HTC Vive Base Station

Unfortunately the used ones I bought were used because of the fact that they no longer function correctly. They did like to pair to one another and they had internal errors back to back

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So I honestly dont know how to rate these. The things arent cheap, you obviously need them for tracking, and when they work they just work, but when they die its a hassle. The only thing can be said about their regular normal use is they can be slightly annoying. They have two spinning motors in them which hum and buzz, and can seem to be loud and annoying at certain times and almost inaudible at others. If you have them attached to lighthouse poles in your room or have them hard-mounted on a wall or something similar they can make some noise and vibrate. However, these lighthouses seem to have an unknown probability value. I personally had one die after less than 2 years of light use (less than 72 hours run time/in-game time), I had one replacement arrive DOA with the same issue as I was needing to replace the dead one (bad laser diode), and youll find countless threads online of these things kicking the bucket at seemingly random times and without warning, along with horror stories from HTCs customer service. Youll also find people saying theyve used theirs pretty heavily for years and theyre still going strong, or someone whos had one for commercial use thats had the thing running nonstop for years and it still works. So its sort of playing Russian Roulette with these things. Is yours going to die one week after the warranty expires on it? Is it going to die after 3 months and youre forced to deal with the legendarily horrible HTC support? Will it last 10 years and you never have a problem? Flip a coin and find out. Another problem that may or may not appear over time with failure rates on these is that the original Vive which has now been discontinued cannot use the version 2.0 tracking base stations, its only compatible with these 1.0 versions. There are no real 3rd party options for these things, so if the production of these is stopped and failure rates remain unknown but a definite eventuality due to moving parts, you may be forced into upgrading sooner than you planned to, or replacement parts may continue to rise in price if production is stopped due to the discontinuation of the original Vive.

Was a direct replacement. I dont see a difference from the original equipment.

Works.

HTC and valve really need to figure out inside-out tracking, the lighthouse system is becoming archaic in the face of the quest 2

I bought 2 of these base stations and they worked fine for about a month and a few weeks and then one stopped working all together with the blinking red light, which means it is unusable and needs to be replaced, lucky for me I contacted Vive and the base station was still in warranty so I can get a replacement for free. The other one is still fine and works properly so I’ve just been using one until I get my replacement.

Theres no problem Ive had in particular with the base stations, but I did have to order this replacement because mine broke. I didnt have the tripods yet and so my station was sitting on other high up places like a bookshelf when it fell off. Just from falling about 6~ feet and hitting carpet was enough to break one of these.

These are fantastic for what they are but this generation does not work in compatibility with the first generation of base stations. These are a mid cycle refresh with a different led pattern and seemingly better tracking than my 2016 vive bs, but there was zero indication on this site that they would not be compatible, if you have the first gen Vive and need to replace one of your base stations you should get it repaired through HTC, because I bought this one I had to buy a second one to get a full setup working and now I have a useless base station sitting on my table. This does track what seems to be noticeably better than the first generation so I guess thats good but I still would rather have only bought one given there listed as the same product. I have a pretty huge room scale setup and they do the job well, there are basically no dead zones or problems tracking once you go through the hassle of getting it set up which for me required a lot of waiting since I had to buy another one. At least they work really well individually since Im sure some folks will be in the same situation as me but not have the funds to get the second one

Its good I like it. Works good with vrchat. Setting up is pretty easy I can say. Had to remain calm and follow the instructions. Something about having it plugged in with USB to computer then holding down the bottom in the back and then while plugging in the power cord. Then it should prompt you to update.