Oculus Touch Tracking Update Pushed To February

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Oculus launched the Touch motion controllers, which complement the Rift VR HMD, in December 2016. We tested Oculus’s motion controllers before launch and found Oculus’s Constellation tracking system robust and precise. Our experience with the controllers isn’t universal, though. Many people have reported tracking problems with their new Touch controllers.

The Oculus forums and Oculus subreddit are filled with complaints from Touch owners experiencing tracking issues. Many of the complaints come from users running Oculus’s experimental tjhree-sensor setup and unapproved four-sensor configurations, which could be caused by USB bandwidth issues. Oculus recently published a series of tips to help ensure that your sensor setup isn’t overloading your motherboard’s USB controllers, and that your sensor placement is ideal, but the company acknowledged that it could improve the experience with software.

At least one Reddit user reported that Oculus support told him that a software update is coming in January, and on January 21, 2017, Nate Mitchell, Oculus’s VP of Product, confirmed the validity of that claim. Mitchell chimed into a discussion on Reddit about Oculus tracking issues and noted that the company is working on a driver update that addresses some of the tracking inconsistencies that some people are experiencing.

“Just wanted to let everyone know that we have a set of improvements to tracking, particularly for some multi-sensor configurations, that are slated for the upcoming January update,” said Mitchell. “We're keeping a close eye on tracking quality, and we'll continue addressing any issues we uncover as quickly as possible.”

Unfortunately, Oculus wasn’t able to finish the software update in time to release it in January. Mitchell returned to Reddit in the late evening of January 30 to announce that it's taking the company longer than expected to iron out the bugs.

“The January Rift update is taking a little longer than we expected in terms of testing,” said Mitchell. “We're working to get it out to everyone as soon as possible. Appreciate everyone's patience.”

Oculus delayed that January update, but that doesn’t mean the company is skipping the release. Oculus’s software team is ironing out the kinks from the January update while simultaneously preparing for the February update. “And yes, this means there's very likely two updates in February,” said Mitchell.

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Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • d0x360
    its def a usb controller bandwidth issue. Right in the setup it says that could be the case for certain people. I havent had any issues with 3 sensors past getting my angles right for full 360 tracking although I have a usb 2 controller, 3 controller and C (3.1) controller so thankfully bandwidth isnt an issue on my end.

    If you need more bandwidth you could always add a PCIE controller or if you dont have VR yet and this gives you pause the next Oculus revision is supposed to be full tracking without any sensors at all using 4 depth cameras on the front of the HMD that I assume function much like the Kinect but with more cameras and obviously the extra horsepower of a pc to do all the calculations
    Reply
  • hughJ
    It's not a bandwidth issue. I have 4x USB 3.0 controllers: 2 PCIe cards, plus two controllers on the motherboard, and I can verify through the Oculus service logs that there's no reports of camera errors while the tracking errors are occurring.
    Reply
  • d0x360
    19234788 said:
    It's not a bandwidth issue. I have 4x USB 3.0 controllers: 2 PCIe cards, plus two controllers on the motherboard, and I can verify through the Oculus service logs that there's no reports of camera errors while the tracking errors are occurring.

    You could still be having bandwidth issues and I can walk right out of sensor range without errors because they aren't errors. Some people are having bandwidth issues and some people are having something else

    I have no issues at all although Everytime you move a sensor you need to recalibrate the setup. That goes for steam vr and Oculus at home. If you don't recalibrate it assumes everything is in an Identical place and as I'm sure you know moving a sensor during gameplay can really mess up the works.

    Not saying that's your issue either, all I know for a fact is some people have bandwidth issues and some people have no issues at all and apparently there is a 3rd mysterious issue never heard of before that only effects some people so...It's probably a bandwidth issue.

    Reply