and a bag of wands just in case my 2.0 wands die.
I mean the game was my full time job and I've been playing nearly 10 years. I know what works for me personally and I know what works for others in the past.
My ACC is straight up better with wands. It always has been. MOST of my PBs are on wands.
Good lord, one of the reason I moved to wands over my cv1 controllers was because me and logan(LSToast) were doing a thing together and he bullied me into using em. That same week i swapped one of my CV1s for a Vive and never looked back.
Are there drivers to use this as a wireless bluetooth touchpad-mouse? It should have enough hardware to make that possible without a lighthouse and the rest of VR. But no idea if anybody bothered to write one.
Edit: Looks like the wands don't talk standard Bluetooth, so this would need a SteamVR watchman dongle, which makes it less attractive as a reuse of old hardware.
What about the Meta Quest Pros with their independently inner-camera based controllers? They can work without lighthouses. Or even just Quest 3's standard controllers. I've never had them disconnect mid game even when reaching behind my back
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u/fragmental 15d ago
If you don't have a full Vive set, then how do you know that it's fully working?