Untethered PC-Connected VR Might Come Sooner Than You Think

[kcarbotte]

There’s a new VR HMD being developed that will work on your PC without wires tethering you down. The brand name isn’t being revealed, but MTBS3D was given access to an early prototype and was given permission to share some of the details.

Untethered PC-Connected VR Might Come Sooner Than You Think : Read more

 

[quilciri]

I guess the more, the merrier, but I can't help but feel a third party wireless solution compatible with the Vive and Occulus might have been easier to develop and more profitable. I'd me more than willing to strap a battery/receiver pack to my belt with a short cord to the headset rather than the tethers we currently have.

I don't know the design hurdles for that, though.

 

[falchard]

Main limitations are probably bandwidth and patency. Need an absurd amount of bandwidth for vr quality video. Do they use like 10 transmitters on different frequencies.

 

[quilciri]

The Vive can connect over HDMI, which has a theoretical max bandwith of 10.2 Gb/s.
Wireless AC isn't far off that at 7Gb/s (using all 8 channels). Given that you'll be very near and in line of sight of the transmitter at all times, we should be able to get close to that.

I know data transfer from the headset to the PC will eat a big chunk of that, but you could actually use two separate wireless networks operating in different frequencies for data to/from the PC.

*there was a 100 Gb/s wireless network successfully demonstrated two years ago, though
http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/168566-worlds-fastest-wireless-network-hits-100-gigabits-per-second-can-scale-to-terabits

 

[dstarr3]

While I would like this, I still have to say, I'll believe it when I see it. I feel like bandwidth and latency are going to ENORMOUS hurdles to get over. That's so much data to transmit wirelessly.

Things like Steam's in-home streaming admittedly work pretty well, if you're viewing it on a TV on the other side of the living room. If you put that screen a couple inches from your eyes, the compression artifacts would become VERY obvious and distracting. Not to mention the input lag. If your display is lagging so many milliseconds behind your head movements, you are going to get so motion sick so fast.

Again, it'd be great to see it happen and working well. But... that's a tall order.

 

[hellwig]

I bought an HDMI wireless transceiver. It just uses 802.11N (5GHz) and creates a private wifi network. I imagine an 802.11ac network could suffice, with the base station having very high power to transmit the video signals, with the headset needing far less power to simply relay telemetry back to the the PC. Heck, basic controls could be Bluetooth, with the wifi being essentially one-way for video.

 

[hoofhearted]

Why not just put a big 12 cell battery and the GPU in a backpack?

 

[jaber2]

So, current version would be 1.0, the ver 2.0 would be wireless? the more I read the more I want to stay away until ver 3.0

 

[quilciri]

Version 3.0, with the *ahem* "full body" haptics?

 

[e36_Jeff]

wireless VR is the usage that 802.11ad is begging for. Tons of bandwidth, but needs line of sight to work well.

 

[dE_logics]

Wireless VR for Windows?

 

[alidan]

um... Lagarith Lossless codec... a lossless video codec that i use to record video games.
1080p is 3gb for 2 minutes, 1.5gb for 1 minute, which would be 25mb a second. 802.11ac could handle this at the lowest transfer rate it advertises, and this is a lossless codec.
if you go even slightly lossy, you can get down into the 3mb per second range.

 

[cptnjarhead]

I'm glad to see another hat in the ring, competition is better for everyone. I think Samsung has the best jump on tether-less VR. VR tech is built into the S7, even liquid cooling. IMO, mobile phones are going to be the future of VR, even though they are less powerful, mobility will win the day.

 

[ammaross]

um... Lagarith Lossless codec... a lossless video codec that i use to record video games.
1080p is 3gb for 2 minutes, 1.5gb for 1 minute, which would be 25mb a second. 802.11ac could handle this at the lowest transfer rate it advertises, and this is a lossless codec.
if you go even slightly lossy, you can get down into the 3mb per second range.

Wireless AC advertises 24Mbps, sure, but that's half-duplex. Then there's beaconing, transmit vs receive windows, etc that slice into that even more. Next, toss in a second device to cause wifi contention and anything without proper airtime fairness is going to suffer. Then start to throw in noise such as a saturated neighborhood or apartment building/complex. The benefit of 802.11ad was the frequency doesn't penetrate walls, so is fairly immune to interfering with other networks and is only susceptible to obstacles and internal (to the room) noise and interference.

 

[Guest]

There's nothing new in this. The tech they appear to be using has been around for years in the RC FPV scene by companies like Fatshark, hence why they're keeping quiet. If it was something really new and innovative they would have that patent registered and be shouting from the rooftops. Blaggers.

 

[hoofhearted]

Redesign an existing notebook backpack such that it can house a notebook cooler and the notebook computer. Some kind of mesh part instead of solid material that would allow airflow.

 

[jkflipflop98]

This isn't going to happen for at least 5 more years. There's no way you can wirelessly transmit 233 Megapixels per second without inducing lag. And LAG, boys and girls, is the great evil of VR. Lag is what makes you motion sick. It's controlled so tightly that the time it takes for the photons to leave the device and hit your eyes has to be taken into account.

Not going to happen.

 

[quilciri]

Acc. John Carmack, 20ms or less of total latency is ideal for a VR experience that doesn't induce sickness.

The steam link is already at 15-30ms of latency, and that's including the latency of a TV, which is far higher than that of a monitor or a VR display. It accomplishes this with a bitrate of 12.5-15 Mbps.

The Vive, at 2160x1200 pushes 25% more pixels than 1080p, at 50% greater framerate (90 fps vs 60). This give a bandwidth requirement at most 1.875 times greater than the Steam Link (less because controller input bandwith isn't increased as much) ...round it up to an even double for the little telemetry data coming from the headset that isn't going through the base stations.

The technology to game over 30Mbps wireless under 20ms of latency already exists.

 

[quilciri]

P.S. Here's a company that thinks they'll have a wireless VR product out with less than one millisecond of latency this year, and it looks like they're in talks with both HTC and Occulus.

http://uploadvr.com/nitero-wireless-vr-2016/

 

[Andre_VR]

we just need a phone with Wifi AD or USB 3.1 and a 1000hz gyro like the ones in Rift or Gear VR.