Valve is still exploring the possibilities of wireless virtual reality, a company representative confirmed in a statement made to UploadVR.
About a year ago, the first Valve Index headsets started reaching buyers and offered PC owners one of the best VR experiences on the market. In an article published on Friday, I described how comfortable it is still to use an index for long periods of time, but how difficult it is to recommend the system when there is no wireless option and there are other easy to configure wireless experiences on the market, such as Oculus Quest.
At the headset’s launch party last year, Valve President Gabe Newell commented that they were looking for “various methods to make an index untethered,” which was his last comment on the matter after an investment in the business of Nitero’s wireless chips (before AMD acquired it) and Newell’s 2017 statement that wireless virtual reality was a “problem solved.”
“We are excited about the promise of wireless virtual reality and continue to explore its possibilities,” explains Valve’s last comment for 2020.
Virtual reality market in transition
The virtual reality market 2020 was affected by the spread of COVID-19. The companies and associations were disorganized, which affected the terms of the new products and the available stock of the current systems.
There is still a delay of two months or more for Valve Index from the time it is requested to the time it arrives and Valve also commented to UploadVR that “we continue to do everything we can to keep up with continuous demand and deliver units in a timely fashion, as you navigate the shipping challenges during the pandemic. We appreciate everyone’s patience, and we will let you know when we have more details. “
Meanwhile, Facebook accounts for about 45 percent of VR headsets in use on Valve’s Steam platform, which is where tens of millions of gamers buy their PC games while hosting many of the most sought-after VR games, such as Skyrim VR and Half-Life: Alyx. Last month, Oculus Quest was used more with Steam than all Windows Mixed Reality headsets combined, a remarkable moment for a headphone that didn’t officially support PC VR gaming until November 2019. We believe that most of those Quests connected to Steam use Oculus Connect wired USB connection or wireless virtual desktop side charging option.
The Link option compresses the scenes to a significant degree to send over USB connections, while Virtual Desktop also competes with other Wi-Fi network traffic to offer wireless VR, a situation that can lead to uncomfortable experiences for some.
Wireless Race
Based on comments made by Oculus technical guide John Carmack on Oculus Connect last year, we believe that the dedicated wireless link between Oculus Quest and PC is likely to be a priority on Facebook. For example, a dongle connecting to a USB port could use existing Quest-compatible Wi-Fi bands and, unhindered by other network traffic, could maintain a more consistent experience. Such a convenient accessory, something much easier to install than the previous Vive wireless adapter, would probably have a dramatic effect on both PC VR usage and Valve’s combination of Steam-powered headsets.
Index, however, is not a standalone unit and does not contain a battery, so if Valve is working on a wireless headphone solution, it’s likely to be different from what Facebook develops. Valve, of course, also shipped the Steam Link box in 2015 to extend “its Steam game library to any room in the house through its home network.” Valve stopped doing Steam Link in the past two years and switched to a service that can stream its traditional Steam game library to many different devices, including Android and iOS.
Could Valve do something like a “SteamVR Link” that would make an untethered headset not only from Index but from other PC VR headsets? Such an accessory would likely have a dramatic effect on PC VR usage by itself, but obviously, this latest statement provides no indication in one way or another.
