I do not use or want controllers, I only play seated driving/flying simulators. My 2nd Vive base station just died. I’m going to try to revive it using a firmware upgrade, but don’t have high hopes. What other tracking solutions are out there that are more reliable? I purchased this vive station in May, the first one only lasted 2 months.
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If your just doing seated you might be able to use an xb360 kinect with driver4vr or kinect2vr
I have tried using that combination, but it was not very good. And the cost of XBOX360 Kinect, cable for PC and DC adapter + price for driver4vr… it’s just a “crappy” solution, and too expensive I might add 
My advice, by a Valve lighthouse 2.0
What about warrenty ? it’s not even 1 year old 
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Kinect to VR is free. I bought my Xb360 with all the goodies for under $30. It even had the lens to decrease fov on camera for smaller space.
Now you might be able to use a Wii lMote and 2 ir leds as it is just seated. But need to check on program needed. There was a demo long ago on VR Displays using wiii mote to track head.
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Love my 2 Valve 2.0 LH’s
Good luck to the OP @moespeeds
Look into warrenty for your current LH
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I hear you. If under warranty best to do that. There is also a project on HackAday using IR cameras and an ir on top of headset.
I am assuming Nolo would work for your setup and they have/will have a tracker that works with the Pimax headsets.
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For the price of nolo probably better to buy another lighthouse unfortunately.
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I will RMA this one, but what do I do in the meantime? From someone who works with machinery for a living, the lighthouse is a terrible design. Something that spins and generates heat, but it’s ALWAYS on unless you unplug it. They will always have a short life.
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This is where it’s interesting. I generally have thought the same. But @twack3r I think it was explained this isn’t always the case.
But as for what to do in the mean time? You will lose some immersion but you can run the sims still using the headset’s 3dof. Just turn off LH tracking.
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The lighthouses are in fact a fantastic design, particularly regarding longevity.
The motors used are pretty much the same concept as the ones in HDDs. They are meant to run for incredibly long times and powering them up and down actually makes them wear out faster.
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So why have I burned out 2, both lasting less than a year? Why is the internet flooded with posts from guys wondering what the flashing red lights are?
Please explain how powering them on/off shortens life?
Were those units new? I leave mine on most of the time. Had them since end of 2016 and they’re still going great.
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Dito.
Have had v1 basestations since May 2016, been running great and still are at my brother‘s place.
Have had 4 v2s since May 2019, same thing.
I have no idea how people manage to burn them out but powering them up and down most likely has something to do with it. The reason that process can cause damage is due to the inertia impacted on the motor‘s components when powering up. It is literally the same thing for HDDs - keep em running and your golden. Power them up and down and you shorten the lifespan considerably.
I think it was Alan Yates that posted on this on reddit, will try and find a link.
BTW, I‘d be f*cking livid if mine kept breaking, please don’t understand my input to be patronizing, that is absolutely not my intention.
Edit: here‘s Yates commenting on the lighthouses‘ longevity https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4he6nc/alan_yates_on_how_many_hours_you_should_get_from/d2pdnmw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
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I don’t understand this. I run computer (almost) every day and always had HDD’s (now SDD+HDD). The HDD’s were turned off/on every day and they always survived for 5+years. The one bad HDD I had was a new one, so production error probably.
Actually I think that unless you have server edition HDD you should not keep it running perpetually as it was not designed for that. But then I only go by my experience which of course is statistically insignificant.
I turn off BS when not in use also because you can actually hear them when turned on and it is bit annoying.
OP: You are probably unlucky if 2 died fast, but statistically this will happen to some people. Just use warranty and perhaps endure 3-DOF in the meantime. If they keep dying then there might be something wrong (el. power spikes etc.).
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It really depends on the components. But one thing I can say is surge at startup. Electronics often require more starting watts than there running watts. So for example a 15 watt device may use 30 watts at startup.
Vacuum tubes will last a very long time running vs powering up and down. If you look at a lot of things like TVs and such. They stay in Standby mode when off. This helps reduce wear and tear from powering up from a cold condition.
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You get power spikes from cold starts vs starting from Warm.
Power spikes how? It’s a low voltage electric motor (transformer on the plug), it may draw more current on startup, but good wiring design easily overcomes this. Any spikes will likely come at shutdown, and again are dumped via good circuit design. Both are easily designed out of low voltage systems.
My first unit was left on for 2 months, and died. Second unit made it 8 months of on/off then died. The motor still spins so that isn’t what fails. You have a spinning unit, generating heat and vibration, in a sealed package with no ventilation and no secondary lubrication. My guess is some sort of drift or burnout of the laser. Feel how hot they get. Heat and vibration are the enemy of all things mechanical. It’s a terrible design, they’d never certify it for an aircraft.
So I’m assuming there is no other higher end solution out there at this time? I’ll just keep RMA’ing them via Amazon until they come up with something else. Really irritating.