Im starting this thread as other people have had issues with close contact touch controller dead zones - As oculus has mentioned support for external sensors is possible, just there has to be demand for it.
I would be much more comfortable upgrading to a Rift S if I could keep using a sensor or 2 from my original Rift setup. I use Quill as a professional artist and I've heard that the controller tracking can be thrown off when picking things from the Quill palette because one hand is always blocked. An important deadzone that one sensor could fix.
I own a Quest and I believe that Insight tracking is incredible for games and experiences- but for my professional work there are deadzones I'd like buffered out.
The Demand for it is supposedly measured by Votes in UserVoice which never gets attention. The most ever Votes is for Strafe to be added in Home yet they ignore it!
Another vote here to bring back Constellation tracking for the original sensors to be used with Rift S.
Many of my best game's don't work properly with Rift S Insight tracking due to dead spots near the headset causing freezing making it impossible for me to aim properly with Rifle+scopes in Onward/Pavlov/Contractors and also the same goes for bows in Archery games like In Death/Apex/Skyrim.
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!
Having the option to use the external sensors, in tandem with the inside out system, would solve/enhance tracking. I haven't upgraded to the Rift S yet, this option would ease my mind to get one. One vote from me.
Sadly, I don't think Facebook/Oculus will implement additional sensors as it would be equivalent to them admitting that their Insight tracking system is flawed; it wouldn't look good to have one of the first inside-out tracking HMD's have to be propped-up by the very type of system it intended to leave behind.
Facebook/Oculus will definitely try to mitigate the issues through software for a while before they consider bringing Constellation tracking into the equation. I just hope they have enough staff working on these issues so Rift S owners don't have to suffer the same beta/release timeline the CV1 owners had to (iirc, it took around 1.5 years from the launch of the CV1 to get to the stable tracking it has today).
I support the development of inside-out tracking, and I know VR is still in its infancy... I just don't like the idea of this potentially being the second time Facebook/Oculus has made beta-testers out of their first-adopters.
I'd love to be able to use my external sensors to improve my Rift S tracking.
I feel it is no different than them selling the original rift with only 2 sensors but then saying for 'best' experience you should get 3. Same concept here. You can get by with inside out, but for best experience, we recommend getting an external sensor to compliment it.
As far as i know the S does not have the infrared tracking dots embedded around the headset like the CV1, so it won't be able to use the CV1 sensors or any kind of external tracking sensors without the S headset being altered.