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VR hardware with no subscription/internet/spyware requirement?

A topic by David J. Kalbfleisch created Aug 17, 2020 Views: 243 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 2

I'm interested in VR hardware, but the Oculus and Valve offerings all seem to require that I create an online account and share personal information with the manufacturers--directly or by installing their Android app, which I consider spyware because it's not open-source.  I just want to be able to treat the VR hardware like any other device connected to my computer without any 3rd party involved so I can test my own creations.

Does anybody know of any product I should check out?  I'm aware of the headsets that basically just let you strap a phone to your head, but I'm not interested in that.  I need to be able to interact with the hardware using Linux (Ubuntu).

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There maybe something called open vr I believe for Linux, but I hardly did any research into it because I realised it wasn't complete, or at least for oculus use. The issue I've found is that the companies making the devices know how they work and therefore the hardware works best with there software, especially in the case of something like motion controllers, at least on oculus again. The final issue is where are you planning on getting the games to play if you can find a practical open source option? Nearly all of the main vr games are from the stores built into the companies software. Maybe a couple options, you could buy an oculus quest, only sideload games and never connect to the internet - not sure if this is possible. Or you could just use their software but ensure it isn't running in the background, and never connect to the internet when using it? I'm honestly not sure if it's possible to get away from their software, and honestly not sure its worth even counting as spyware at this point :D... Anyway I hope at least a sentence of that made sense lol. 

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Thanks for letting me know about OpenVR!  I use Godot Engine, and Godot has an OpenVR add-on.  That means I should be able to work with all the most popular hardware.

I looked into Quest a while ago.  That is the platform which requires configuration with an Android app, which is made by Oculus, which is owned by Facebook.  Installing anything made by a Facebook company is a non-starter for me.