Unplayable !

[stvnxu]

Hi @laprid0,

Thank you for your detailed feedback. And I'm extremely sorry about the issues you're experiencing! I understand your frustration and here's my response:

You're totally right that the original VIVE tracking is much more accurate than the Cosmos. That's a fact. It's safe to say any HMD with external tracking sensors (Outside-in tracking) will typically outperform those with built in camera sensors (Inside-out tracking). Then one would ask why even go backwards in progress and do inside-out tracking? Answer is ease of setup / portability. It's one of the most consistent customer feedback/request you'll hear in the industry. Listening to what customers want is key and this was a feat we had to add. Now we know it's far from perfect, but we do have a road-map and have set a clear execution path to continue to push ongoing software updates to the tracking performance. Tracking will only get better from here. 

Here's our blog post announcement on that promise: https://blog.vive.com/us/2019/10/07/vive-cosmos-continuing-update/

Here's a recent update upholding our promise: https://blog.vive.com/us/2019/10/18/vive-cosmos-release-notes/

This statement is in no way justifying your comment though. If you and any other customer are dissatisfied with our product, then that clearly means we need to do a better job. I have broken down your feedback into line items and will share to our internal stakeholders. Please feel free to share any more feedback you may have here or directly in my inbox. Again, we apologize for the issues you're experiencing and we will continue to work to improve the product and customer experience. 

Thanks,
Steve

[A-Jey]

Hi Steve,

BUT: at least we can expect a slightly better tracking than the Rift S (because of an additional camera) and not an immense fallback.

I guess every customer will agree with that and honestly HTC should see it the same.

[stvnxu]

@A-Jey,

Thanks for the feedback! The good news is that tracking can be improved through software updates. The bad news was that we didn't meet our customer expectations of tracking quality and I apologize for that. Please stay tuned for ongoing software updates to address this. 

Steve

[laprid0]

10 hours ago, stvnxu said:

Hi @laprid0,

Thank you for your detailed feedback. And I'm extremely sorry about the issues you're experiencing! I understand your frustration and here's my response:

You're totally right that the original VIVE tracking is much more accurate than the Cosmos. That's a fact. It's safe to say any HMD with external tracking sensors (Outside-in tracking) will typically outperform those with built in camera sensors (Inside-out tracking). Then one would ask why even go backwards in progress and do inside-out tracking? Answer is ease of setup / portability. It's one of the most consistent customer feedback/request you'll hear in the industry. Listening to what customers want is key and this was a feat we had to add. Now we know it's far from perfect, but we do have a road-map and have set a clear execution path to continue to push ongoing software updates to the tracking performance. Tracking will only get better from here. 

Here's our blog post announcement on that promise: https://blog.vive.com/us/2019/10/07/vive-cosmos-continuing-update/

Here's a recent update upholding our promise: https://blog.vive.com/us/2019/10/18/vive-cosmos-release-notes/

This statement is in no way justifying your comment though. If you and any other customer are dissatisfied with our product, then that clearly means we need to do a better job. I have broken down your feedback into line items and will share to our internal stakeholders. Please feel free to share any more feedback you may have here or directly in my inbox. Again, we apologize for the issues you're experiencing and we will continue to work to improve the product and customer experience. 

Thanks,
Steve

steve - the Vive is not outside-in tracking. The headset on the vive is only different because it "sees" ir light scattered by the lighthouses as its point of reference, not visuals captured by camera. in both cases it is the headset that calculates its position in space from information it acquires from the outside. 

a big reason that the Cosmos didnt use lighthouse tracking is MONEY...not convenience. by removing the lighthouse tracking - HTC didnt have to pay Valve.

optical tracking can be done properly...by all accounts and one video ive seen comparing side by side; the Oculus Quest at half the price of the Cosmos has substantially better tracking both optically for positional tracking and controller tracking. Paying double to play wait and see if HTC can get it right just highlights how non-ready this device was for market.

I guess It's nice that you've made a note of my comments - however I've already walked. Passing on notes to higher levels does nothing without action. Resolving to fix and pushing out a beta patch and saying "did that work for everyone now?" seems akin to groping in the dark and doesn't engender confidence that a real fix is even on the cards let alone in the works. If it was just release it already! Fix the problem!

i seriously encourage anyone who can to tell HTC in the strongest manner possible that this is not good enough by returning this faulty, incomplete, utter letdown of a product to their place of purchase - advising that it is not fit for purpose as it doesn't work anywhere near the way it was advertised and getting your money back. 

[albertomr3]

3 hours ago, laprid0 said:

steve - the Vive is not outside-in tracking. The headset on the vive is only different because it "sees" ir light scattered by the lighthouses as its point of reference, not visuals captured by camera. in both cases it is the headset that calculates its position in space from information it acquires from the outside. 

a big reason that the Cosmos didnt use lighthouse tracking is MONEY...not convenience. by removing the lighthouse tracking - HTC didnt have to pay Valve.

optical tracking can be done properly...by all accounts and one video ive seen comparing side by side; the Oculus Quest at half the price of the Cosmos has substantially better tracking both optically for positional tracking and controller tracking. Paying double to play wait and see if HTC can get it right just highlights how non-ready this device was for market.

I guess It's nice that you've made a note of my comments - however I've already walked. Passing on notes to higher levels does nothing without action. Resolving to fix and pushing out a beta patch and saying "did that work for everyone now?" seems akin to groping in the dark and doesn't engender confidence that a real fix is even on the cards let alone in the works. If it was just release it already! Fix the problem!

i seriously encourage anyone who can to tell HTC in the strongest manner possible that this is not good enough by returning this faulty, incomplete, utter letdown of a product to their place of purchase - advising that it is not fit for purpose as it doesn't work anywhere near the way it was advertised and getting your money back. 

That is not completely correct... Valve base stations were developer by HTC, in fact, are the same Light Boxes. That´s not better technology and is not more accurate. In fact, can be worst or slower in some cases. Inside Out Tracking is the Tracking that Windows Media, Oculus Rift S and Cosmos have... and Cosmos maybe by far the best of all... The worst is Windows Media Tracking as is based on only two cameras on the front of the HMDs, Rift S and Quest owns the most accurate tracking now, but only because they improved it over time.. on release it has almost the same problems that Cosmos had low light, occlusion, etc, but with the usage data and users reports Oculus managed to improve it and make it more accurate... But it is the worst technology based on B/W cameras and IR LEDs on controllers... becouse they track points on the room, mostly like the external light boxes...

Why Cosmos RGB cameras are better? Well, because they allow you to not only track your controllers but your environment at the same time, providing us later with AR or XR advantages... This is why on the Cosmos Room Setup you scan objects with your view and if you activate the passthough option to show objetcs you will see the green contourn of the detected objects on your room, not all of them, just the one used by tracking.... this will allow later developers to integrate your envoiremt to the gameplay, for example if you have a sofa on the game you could see a sofa or stones that you can´t walk over hehe, there is place for a lot of nice things

Check a sample of XR here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Fl_VY-41fThn02083iA5yEwRe-Z2bqpG

And here an example of 3D environment scanning, https://youtu.be/94uKZCV5fH4

Those things are only possible right now with VIVE PRO and Cosmos, thanks to their front RGB cameras... Please select one method to verify the above website ownership..

So as a developer, I suggest you to have patience with HTC, they are going on the right direction on VR and AR but in order to further develop this technology our community help is required, as develpers need our feedback and data, to improve the code not our hate!!

[albertomr3]

and by the way... never had problems with my Cosmos, I were able to play correctly since day one... maybe because I followed the room setup instructions and my walls weren´t naked, and my room was not empty or with black walls... some times is almost impossible to developers to imagine every single room setup possible... they need data to improve the sistem, and they are working on that, updates shows that.

[laprid0]

interesting you say about WMR, have you ever used it? i have an HP that i puchased to try and even with "only two cameras" i still only need to look left right down and up and the tracking is locked in...in the same room and the same lighting that takes about two minutes of looking waiting for the "superior" six cameras of the Cosmos to get a fix. 

HTC did NOT develop the lighthouse tracking tech, Valve owns the IP for them as well as licensing, and originally was developing the tech with Oculus until Oculus was purchased by Facebook which caused an issue on the Valve side. HTC was then brought in as a partner.

the passthrough i saw in my time with the Cosmos was blurry, and if thats what i can expect of HTCs vision for AR...ill pass thanks. if you say you're a developer and that lighthouse tracking is slow and inaccurate - it makes me worry that maybe youve not actually tried it. i can toss a controller to a person in VR and all they have for spatial tracking is a 3d representation of the controller in their headset but they can catch it. that is not slow, nor inaccurate. You can praise the Cosmos forever and a day, based on specifications and best case controlled environment scenarios...all i can say is i have a Vive, ive had one for two and a half years. i love it and I enjoy introducing VR to people with it. The Cosmos doesnt imbue that sense of wonder that the Vive can...what do I mean? i refer back to my controller tracking. I usually get someone in the HMD and wave to controllers in front of them ask can they see them...when they can i just hold them still and say just grab them off me...and when they do instinctively i get them to stop for a moment and realise what has actually happened...and then they realise how deep that level of immersion is.You cant do that with a Cosmos. Sure its a step down from the Vive...but HTC is charging like its step up and they arent giving good value to their customers. I thought a Cosmos would be a natural progression but it was so below my expectations that i had no choice but to return. I just hope you aren't developing exclusively for Cosmos because it's probably going to be a bumpy road. Good luck though.

[albertomr3]

Ok so you didn't liked it, asked for return and got it... so why are you spreading all that hate all over the forum, I keep seeing you posting hatersísm all over this forum.. you look more like a troll than another thing to me so I won´t waste other second writing to you... Do your own research about what I explained... front cameras are hight resolution RGB, almos same resolutions as Screen and take HD video at 30FPS 😉 (and, please do research also about Light Houses Tech)

[A-Jey]

23 hours ago, stvnxu said:

@A-Jey,

Thanks for the feedback! The good news is that tracking can be improved through software updates. The bad news was that we didn't meet our customer expectations of tracking quality and I apologize for that. Please stay tuned for ongoing software updates to address this. 

Steve

@stvnxu

Of course  I'll be waiting.
I haven't got any plans to give away this Headset 🙂

I'll be doing some testing under the decribed light conditions the next days and then send in the data.
In addition I can do pictures of the room.

On lower light there are improvements already.

Also have been able to top all my v1.0.5 scores on Beat Saber with the 1.0.7 Beta.

Edited October 29, 2019 by A-Jey

[TomCgcmfc]

14 hours ago, albertomr3 said:

 

That is not completely correct... Valve base stations were developer by HTC, in fact, are the same Light Boxes. That´s not better technology and is not more accurate. In fact, can be worst or slower in some cases. Inside Out Tracking is the Tracking that Windows Media, Oculus Rift S and Cosmos have... and Cosmos maybe by far the best of all... The worst is Windows Media Tracking as is based on only two cameras on the front of the HMDs, Rift S and Quest owns the most accurate tracking now, but only because they improved it over time.. on release it has almost the same problems that Cosmos had low light, occlusion, etc, but with the usage data and users reports Oculus managed to improve it and make it more accurate... But it is the worst technology based on B/W cameras and IR LEDs on controllers... becouse they track points on the room, mostly like the external light boxes...

Why Cosmos RGB cameras are better? Well, because they allow you to not only track your controllers but your environment at the same time, providing us later with AR or XR advantages... This is why on the Cosmos Room Setup you scan objects with your view and if you activate the passthough option to show objetcs you will see the green contourn of the detected objects on your room, not all of them, just the one used by tracking.... this will allow later developers to integrate your envoiremt to the gameplay, for example if you have a sofa on the game you could see a sofa or stones that you can´t walk over hehe, there is place for a lot of nice things

Check a sample of XR here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Fl_VY-41fThn02083iA5yEwRe-Z2bqpG

And here an example of 3D environment scanning, https://youtu.be/94uKZCV5fH4

Those things are only possible right now with VIVE PRO and Cosmos, thanks to their front RGB cameras... Please select one method to verify the above website ownership..

So as a developer, I suggest you to have patience with HTC, they are going on the right direction on VR and AR but in order to further develop this technology our community help is required, as develpers need our feedback and data, to improve the code not our hate!!

That's very interesting and informative, thanks.  Like you say, tracking is probably going to improve in the future.  Hopefully room lighting and room details will also be a little more tolerant.

My main current concern right now is the lack of Cosmos controller compatibility.  In most Steam and even many so called Cosmos ready Viveport games, the Cosmos controllers do not work or do not allow for all functions.  If they do they often just emulate Vive wands and require you to do a lot of silly thumbstick presses to simulate the Vive wand touchpads..  Maybe  Vive and Developers like you need to work harder to fix this asap.  I have tried to use the SteamVR controller binding option but I have not been successful with this so far.  Since the Cosmos controllers basically have the same layout as my Oculus Rift touch controllers I don't understand why these cannot easily be emulated.  The blame probably needs to be shared with both Vive and game developers imho.

Edited October 29, 2019 by TomCgcmfc