I’ve been contemplating getting a VR headset, are there any ways to set up and operate an Oculus/Meta headset without giving Meta your data on a continuous basis?
Anything Meta gives a bad taste to my mouth but the price difference to the Index is 1K CAD…
I was in the same boat as you. I ended up getting the Quest 3, because frankly, it’s one of the best headsets on the market right now. While Meta still tries it’s best to vacuum my data, I’ve disabled as many data sharing options as I can find.
I do most of my VR gaming on PCVR through Steam Link, which is outstanding. If you have a PC and a good WiFi 6 router, you can avoid the Meta marketplace for the most part by buying PCVR games on Steam directly. That way Meta doesn’t get as much data out of you.
And they will. I’ve had a Quest 1 for ages and recently went to hook it up again and it had forced Facebook accounts. Used to be the gen 1 could still be used with just an Oculus account or “offline”. That’s no longer the case. We decided to make a FB account to use with it (never had one in the past) only to find that it couldn’t “authenticate” properly with PiHole running… so I now have a piece of e-waste that used to be a functional headset sitting on the pile.
It was a beyond frustrating experience and made the option of ever purchasing a gen 2 or 3 a null factor. I’ll stick to the Rift and Index and deal with wires across my living room.
One of the reasons I actually stayed with WMR headsets like the reverb g2. Unfortunately they aren’t making any new ones going forward, but the headset is great!
Microsoft will release an update in the future that removes the windows mixed reality portal and drivers required. I also own a WMR headset, and really don’t want to get the meta quest 3.
For clarification, remove the drivers as in make the G2 not need them?
Also do you happen to have a link? It’s not that I don’t believe you, I have a G2 and would like to read the details myself, I was looking into details about this after the announcement but didn’t find much.
Basically, I’m hoping that the G2 can become a full SteamVR device. It’s a good headset but openXR and more specifically WMR have just absolutely butchered it’s reliability. When I first got it I used it at a MixedVR setup with the index Knuckles - works great for the SteamVR runtime. OpenXR doesn’t like SteamVR devices, so the knuckles can’t be used. No big, stay in SteamVR.
Then WMR pushed the OpenXR runtime as standard - no big deal really and overall a good thing (sans XKCD standards) and since then it’s been a pain. Only for Microsoft to kill it 2 years later lol.
I switched back to my index for the downstairs VR space, but it would be nice to be able to use the G2 for a full lifespan.
I’ve been contemplating getting a VR headset, are there any ways to set up and operate an Oculus/Meta headset without giving Meta your data on a continuous basis?
Anything Meta gives a bad taste to my mouth but the price difference to the Index is 1K CAD…
I was in the same boat as you. I ended up getting the Quest 3, because frankly, it’s one of the best headsets on the market right now. While Meta still tries it’s best to vacuum my data, I’ve disabled as many data sharing options as I can find.
I do most of my VR gaming on PCVR through Steam Link, which is outstanding. If you have a PC and a good WiFi 6 router, you can avoid the Meta marketplace for the most part by buying PCVR games on Steam directly. That way Meta doesn’t get as much data out of you.
I’d want to play primarily SteamVR. But I’m worried that Meta could flip a switch and I’d have an otherwise useless $650 eyemask.
If I can decouple the headset from needing updates and can have work solely over LAN I’d be sold. Maybe I’ll block it on my router if I had one.
Yeah, that’s a fair concern. I wish somebody would create a custom ROM you could replace the Meta shit with or something
And they will. I’ve had a Quest 1 for ages and recently went to hook it up again and it had forced Facebook accounts. Used to be the gen 1 could still be used with just an Oculus account or “offline”. That’s no longer the case. We decided to make a FB account to use with it (never had one in the past) only to find that it couldn’t “authenticate” properly with PiHole running… so I now have a piece of e-waste that used to be a functional headset sitting on the pile.
It was a beyond frustrating experience and made the option of ever purchasing a gen 2 or 3 a null factor. I’ll stick to the Rift and Index and deal with wires across my living room.
One of the reasons I actually stayed with WMR headsets like the reverb g2. Unfortunately they aren’t making any new ones going forward, but the headset is great!
Curious to see what’s going to happen to existing ones with the discontinuation of WMR. :(
Microsoft will release an update in the future that removes the windows mixed reality portal and drivers required. I also own a WMR headset, and really don’t want to get the meta quest 3.
For clarification, remove the drivers as in make the G2 not need them?
Also do you happen to have a link? It’s not that I don’t believe you, I have a G2 and would like to read the details myself, I was looking into details about this after the announcement but didn’t find much.
Basically, I’m hoping that the G2 can become a full SteamVR device. It’s a good headset but openXR and more specifically WMR have just absolutely butchered it’s reliability. When I first got it I used it at a MixedVR setup with the index Knuckles - works great for the SteamVR runtime. OpenXR doesn’t like SteamVR devices, so the knuckles can’t be used. No big, stay in SteamVR.
Then WMR pushed the OpenXR runtime as standard - no big deal really and overall a good thing (sans XKCD standards) and since then it’s been a pain. Only for Microsoft to kill it 2 years later lol.
I switched back to my index for the downstairs VR space, but it would be nice to be able to use the G2 for a full lifespan.