Valve’s Lighthouse VR Tracking System

At GDC, Valve showed off a proprietary VR tracking system called Lighthouse. It uses fancy emitter technology to allow for precise movement tracking. Two base stations provide room-scale tracking for a VR headset and controllers with sub-millimetre precision.

It works like this: the little Lighthouse boxes (or emitters) sweep alternating horizontal and vertical lines of invisible infrared light across the room at a predetermined frequency. This is detected by sensors on the headset and controllers that are covered with little photodiodes. The system then identifies which photosensor it hit and calculates the distance to the other base station in the room from there using high speed on-board IMU sensors.

The result is tracking that’s much more reliable than the camera-based systems used by Oculus Rift and PSVR. For example, it can track a gun in your hip holster even if you look away and back again.

It isn’t without problems, though. It’s a little heavy and the plastic front housing digs into your face if you wear glasses. It also shifts and wobbles if you move your head around too much in VR. The adjustable strap helps with this, but it’s not a perfect solution.

Despite this, the headset is a good fit for most. And the sub-millimetre tracking is a big win. It makes games that require you to pick up inventory items or grab weapons with the holster a lot more reliable. It’ll also prevent you from walking into walls in VR, which is a common issue with the HTC Vive.