Oculus Rift S, software and hardware quality unacceptable

[raltnoeder]

About 2-3 years ago, I bought a Rift S, mainly for use with flight simulators. By now, the hardware is virtually falling apart, with the half the cloth covering the cushion torn apart, the cushion itself coming loose, and some of the plastic clips broken.

However, what is even worse is the quality of the drivers. They are so bad that I don't even really know where to begin.

After every reboot, I have to unplug, wait 7 seconds, then re-plug the USB cable, or the headset will never even begin to work, and this might actually be the only problem where someone else than the Rift developers is at fault, because it could be a problem of the USB card or even the USB specification being formally incomplete or wrong. (*1)

After each update of the Oculus drivers, the headset needs to be setup again, as if reading the data stored by the previous version of the driver were an impossible task to implement.

When I set up the floor elevation and guardian limits today, it first seemed to work, but every time I started using the headset, about 3-4 minutes into the game, it would suddenly declare that guardian is not set up, and needs to be setup again RIGHT NOW.

Of course, it does not display this warning as a semi-transparent insert in the headset, but instead stops displaying whatever game you are playing completely, which is obviously an incredibly stupid idea for games like a flight simulator, especially if it is an online game that cannot be paused.

Despite the many large high-contrast objects in my room with white walls that are always in the same place, like the desk in front of me, the black cabinet on the right, the black bass drum case, black and white drumset and metallic shelves to the left, or several posters on the wall in front of me, the headset frequently loses tracking, the guardian is normally up to 45 degrees tilted or even offset in some direction when I put the headset on.

Skipping the guardian setup in hopes of simply keeping it disabled isn't an option either, because it will randomly decide in the middle of a game that I am not allowed to continue playing, because now is a good time to force me to setup that useless guardian feature.

Finally, the headset drivers have crashed several times, requiring a reboot to start working again, and they display incorrect error messages very frequently, like "the HDMI cable is not plugged in", when it is actually the USB cable that is not plugged in.

When starting a game races with putting on the headset, the graphics displayed by the Oculus application overlay the game, whereas starting the game after having put on the headset, the graphics displayed by the Oculus application would disappear as intended.

Finally, none of these problems have improved over the course of the last 2-3 years, so I have pretty much lost all hope that this product will ever work reliably. Given the number and severity of blatantly obvious flaws and defects in the software design and implementation, my impression is that the developers working on this product must be completely incompetent.

Unfortunately, my experience with the Oculus Rift S so far was one of the worst with any piece of technology, and it will therefore probably remain the last product that I have ever bought from Meta.

(*1) It needs to be said, that the fact alone, that something as fundamental as plugging a device into a USB port before system startup would ever fail to work in 2023 is completely ridiculous to begin with, considering that doing this used to work perfectly fine on industry computers over 60 years ago

[RuneSR2]

My Rift CV1 is more than 6 years old and is still working flawlessly - including the 3 external sensors and both Touch controllers. Even the headphones work. 

I don't recall having to redo my guardian borders after any of the monthly updates, or driver updates. Have had one sensor disconnecting after updates, but only about 3 times, and I guess I've had about 40 or so updates in 6 years.

Even though I greatly dislike seeing Meta focusing on bottom-end phoneVR, like the Quest 3, I'm thankful for the great Rift support - and for making the best VR content apart from Alyx, namely Lone Echo 1 & 2. And Stormland. And Asgard's Wrath. And much more 🙂

So consider getting the Rift CV1 instead 😉

[baroquedub]

It sounds to me as if there's an issue with your PC, whether hardware or drivers. Have you contacted Meta support directly and started a ticket? https://www.meta.com/en-us/help/support/
I own a Go, CV1, multiple RiftS (for work and play) as well as Quest 1, 2, Pro and 3 (on order!) and all are still fully operational. I've literally had just one issue with drivers on a work workstation a few years ago and that was sorted within a day by contacting support. They're incredibly helpdful and knowledgeable. Much more so than I ever expected.
As for the headset 'falling apart' I'm honestly surprised. I use mine day in day out. I'm a professional VR developer so I'm probably in VR far more often than most people 🙂

I might come across as a Meta fanboy but don't get me wrong. I also own a Valve Index and have an HP Reverb G2 and Varjo Aero at work, not to mention trialling the various Pico models over the years. They all have their pros and cons but I always recommend Meta's headsets over every other manufacturer. Bang for your bucks and build quality (not to mention more techie things like software capabilities) have, for me at least, always outshone the competition. 

[kojack]

When it first came out I had most of the common issues of the time: no image, static image, lost tracking, cable not connected, etc. But that was because my motherboard couldn't handle the power requirements of the Rift-S' usb. I connected it to a powered USB hub and it's worked fine ever since (no hardware or software issues).

(It also runs fine on my laptop at work without a powered hub, its just my desktop PC that isn't up to it)

[drizzt814]

I owned the original Rift and if you think a Quest 3 is bottom end compared to the Rift - you’ve never tried it.  The experience is so much better it’s not even funny.