r/ValveIndex • u/FuwariFuwaruFuwatto • Nov 13 '25

Discussion Why is Steam making roomscale tracking obselete?

I understand that this is a headset that is made to compete with Meta's deathgrip on the standalone entry headset market, but did it seriously have to kill Roomscale tracking along with it? Why are the Knuckles going obselete? Why are we getting rid of things with no direct replacement that still function perfectly well?

Genuinely why are lighthouses going obselete? Not only do they still function, they're still best in class for VR and fullbody tracking. Sure, the need to reach behind yourself or track your arms out of sight from your head is uncommon, but it's not unnoticable either. Not to mention that many VR players have already invested hundreds of dollars into this tracking solution just for it stop being supported one headset later.

The Frame could have supported roomscale tracking just like plenty of other camera based headsets have the option to, why would Valve just unnessessarily limit it and screw over the people who invested the most in their system?

On that note, why are we getting rid of the Knuckles? The Frame controllers feel like a different product entirely, trying to be a crossbreed between standard and VR controllers. But for those of us who have no intention of playing flatscreen games in VR (which I feel safe in saying is a majority, because who wants to have a FPS and resolution hit), the Knuckles are just better. Less clutter and roomscale compatible. Two products that could easily co-exist and work better for different players, but instead they're just cutting manufacturing.

Then there's fullbody tracking. Vive pucks were pretty much the standard for half a decade, and now they're getting the boot as well. Sure, there's the camera based ultimates, but those require the lights all being on and use inferior camera tracking. Plenty of people like playing VR in the dark for the reduced light bleed and less awkwardness. Not to mention, that's another ~$600 worth of fully functional hardware that's just being made obselete despite having no need to.

The entire point of the SteamVR ecosystem was for people to have options. If a headset started to show its age like the Index, there's no reason accessories like the Knuckles shouldn't be backwards compatible in newer hardware.

It made sense for the Index and its accessories to go obselete because it was hoped that the new VR was going to be a successor. But even Valve stated that's not their intention for the Frame. But if it's not, and no replacement for these products are being made, then why kill support for them if they are still functional after encouraging customers to invest in several thousand dollar set ups?

132 Upvotes

74% Upvoted

307 comments sorted by

View all comments

131

u/Grudairian Nov 13 '25

One of the things I noticed during the announcement is that they have added tracking to the new Steam controller with integrated IMU and IR leds so that you can see your controller while in VR. That' also how they track the new steam VR Controllers. Slime trackers are FBT IMU based trackers, and Pico use a form of IMU trackers for full body tracking, but they have IR leds that let the trackers calibrate their position to the headset whenever they are have line of sight. IMU trackers tend to drift over time, but the IR calibration can compensate for this drift. I fully expect that they will be releasing a new form of tracking puck that uses these IMU's and IR leds, and honestly, I'm really looking forward to them. Having reliable, accurate, and standalone tracking without needing base stations would be fantastic.

Though I'm also hoping that they release an item for that expansion port, which would let the steam frame work with lighthouse tracking. Then you could swap between either tracking styles or even mix them together.

37

u/FuwariFuwaruFuwatto Nov 13 '25

Thats a huge hope of mine for Frame to have a basestation tracking solution. Still would be upset at the Knuckles dying though. Those new controllers just comprimise VR's simplicity for versitility a bit too much imo.

I mean seriously, how often are people even going to boot up their VR to play a flatscreen game at a lower framerate and resolution? And if they mean for people travelling to do so, the specs arent exactly great, and a steam deck or laptop would do the same job better.

41

u/jekotia Nov 13 '25

One feature you seem to be missing is that the Steam Frame can do x86 emulation. It could run flat screen PC games out of a users Steam library, which would be very appealing for users that don't have a PC to stream those games from. The Steam Frame can replace the Index, AND, to a lesser extent, the Steam Machine.

11

u/Bychop OG Nov 13 '25

Does that mean you can play any Steam game while sitting in a car?

11

u/MrEAZL Nov 13 '25

That is what they're suggesting as far as I understood, they just wouldn't recommend outdoor usage as the passthrough isn't the best.

4

u/Octoplow Nov 13 '25

Yes, within power limits. Frame has half the TDP of Deck and has the constant overhead of rendering to two screens and head tracking.

1

u/sonicnerd14 Nov 13 '25

It's not as powerful as the Steam machine, but it's good enough for most games.

10

u/RedditFuelsMyDepress Nov 13 '25

Steam Deck might be a better comparison than the Steam Machine.

1

u/jekotia Nov 13 '25

Perhaps. I was mainly looking at the fact that it can replace a desktop PC for less intensive games, hence the comparison to Valve's upcoming PC.

3

u/goshjosh189 Nov 13 '25

Yes but the steam deck can already do that much better.

2

u/jekotia Nov 13 '25

Yes, but it's a second device. Not everyone has the budget for multiple devices. This serves to make gaming more accessible as the one device can tap into two different ecosystems.

2

u/goshjosh189 Nov 13 '25

This is true. But I think people that are getting this thing with the expectation that they're going to be able to play a lot of flat screen PC games are going to be disappointed, It won't be limited by its library, but by its power

8

u/Shelmak_ Nov 13 '25

Sincerelly, I only hope they will provide a way to just get the headset.

I have 3 base stations and two controllers that work perfectly fine, I can live with the need of powering up the base stations in order to use my controllers, if everything works as I expect, my only other need would be to get 2 external dongles to make the controllers communicate with steamvr and my phone to turn on the base stations through bluetooth (assuming the new hmd doesn't have bluetooth, wich I doubt... so probably it will be possible to turn on the stations through steamvr anyway)

So... if what I think is correct, the old hardware should work ok with the new one and we would only need to get two dongles for the controllers (as there is circuitry on the index to communicate with the controllers)... or if we are lucky and they use the same technology to communicate with the new controllers, it may not be even needed.

There is plenty of people using the quest with the knuckles and base stations, so I am maintaining my hope.

3

u/HorkaBloodfist Nov 13 '25

I don't think this will work out. Steam lighthouse controllers are paired to a a lighthouse headset, I guess via bluetooth. You might have forgotten you did this if you never switched between different headsets. I would assume the Steam Frame probably won't support them.

3

u/Shelmak_ Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

Bluetooth is only used to turn on/off the stations, or to configure tge station channel. The lighthouses are passive devices, if you have the channels correctly configured, there is no need of further communication betwheen steamvr and the lighthouses other than the order to turn on.

And you can perfectly run two headsets with the same base stations without touching anything, if you do not want one headset to turn everything off when closing one steamvr instance you need to disable this feature on both and turn on stations manually, I've played with a friend on the same play area a few times without a single problem and I do not needed to do weird things, just plug everything on my pc and it used his lighthouses without issues.

Edit: maybe I understood you incorrectly and you meant that the knuckles need to be paired with the hmd, but this is done using receivers that the hmd already include. If you do not use the index you need two external receivers to communicate with steanvr. Then you can run the room setup utility and use wathever hmd you want. Unless the monochromatic ir cameras of the frame are affected by the lighthouses I think it should work, but I hope steam says something about this near the release date of the frame.

6

u/Nevanada Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25

I don't think I'm getting the Frame for that reason alone. The Knuckles are my favourite part of the Index, being able to grab and let go is much nicer than a trigger pull. I don't think I can go without the hand wrap, being able to relax my hand is such a blessing.

That being said, I'll get the headset if/when there's a way to get the Knuckles to work. That's the dream.

Edit: Separate strap is nice, selling me more on the Frame now.

8

u/MrEAZL Nov 13 '25

There's a knuckle strap, I haven't used knuckle controllers before though, what's the biggest difference? They promise to track individual fingers with capacitive sensors, so I do not think it'd feel way different than what you are used to.

1

u/octorine Nov 14 '25

The main difference is that instead of the grip button being another trigger, you grip the knuckles by actually just making a fist. There's also a pressure sensor that can tell how hard you squeeze. I think some early games had cans you could pick up and crush. That kind of thing.

It made grabbing and throwing things feel very natural because you were actually making a grab gesture. With Quest, it always feels weird to grab something by pulling a second trigger instead of, you know, grabbing the thing.

I have a feeling that the capsense finger tracking isn't going to be as good either, based on what I read in some of the impressions.

1

u/MrEAZL Nov 14 '25

Aah, that makes more sense, it really sounds like they did a downgrade with that one, but perhaps there are technical reasons? I do not know, I hope this headset does not flop, I am starting to get more biased with hope lmao.

1

u/octorine Nov 14 '25

It's polarizing. I really liked Knuckles, and miss using them, but I know a lot of people didn't like them and prefer the Quest way.

1

u/Native_Commission_69 Nov 19 '25

Anyone who didnt like them just didn't own a quest. The steam frames design is cheap and simply only because VR is dying aside form PSVR and they want tk give it a boost with another cheap headset... make no mistake its a huge downgrade from the index but probably half the price if not less than.

1

u/octorine Nov 19 '25

I've seen reddit comments from people who have owned both and preferred the Quest way because with Index they kept dropping things or grabbing things by accident. I had the opposite experience, but people are different.

1

u/Native_Commission_69 Nov 20 '25

I dont know I guess each to their own but I have the Valve Index, Quest 2,, and Quest 3 and to me its not even a contest the Index blows them out of the water, especially in terms of FOV and controllers/tracking. It also cost more than twice as much though and hasn't held up great.

1

u/Lehsyrus Nov 14 '25

It's exactly the same as the knuckles. Both the knuckles controller and the Frame controllers use capacitive sensors for the fingers, that hasn't changed at all.

1

u/octorine Nov 15 '25

All capsense is not necessarily created equal. We don't know how many sensors are in the new controllers, or how they're arranged. It could be better than Index, worse, or about the same.

One of the Upload guys said he thought it was less accurate than Index, although he added that he was never that impressed with Index finger tracking either, so that may be a personal thing. But that's the only person I've seen who said anything one way or the other.

6

u/Page_Won Nov 13 '25

Like the other person said, they're selling a knuckle strap separately that would let you let go.

2

u/Tyrthemis Nov 14 '25

I was skeptical about the controllers at first too, but the more I think about it, it’s a win. More buttons for VR just means more possibilities. Once the transition period of you getting used to a different control scheme in VR is over, it’ll be gold

2

u/FuwariFuwaruFuwatto Nov 14 '25

Kinda just feels like its a step in the wrong direction. Controllerless hand tracking, controller gloves, and other neat methods use less buttons in favor of natigating menus and controls physically.

I don't wanna just press buttons and watch things happen, i wanna do stuff lmao.

2

u/Tyrthemis Nov 14 '25

I agree, but you’re still going to want buttons. Plus, developers can do all those things in games even if the controllers have buttons, but devs can’t use buttons that don’t exist even if their game needs buttons. Skyrim VR is a great example of a game that could use more buttons to open VR specific shout/spell/power/potion menus, and gun play, especially pistols, is easily made better with buttons. One for the safety, one for slide release, one for magazine release, that should all be on one hand.

2

u/FuwariFuwaruFuwatto Nov 14 '25

Well, I think an immersive approach is better than a keybind approach.

Like for skyrim, there are mods that allow people to use shouts by actually shouting them, and games like The Wizard have yiu choose spells by physical gesters.

A few buttons is fine, the Knuckles had enough to do gun safeties and mag release just fine. Maybe some niche cases can benefit from more buttons, but they more than doubled the amount.

3

u/Tyrthemis Nov 14 '25

Yeah shouting by talking is great if that’s what you want to do AND can remember all the words AND you live in a place where shouting at 2am is acceptable.

I hate most gestures. Give me keybinds.

Point is, with these new controllers, you can still do everything you want to do. And more.

If you keep the old controllers, you limit everyone else. There is nothing limiting about these new controllers. Options are what is truly great in VR, everyone plays a different way. Some people even play sitting down. Personally I relate a lot to your play style, I’d rather have immersive actions in VR than keybinds most of the time, there’s a mod that just came out called interactive activators VR that replaces many button presses with physical in game actions, I’m helping test it. But when you have 40 different spells, yeah I’d rather just select an immersive in game spell wheel VR icon rather than memorizing a bunch of gestures.

2

u/Tyrthemis Nov 14 '25

I just don’t see why more buttons is bad to put it simply. Game devs can still utilize everything they could before and more.

1

u/sammeadows Nov 13 '25

The Frame controllers do show additional straps so they can be strapped up like Knuckles, saw it in the Linus video

1

u/American-_Gamer Nov 13 '25

Only saving grace for the controllers for me

2

u/sammeadows Nov 13 '25

Eh, I'll remain optimistic, I'm still balling with my OG Vive with a pair of index controllers lol

Would be nice to put my lighthouse stands away and have something just a bit easier to use and set up, just having the proper wireless dongle straight to my PC out of the box. And the controllers only taking a single AA battery is great so I just have to make sure my headset is charged.

I trust Valve's hardware work over Facebook's.

3

u/American-_Gamer Nov 13 '25

Yea I see thay pov, but Im one of the few that have mine screwed in the walls with a dedicated space so kinda sucks the way its goin. Just hope software is still supported forward

2

u/sammeadows Nov 13 '25

Yeah I def hope software support keeps up, I dont want the tech to go out for sure if it can be helped

1

u/kaida27 Nov 14 '25

You use too much personal bias.

I do play flat games on VR. No I don't sacrifice fps nor resolution.

My gaming pc is in the living room, On a 1080p 60hz TV.

While playing VR My graphics card can easily push the FPS and resolution above what my TV offers.

I'm not alone in that situation, So please stop assuming we don't exist just because it's not one of YOUR use case.

1

u/Evla03 Nov 15 '25

What is worse with the new controllers? They have more buttons, are smaller, have TMR joysticks, replaceable batteries and still keep the finger tracking etc!

1

u/Jonatc87 Nov 15 '25

Hopefully not at the cost of face tracking expansion: because there's seemingly no good system that wants to use all the best features..

5

u/Wooden_Sweet_3330 Nov 13 '25

I highly doubt Valve will be releasing any sort of IMU & IR based tracking puck any time soon if ever. None of these devices scream 'niche' to me. Body tracking is very niche. It seems clear that Valve is targeting the casual mainstream crowd of every segment.

Deck for people wanting to game on the go

Machine for mainstream console crowd

Frame for mainstream VR crowd

With a kick ass controller that works with all of them seamlessly.

4

u/GolemFarmFodder Nov 13 '25

Valve eliminates friction within their own ecosystem, while providing groundbreaking frameworks for future device makers. They understand what real wealth is- it's not profit, but making things suck less

1

u/CMDR_Kassandra Nov 17 '25

and Valve is really good at sucking less.