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Arcturus Vision Steam Frame Add-on Review – A Literal Night and Day Difference (roadtovr.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/virtualreality@lemmy.world
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Arcturus Vision Camera is an add-on module for Steam Frame which greatly enhances its passthrough camera quality. The obvious visual improvement, tiny size, and reasonable price make it easy to recommend.

In the course of my decade plus of using VR headsets and various accessories, I can’t think of any that were as straightforwardly recommendable as the Arcturus Vision Camera.

Usually that’s because VR headset accessories (especially those which directly interface with the headset’s software) have at least one major downside. Either they’re too big, too expensive, too niche, or just don’t work as well as you hoped.

The Arcturus Vision Camera is the exception to that trend. It’s not just tiny (a mere 10 grams), reasonably priced ($150), easy to use (plug-and-play), and does what it promises; it also fits Frame so perfectly that you’d swear it was a first-party accessory directly from Valve.

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[–] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

I have one for my Frame and it’s excellent!

The built in cameras are indeed only there to do tracking and looking through them is pretty janky - lots of distortion and the frame rate is poor which can give people motion sickness.

Using the Arcturus, you’re able to keep the Frame on while checking your phone etc. For instance my dog needed out and I could just put on passthru and let him out without needing to remove the headset. Another example, I was trying to set up SteamVR and get Elite Dangerous streaming from my PC. With the Arcturus, I was able to see my computer screen via passthru vs taking the Frame on and off repeatedly.

It’s 100% not a must-have accessory but having the Arcturus’ clear, color, high frame rate passthru is a much better experience and I won’t be taking it off the Frame.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    I don't really understand. If I need to do something quickly while I game in vr, I just lift the headset up to my forehead, which only takes a second. I've used the passthrough for finding my controllers and painting my playspace.

    Only game I'm interested in where I see value in passthrough would be Thrill of the Fight 2, just because I want to be even more sure I'm not going to punch something hard or valuable before throwing hands, and a better passthrough would definitely be worth it for the comfort if I'm ever going to use it for more than a minute at a time.

    3d Gaussian photography looks neat though.

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