cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Cable Management

Zoomie
Expert Trustee
I'd like to avoid Vive/Rift fanboyism on this thread if possible.
There are dozens of threads in which to argue the merits of both systems.
I'm looking at a problem that might be common to both:

Both Vive and the Rift will support room-scale VR with wands or touch controllers. Neither is wireless.

I plan on trying room-scale VR with my Oculus but I'm wondering how to manage the cable.
How do you guys (either system) plan to manage cables so you don't trip over them while using VR? Even if the HTC chaperone system is able to see the cable when you double-tap the home button, I don't think you want it visible at all times while you're playing since this will break immersion. So how do you avoid tripping on the cable or wrapping yourself up in it? Ceiling maybe? Some sort of tensioned spool?

What controllers you plan to use with the system?
I have a GT wheel and playseat I plan to use for driving games.
I have an old X45 that I will use for flight-sims.
I will use the bundled XBOne controller for casual games like Lucky's tale.
For games like "The Climb", I'll use the touch controllers.

Do any of you think the touch controllers or wands will be suitable for flight, driving, or console games?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C Clarke
10 REPLIES 10

Mike1
Protege
Good Post,

I am thinking for room scale i might want to have something hanging on the ceiling for walking around but I dont have the space to figure that out at the moment.

I plan on getting a flight stick to go with my Logitech G25 wheel for all my Space/Flight/Car Simulators, Ive thought about building a nice little cockpit that I can interchange devices.

Room scale.. I need to see when software gets released... Id probably prefer something hanging on the ceiling but I have to make a ton of room in my place and then have to worry about arm span being 6'5.. I might actually have to buy a new house for VR LOL.

I think the touch controls or VIVE controls are going to be pretty specific and not suited for any simulator type games... Like how Kinect tried to do car racing but it really didnt make sense.. Just use a controller or a wheel, its a much better experience .

HiThere_
Superstar
For a seated experience I'm thinking of attaching some kind of TV swing arm to the wall (not to the ceiling).

Setting pricing aside, the trick for room sized tracking would be to keep the distance from the headset to the wall attachment at a mostly fixed length, to reduce the amount of cable that's weighting down on your headset.

So let's say the cable can slide along a long bar you attached to the ceiling, and that bar can rotate in it's center like an helicopter blade, then the cable is always hanging down from directly above your head, and the cable management can be made to happen somewhere else along the cable instead of happening directly above your head.

With perhaps enough extra cable hanging over your head to allow you to bend down, but not too much so it doesn't get in the way of your arms : One alternative idea for that is to have a fixed spring between the center of the wall and the center of the blade, that has just enough strength to pull up the whole blade when you've stopped pulling it down by bending over.

With the idea (compared to using a simple fixed point attachment), being to reduce the weight of the part of the cable that is dangling over your head (while making it stay out of the way of arm movements), and also that it's better to have the cable slightly pull up on the headset, then have a lot of cable weight pulling down on your headset.

I'm not going into that (room sized tracking), and if I was I'd look into the best available lag increasing, video quality reducing (compressing and upscalling) WiGig solution I can come up with instead, even if that meant running the headset at half it's maximum refresh rate.

However at this time I have no idea what that best available Wigig solution would look like, so maybe a wearable laptop with the most beefy GPU I could come up with would work out better. This kind of laptop : http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/93727 ... aptops-gpu

Lemming1970
Rising Star
"Zoomie" wrote:
I'd like to avoid Vive/Rift fanboyism on this thread if possible.
There are dozens of threads in which to argue the merits of both systems.
I'm looking at a problem that might be common to both:

Both Vive and the Rift will support room-scale VR with wands or touch controllers. Neither is wireless.

I plan on trying room-scale VR with my Oculus but I'm wondering how to manage the cable.
How do you guys (either system) plan to manage cables so you don't trip over them while using VR? Even if the HTC chaperone system is able to see the cable when you double-tap the home button, I don't think you want it visible at all times while you're playing since this will break immersion. So how do you avoid tripping on the cable or wrapping yourself up in it? Ceiling maybe? Some sort of tensioned spool?

What controllers you plan to use with the system?
I have a GT wheel and playseat I plan to use for driving games.
I have an old X45 that I will use for flight-sims.
I will use the bundled XBOne controller for casual games like Lucky's tale.
For games like "The Climb", I'll use the touch controllers.

Do any of you think the touch controllers or wands will be suitable for flight, driving, or console games?


Racing games... thrustmaster G920 which should be delivered for the bargain price of £159 from Currys-PCworld tomorrow woot woot,, This will be replacing my G25 which while works perfect does not support the Xbox One.

flight-sims... Nothing as of yet, Being left handed proves a pain in the arse selecting a decent stick. Although right handed ones are not completely out of the question especially if it has a separate thrust controller.

general gaming... bundled XBOne controller

I got the impression The Climb was more a head position game than a controller game?


But depending on cost and use-ability Touch is very much on the cards as another form of control.
Modded Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos/1000W Corsair HX Series i7 6700k o/c to 4.7ghz Corsair H100i water cooler. Zotac 1080Ti 16 gb DDR4 o/c to 3000mhz Predator XB271HU 27" 2560x1440 IPS G-Sync 165Hz

Zoomie
Expert Trustee
With a controller I think "The Climb" moves your free hand to wherever you're looking
With Touch controllers I assumed the hands would move with your controllers rather than your view.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C Clarke

onefang
Explorer
"Cyril" wrote:
For a seated experience I'm thinking of attaching some kind of TV swing arm to the wall (not to the ceiling).

Setting pricing aside, the trick for room sized tracking would be to keep the distance from the headset to the wall attachment at a mostly fixed length, to reduce the amount of cable that's weighting down on your headset.

So let's say the cable can slide along a long bar you attached to the ceiling, and that bar can rotate in it's center like an helicopter blade, then the cable is always hanging down from directly above your head, and the cable management can be made to happen somewhere else along the cable instead of happening directly above your head.

With perhaps enough extra cable hanging over your head to allow you to bend down, but not too much so it doesn't get in the way of your arms : One alternative idea for that is to have a fixed spring between the center of the wall and the center of the blade, that has just enough strength to pull up the whole blade when you've stopped pulling it down by bending over.

With the idea (compared to using a simple fixed point attachment), being to reduce the weight of the part of the cable that is dangling over your head (while making it stay out of the way of arm movements), and also that it's better to have the cable slightly pull up on the headset, then have a lot of cable weight pulling down on your headset.

I'm not going into that (room sized tracking), and if I was I'd look into the best available lag increasing, video quality reducing (compressing and upscalling) WiGig solution I can come up with instead, even if that meant running the headset at half it's maximum refresh rate.

However at this time I have no idea what that best available Wigig solution would look like, so maybe a wearable laptop with the most beefy GPU I could come up with would work out better. This kind of laptop : http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/22/93727 ... aptops-gpu


If you are wearing the laptop, why does it have to be a laptop? That's extra screen and keyboard you have strapped to you that is unused, you don't need that extra weight. Some other small form factor PC would be better.



Edit: says the guy that used to regularly load my entire desktop, including monitor, keyboard, and networking equipment, into a backpack and go walking for hours. lol

Zoomie
Expert Trustee
So, this?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C Clarke

dinoroger
Adventurer
I went to the future and HDMI 6.0 supports 240hz wireless. Until then we have to cut the cables ourselves to make them wireless.

HiThere_
Superstar
"onefang" wrote:
If you are wearing the laptop, why does it have to be a laptop? That's extra screen and keyboard you have strapped to you that is unused, you don't need that extra weight. Some other small form factor PC would be better.

You're right it doesn't have to be a ~2000$ laptop, and the keyboard/mouse (and even screen if the CV1 won't work out as a one) could be wireless instead of worn.
It's just that I never looked into it, and just assumed the laptop would be both lighter and more convenient (although more expensive). I wonder what's the price and battery life is for that, could you link me to a noteworthy ones ?

onefang
Explorer
"Cyril" wrote:
"onefang" wrote:
If you are wearing the laptop, why does it have to be a laptop? That's extra screen and keyboard you have strapped to you that is unused, you don't need that extra weight. Some other small form factor PC would be better.

You're right it doesn't have to be a ~2000$ laptop, and the keyboard/mouse (and even screen if the CV1 won't work out as a one) could be wireless instead of worn.
It's just that I never looked into it, and just assumed the laptop would be both lighter and more convenient (although more expensive). I wonder what's the price and battery life is for that, could you link me to a noteworthy ones ?


I don't actually know of any off the top of my head, I was just pointing out that laptops may not be the best choice for a pack computer. Certainly the screen and keyboard of a laptop just add extra bulk, weight, and power consumption.

I do happen to have an Asus ROG that is made out of laptop parts, is small, and works with the DK2 fine. In theory, I could run the ROG off my big solar battery (perfect match in power, it even has a suitable power cable), and the Rift from my smaller battery (I probably need to make an adaptor for this one), and the entire thing should last about an hour by my calculations. It fits into my small pack with plenty of room left over, that's how I got it home, complete with packaging.

My ROG is not really noteworthy, for a start it's one of those dreaded Optimus GPUs, AND a little less than the recommended GTX 970, but here's the links anyway -

http://www.asus.com/au/Mini-PCs/ROG_GR6/

The "big" battery. I say "big", coz it's twice the capacity of my "small" one, yet about one third smaller in size -

http://www.goalzero.com/p/207/sherpa-100-power-pack

This isn't the actual "small" battery I have, I actually have the previous generation of the Sherpa 50. Major difference is the physical size -

http://www.goalzero.com/p/151/sherpa-50-power-pack

Normally I use them to keep my smartphone charged, charging the batteries themselves from a solar panel that Goal Zero no longer sells. My phone hasn't been plugged into wall power since about half way through 2014. A bright sunny day could change them both in about five or six hours, they last for about a week and a half keeping my phone charged.