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Genuine Oculus Link Cable Feedback

Kung-Foo-Kamel
Protege

Just received my official Oculus Link cable.

Firstly, I still think 5 meters is a little, short, needs to be at least 7, but 10 would have been much better, specially for the price.

I have an Asrock Mini Itx X370 Fatality with USB-C 3.1 Port, I'm happy to say, I just played about an hour of Pavlov, maybe longer, and battery has held at 100%, so confirmed, this motherboard has enough juice to charge the headset.

Now for the bad, the cable is not soft and flexible, and ends up like a 3 leaf clover tangle continuously, its actually worse than the thick active extension cable and the 2 meter USB C to USB A cable I have been using, I ended up about a meter from PC with huge friggen knot strung between us.

The cable is thicker than I expected, and certainly less flexible than I was expecting, I have a set of V2 Kiwi pro retractors coming in a few days, so I will string it up in the air and see how it performs there.

It feels like the cable is braided internally as it wont twist at all, only coils and loops up, basically its stiff, way stiffer than my Alogic cable.

I'm hoping it will work with a 1 or 2 meter soft extension on it and still charge, otherwise, if it tangles when suspended above me, I wont be using it, Id rather string up the active cable and have the soft 2m cable connected to that, as that one doesn't tangle.


After some further messing about:

Saving grace, if anyone is interested, I have a 2mtr cheap as hell ebay special USB C extension cable, and it works perfect with the offical link cable, this is great, I dont know if it will charge the headset properly, but once I play for a few hours I will post the results back here....(Played an hour or so again, no it doesn't keep charge, still slowly discharges with extension on the end.)

The cheap cable can be twisted with ease, but the link cable cant, it will only rotate about 25 to 45 degrees before getting rigid, where all the other cables I have can twist 360 degrees before starting to build resistance, I would rather flog out a cheap section at the end, vs the link cable any way.

So these are my options:

Option 1: 5m Active USB Extension with 2m USB A to USB C 3.1 Cable: Doesnt charge properly, but performs perfect, the extension is stiff and tangles up pretty bad, but the 2m part is very flexable and reduces the tangle

Option 2: 5m Oculus Link cable with 2m USB-C extension: Doesnt charge properly, but performs perfect, the Oculus Cable is stiff and tangles up pretty bad, but the 2m part is very flexable and reduces the tangle

Option 3: 5m Oculus Link cable: Charges the headset, is a little short, and tangles up fast, and becomes even shorter very quickly due to tangles and knots.

if you dont play for any longer than say 5 to 6hrs at a time, then save your money and go with option 1, Option 3 is for those who dont need as much cable length, who dont play games that involve a lot of running about and want there headset to remain fully charged.

Not real sure who option 2 is for, cant see any benefits at all??? I suppose those like me that have purchased it and want to make use of it, but at this point, its about as good as what I had already.

Once I have my Kiwi retractable system setup on the ceiling I will test all three options and provide feedback.

For reference, my play space is a little bigger than 3m x 3m (thats 9x9 foot for you guys in the US) and I loose .5m of cable from back to front of the PC, so a 5m cable is a bit of a struggle, specially with it knotting up continuously


Additional Info:

After the first test run at playing Pavlov for around an hour, I have actually damaged the cable, its got a kink or two in it already from being twisted up so badly, there not bad, but it looks like the braiding under the outer insulation layer has kinked a little, I was able to work out, but you can see a little bump, this also never happened with the cheap active cable i have.



19 REPLIES 19

Kung-Foo-Kamel
Protege
No I mentioned in the above post:

If one has a working active cable setup, purchasing the Official cable is probably not a good solution and is probably a wast of money, specially in AU where it costs $129, my 5m active cable was $30 and the 2m USB-C 3.1 cable was around $20.

One can work out the difference in price, it doesn't take too much math, we'll just say it's significant.

808Exile
Protege
All,

Just got my official Oculus cable a couple of days ago and so far I like it. In another thread all the data seems to indicate that this is a true USB optical cable much like the one that Corning sells with the electronics to convert electrical to optical and back in the plugs. In my opinion this future proofs the functionality of Oculus Link, I haven't had any real issues with it tangling or kinking on me, but most of my game play at this point has been sitting. 

Gordon

bigmike20vt
Visionary


I think people will need to decide what is the priority, untethered VR or access to Rift games in their Quest.

My view is that there will always be compromises if using one headset to do both things.

Link is a great addition to the functionality of the Quest but I don’t think it will ever quite match the capabilities of having headsets designed specifically for either PC or for untethered. Flexibility of the cable is one of many many factors.

I hope people manage their expectations accordingly.

Thanks for the review by the way!



indeed its a great review thanks @Kung-Foo-Kamel

regarding the above this definitely seems the case with quest, however hopefully future quest iterations will actually be a little more forward thinking and mean we do not need to compromise.  all it needs is for quest 2 to have a displayport on it and problem solved.... that or a good wireless tether of course.
Fiat Coupe, gone. 350Z gone. Dirty nappies, no sleep & practical transport incoming. Thank goodness for VR 🙂

gregor616
Adventurer
I have used the Official Cable for the last two weeks at least once daily and have had no real issues with it. I know there was some mention of it being stiff, but I find it to be as flexible as the extension cable I was using before. While I gave up a few feet of cable with the official cable I still have enough length for my needs. 
Oculus Quest 
AMD Ryzen 7 2700, GeForce RTX 2060 Super, 32GB, Asus B450 Motherboard

PaulRand_UK
Explorer
Anybody else's not-official cable setup suddenly started freezing their Quest? 





I think people will need to decide what is the priority, untethered VR or access to Rift games in their Quest.

My view is that there will always be compromises if using one headset to do both things.

Link is a great addition to the functionality of the Quest but I don’t think it will ever quite match the capabilities of having headsets designed specifically for either PC or for untethered. Flexibility of the cable is one of many many factors.

I hope people manage their expectations accordingly.

Thanks for the review by the way!



indeed its a great review thanks @Kung-Foo-Kamel

regarding the above this definitely seems the case with quest, however hopefully future quest iterations will actually be a little more forward thinking and mean we do not need to compromise.  all it needs is for quest 2 to have a displayport on it and problem solved.... that or a good wireless tether of course.

Yeah, I'm still going to take some convincing, whether it's the next iteration of Link or DP, I think there will always be other design compromises with a combined mobile/PC headset.

If the next Quest remains an all-in-one headset, that'll mean weight and comfort compromise when using it for PC gaming, compared with a Rift, even if they somehow redistribute the weight.

And if they take a modular approach with removable mobile processor/heatsink/fan modules for example, or removable battery module, I think that would inevitably introduce size/neatness of design compromises over a what the current Quest is. Modular designs can also introduce reliability problems as none of the module connections can be the kind of soldered internal connections that a self-contained design has, even regular disconnecting/reconnecting can take it's toll on connectors.

A next iteration combined headset would need to address refresh rate too, 80hz is great for mobile given the demand on the processor, but personally I think it's time we had an increase in refresh rate over the current 90hz for PC VR. Switchable refresh rate would be great, stuff like that has a cost implication though.

Eastcoast78
Protege
Seeing the link is still beta, i wonder what they are working on in the next update. Seems to be mixed bag of people getting it to work and people not getting it to work.

TheTonaZ
Expert Protege
My Anker + active extension is disconnecting often from Link app, freezing. I read about official Link not disconnecting at all, never.

Kung-Foo-Kamel
Protege
Its disconnecting because of power, change the anker cable for a shorter one, I have 250mm, 1mtr, 2mtr and 3mtr, the 3mtr gives me issues, the 2mtr and smaller are excellent, I'm still using the official cable, but I use a bungee system and an app called ambiturn to stop me from rotating more than 2 turns in any direction, works great, but I have ruined the official cable, it has lumps all through it where it gets wound up and tangled, but using Ambiturn software, this doesn't happen anymore.

And yes the official cable can give you issues, there is plenty of people that have USB-C ports that dont work at all, and some that have intermittent issues, the USB-3 cables are far more compatible, if you have the cash get the official cable, if you have a 2080 RTX with USB-C on it, then definitely get it.

Anonymous
Not applicable


808Exile said:

All,

Just got my official Oculus cable a couple of days ago and so far I like it. In another thread all the data seems to indicate that this is a true USB optical cable much like the one that Corning sells with the electronics to convert electrical to optical and back in the plugs. In my opinion this future proofs the functionality of Oculus Link, I haven't had any real issues with it tangling or kinking on me, but most of my game play at this point has been sitting. 

Gordon



Kung-Foo-Kamel said:

Just received my official Oculus Link cable.

Firstly, I still think 5 meters is a little, short, needs to be at least 7, but 10 would have been much better, specially for the price.

I have an Asrock Mini Itx X370 Fatality with USB-C 3.1 Port, I'm happy to say, I just played about an hour of Pavlov, maybe longer, and battery has held at 100%, so confirmed, this motherboard has enough juice to charge the headseYewah

Yeah I have had my Oculus Link cable since it was released, and this has been my experience as well - working great on my end. Glad I got it when I did as they appear to be in short supply now.