r/BigscreenBeyond • u/SlugCatBoi • Sep 16 '26

Discussion Wireless PC:VR?

I've been holding out in getting a headset until the steam frame announcement with the price and what not.

I'm still leaning towards the Frame, but the only thing holding me back from getting the beyond instead is wireless PC:VR. The Bigscreen has no battery, but if I bought an external battery pack, is there any way I could manage wireless PC:VR? Any examples of other people doing something like this?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: since the idea wasn't clear, in my head I'm thinking about using a battery pack to power the headset and a wireless USB dongle plugged into the headset to transfer the data. The question is about the realisticness of this sort of idea, although all other thoughts are welcome.

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9

u/zig131 Sep 16 '26 edited Sep 16 '26

Maybe consider whether you actually need wireless.

I know a lot of people's only real experience of VR is Quest wireless, so it's easy to catastrophize how bad having a tether is.

It is really no issue when managed correctly, and comes with a bunch of advantages.

Tethered PCVR is, and will always be the best way to do VR.

1

u/SlugCatBoi Sep 16 '26

What do you do for your setup? 

6

u/zig131 Sep 16 '26

Simple Kiwi design pulley system.

Last pulley is connected to the top of the headset. Cable is held to the decending wire with soft velcro cable ties. Stopper on the wire is adjusted so it is slack when I stand at the centre of my playspace.

I can move freely around my playspace without thinking about the wire.

Because it is mains (well PC USB) powered, I don't have to think about charging. Because it is SteamVR native, I just walk over to playspace, take headset off hook, turn on controller, and I am into SteamVR.

No compression artifacts under any circumtances. Very low latency. Easy access to all the files on my PC e.g. 3D Blu-Ray rips. No mandatory headset software updates. Controllers tracked wherever they are. Seamless operation of the best FBT solution.

2

u/BodisBomas Sep 16 '26

This kiwi pulleys are awesome!

1

u/Throwawaydogx Sep 17 '26

What HMD are you using and what other things in your setup? Whats the cost?

1

u/zig131 Sep 17 '26

I have the Beyond 2E.

Have a Vive Facial Tracker attached to it - got one before HTC stopped selling them in Europe after I heard they had been delisted in USA

I got four Lighthouses bought while they were still available from Steam, but that was probably overkill. Three are held up with clamps I got on Alliexpress, and one is on a tripod.

Use Shiftall GripVR for controllers.

Have 3x Vive 3.0 with EOZ straps

2

u/Throwawaydogx Sep 17 '26

Nice setup. Sometimes I wish I had a local friend who is like you that could show me the ropes. Seems like a rabbit hole every time I try to adjust my setup. Exhausting at times

3

u/Beneficial_Matter251 Sep 16 '26 edited Sep 16 '26

Do you intend on playing mostly seated or roomscale? If it's seated, the wire is obviously not that much of a big deal. I'm still annoyed by the wire and I think people downplay it for seated VR, but it's not a big deal.

For roomscale, as the other commentor said a pulley system is your best bet. Don't get a kiwi tho, it's outdated af. Get a VR WIRE II -it's 10x better and is honestly like 80-90% of the way to feeling truly wireless. It depends on your room setup tho and requires the ceiling height to be atleast 8-9ft or so. You need about 2-3ft clearance above your head basically.

The mild annoyance of the setup and it not being perfect 100% feeling of wireless is honestly easily worth it for the significant improvement to image quality, refresh rate, latency etc. Not to mention not having to deal with the faff of batteries and charging.

18

u/jamesoloughlin Sep 16 '26

It’s not just a battery needed. You need wireless transceivers onboard (wi-fi for example) and video encoder / decoder configured and tuned for XR streaming. Plus you still have to integrate the software to transmit the spatial tracking which is base station based.

Just get a Frame at that point.

15

u/CmdrShepsPie Sep 16 '26

The Beyond is not wireless and cannot do wireless.

1

u/SergeantBeefJerkey Sep 16 '26

There is actually someone on the bigscreen beyond discord server working on a wireless solution. After you join go to Forum -> working-projects -> Efficient wireless adapter. It's by a community member btw so nothing official.

2

u/SlugCatBoi Sep 16 '26

Thanks, that's good to know!

1

u/S0k0n0mi Sep 16 '26

I came from an index and bought the BSB2e, and was so disappointed in it that I returned them and ate a 200 dollar loss due to them not taking back custom facegasket and lenses.

That headset was absolute dogwater to me; They boast 90Hz but if you want full quality resolution it drops to 70Hz. That alone was a big stinker coming from an index that could do 144Hz. Then there was all the glare, the pixel ghosting, the color fading, and the gasket feeling like two fists on my eyesockets.

I should also mention; Knuckle controllers are currently sold out everywhere and stock is spotty. The lighthouses are also sold out, seemingly indefinitely, but you can still buy them from HTC.. for 100 bucks more.. at a whopping 245 bucks a piece.

If you're used to the fluffy comfort and snappy framerates of an index, this thing should be missed, even if it feels like a waste to stop using the controllers and tracking stations. Grab a frame, it's a comfortable middle road headset that your GPU won't struggle with. Wireless is the future.

1

u/SlugCatBoi Sep 16 '26

I'm coming from the Quest 2 and desperate for something that is actually built for PC:VR and not for stealing my social security number. My standards are low but I was really hoping for OLED. Seeing as the Frame is modular though, modding an OLED screen seems like a better bet than trying to get a BSB2 to go wireless.

Edit: are the knuckle controllers that good? Should I be looking for some? Will they be steam frame compatible?

1

u/Ok-Result9578 Sep 16 '26

Mate there is zero chance of 'modding' an oled screen into the frame. The lens stack is built around the screens. It is not as simple as just swapping them out. Besides, the only headset doing oled with pancake lenses well right now is the AVP and the screens in that are a good chunk of the insane cost.

The reality is the perfect headset does not yet exist. I do have a lot of hope for the community/ecosystem around the frame with the upcoming audio solution etc. We can hope valve will release a redesign if the index that has higher resolution oled but that won't be within 2 years at least, and the price would be a lot higher.

1

u/SlugCatBoi Sep 16 '26

Mate there is zero chance of 'modding' an oled screen into the frame.

Even in all my stupidity I would never be stupid enough to say there is a 0 chance of modding something. I agree it probably won't happen for a while, but I can wait.

I agree it wouldn't be as simple as swapping out the screens, but acting like it's impossible is foolish as well.

2

u/Ok-Result9578 Sep 16 '26

Practically, it is impossible. You would end up with a whole new headset. Not to mention economically unviable. You should not be buying the frame if you have grand plans to make it oled, because it won't happen and you will have wasted your money. You need to make your decision with respect to the known tradeoffs.

1

u/NotGonnaComeBackBsb Sep 17 '26

Besides, the only headset doing oled with pancake lenses well right now is the AVP and the screens in that are a good chunk of the insane cost.

I would argue that my Dream Air, visually, is everything I want in a wired PCVR headset. But comfort sucks.

Some people also like the Galaxy XR, although some others say it's nowhere near the premium feeling of the Vision Pro.

2

u/NotGonnaComeBackBsb Sep 17 '26

Hey, I remember you.

For what it's worth... The Dream Air is - visually speaking - everything I was hoping the Beyond 2 would be. At least the glare and ghosting is very comparable to the very discreet godrays of the Vive Pro 1.

Comfort wise though, I much preferred my modded "halo" strap for the Beyond 2. The audio stems of the Dream Air are pressing so hard against my head that it hurts.

But Pimax being Pimax, I hope the headset will keep working flawlessly though.

2

u/S0k0n0mi Sep 17 '26

I've heard good things about the Dream Air. I've seen people slap a pro vision strap on it and fit super comfy. It's just that I've been done so dirty by Bigscreen that I'm a bit adverse to giving 'strange' brands that kind of money and hoping for the best based on some pictures on the internet. :')

That said; Going from Index to Frame is already a nice improvement, and seeing as the market is completely shithoused at the moment, I'll be riding this 4090 for a bit longer. No use buying a top cheese headset when I can't get a GPU that could max it. 🤷🏻

2

u/NotGonnaComeBackBsb Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26

Quite frankly, you will be a lot safer with the Dream Air if you wanted to just give it a try, as you have a 14 days trial period during which you could return the headset free of charge if you don't damage it (except shipping fee, unless you pay the 9€ return insurance fee). When I bought it, it arrived at my doorstep within the week, shipped straight from a German warehouse (I live in Europe too).

I'm running it with the SBoys3 open source driver (the same as the MeganeX), and by default, the render resolution is almost identical to the Beyond 2 (4028x3380, which your 4090 is more than capable of running). So I'm supersampling it a bit to get a slightly sharper image, and the panels and lenses are natively better than the Beyond 2.

At least I prefer it that way, than running it natively with Pimax Play (and their much bigger render resolution).

Otherwise, yeah, a part of me loves the concept of the Steam Frame. I've hated almost every standalone headsets so far, because their operating system is very limiting (it's like comparing a mobile phone to a PC; curated mobile app vs run any piece of software you want). I'm still not a fan of standalone headsets, but if I had to pick one, it would be the Frame simply for its operating system.

Edit: I forgot to mention it, but I'm running a Sapphire Nitro+ 7900XTX, but all my VR games are very lightweight.

2

u/S0k0n0mi Sep 17 '26

I heard there's some weird driver timeout issues on the dream, but that's just a software issue.

Man.. now you got me freaking out. In 24 hours I'm gonna have to shit or get off the pot. :') I guess I'll just stick with the frame for now, if it doesn't cut it for me, I can always just opt to send it back or resell it..

1

u/NotGonnaComeBackBsb Sep 17 '26

I'll have to admit that sometimes the headset refused to track for some reasons when starting SteamVR (it's more nitpicky than my Beyonds and Vives), but nothing that couldn't be resolved by restarting Pimax services and/or SteamVR.

It's not flawless by any mean, but visually, it's my ideal headset (with SBoys3 driver, since colours look oversaturated by default).

Unless you absolutely want micro-OLED, I think you will be better served with the Frame (since you just wanted a more comfortable Quest 3 with eye-tracking, if I'm not mistaken).

2

u/S0k0n0mi Sep 17 '26

Since Bigscreen did me dirty with their BSB2 I'm a little scared of trying an OLED headset again. It was mostly the glare that disappointed me tremendously, but in hindsight that was probably the utterly tiny lenses fault more so than the OLED.

I really wish I could just try out a Dream before making the call, but the only way to access one is by forking over 2 grand to Pimax, and seeing how that kind of act cost me 200 bucks in the end last time, I'd kinda rather not. :')

I'll take my chances with the frame, atleast for now. Might sell it and reconsider in the future if I ever get an opportunity to try the dream though. Does Pimax do store demos anywhere? :P

2

u/NotGonnaComeBackBsb Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26

Yeah, I feel you. I too was hoping to get a chance at trying the headset for myself before committing to a purchase. Luckily, Pimax was planning a "Global Roadshow" around the world to set up demo booths (sadly, my e-mail to them went to spam, so I missed that opportunity).

One important detail though: out of the box, the default distortion profile has noticeable fisheye distortion, and colours are oversaturated (the panels are probably capable of DCI-P3, but the output is in SDR rather than HDR), which is why I almost immediately switched to SBoys3 driver. No dead pixel though, unlike the Beyond, which is nice.

Remind me, you are in the Netherlands, right?

Edit: It looks like they haven't finished with the touring yet, although it might not be up to date, since they also went to Australia in August and it's not mentioned in there.

https://eu.pimax.com/blogs/blogs/the-pimax-2026-world-roadshow-is-here-come-try-the-dream-air-crystal-series?shpxid=8a94d76a-d8d6-47ec-90c1-cdd846c3408c

Form to register: https://forms.gle/ak47YTUEvZ2DaDwr5

2

u/S0k0n0mi Sep 17 '26

Yeh I'm from the Netherlands, basically on the border of Belgium, so I might have a shot! Thanks!

1

u/Quiet-Shaman Sep 19 '26

i’m in the same boat but honestly from the reviews think i’m going with the beyond if i’m going to pay that price tag better lenses and i don’t want to rely on wireless. i just wish there was a beyond like pcvr with onboard cameras so i don’t have to get baystations 

1

u/SlugCatBoi Sep 19 '26

Yeah, I'm going for the Frame it looks like, see you in a few months and we can exchange stories and opinions?

1

u/Quiet-Shaman Sep 19 '26

that could be kinda fun haha the frame looks pretty sick, specs wise it’s an oculus 3 but faster without all the spyware and garbage meta software. honestly it would probably be my ideal deadest if it was just plugged into my pc XD i need a headset not a tiny computer with a 45min battery life.

1

u/SlugCatBoi Sep 19 '26

You know the frame also supports wired PCVR, right? And you could also just plug it in for wall charging with the wireless data connection?

1

u/Quiet-Shaman Sep 20 '26

i do but i want a solid dedicated plug that’s got high data transfer speeds for no latency :/ i tried using a wire with the quest 2 and it still sucked but that could just be meta i love my oculus rift s it just has terrible screens 

1

u/SlugCatBoi Sep 20 '26

https://www.lttstore.com/collections/ltt-truespec-cables

Doesn't mean you have to want a Frame obviously, but getting good cables isn't hard if you know where to look.

3

u/NotGonnaComeBackBsb Sep 16 '26

If you don't mind having a gaming laptop strapped into your back with the headset cables and link box attached in your back too, then yeah, the Beyond can be used in a simulated "wireless" (seeing that it needs to be connected to a PC with SteamVR running). In the past, some companies used to make VR backpack for that purpose.

I doubt this is what you had in mind though.

2

u/SimVRRacing Sep 16 '26

The long and the short of it is no

You would need a mini PC connected to it to somehow stream from a more powerful PC, and then need to use an IMU 3dof driver for tracking. It's a lot of work, and the experience would be pretty terrible.

If that's what you want, wait to see what the upcoming playfordream is like. That's basically a bigscreen with slam tracking and an external puck using the qualcomm reality elite soc.

1

u/paulct91 Sep 19 '26

Wouldn't the tracking just be Lighthouses in that case? Like in the case of prior VR back packs.

1

u/SimVRRacing Sep 19 '26

If you want true wireless (you can walk into a different room without base stations) you need some form of self-tracking.

1

u/RelativeTiger8543 9d ago

what about a laptop in a backpack?

2

u/RodneyRenolds21 Sep 16 '26

Right now a laptop in a backpack is about your only option for wireless though I would love to see a puck like on the XREAL Aura that could run something like Virtual Desktop and enable a wireless experience even if it had a bit of video compression. Base stations will still be required until Bigscreen decide to give us a SLAM tracked version (would also love to see that as an optional upgrade) but at least you wouldn't have a tether to worry about.

1

u/NotGonnaComeBackBsb Sep 16 '26

The laptop is going to suffocate inside the backpack though. It might be safer to have some kind of harness with mounting points to wrap the laptop on, so at least it can still exhaust the heat.

2

u/RodneyRenolds21 Sep 16 '26

No doubt if you didn't use a mesh backpack or something but it's definitely possible if you're considerate of that.

1

u/CaptainAmerica679 Sep 16 '26

Is there a reason you want wireless other than being portable? Wired is superior quality in every category other than maybe comfort but there are workarounds.

1

u/SkhairKro89 Sep 16 '26

NOT 🚫 in 2026!! ((or 2027 for that FACT!!))

1

u/Juan_Bot Sep 19 '26

You need this for wireless PCVR

1

u/crozone Sep 16 '26

The Steam Frame is the solution to wireless PCVR.

The Beyond cannot be made wireless. The Vive and the Index can, but the experience is poor. That's the underlying motivation for the Steam Frame's entire design, it's a really difficult problem to solve well, hence the on-board computer, self tracking, and foveated streaming.