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SteamVR: How Lighthouse Base Station Tracking Works
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Keep in mind, you cannot mix 2.0 Base stations with 1.0 Base stations. You must choose one or another.
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You can use up to sixteen 2.0 Base stations in a single room covering a 10m x 10m area.
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For troubleshooting setups with multiple base stations, see Fix SteamVR broken tracker offset SteamVR: Hardware Troubleshooting Megathread & Setup Guide
All other SteamVR trackers and headset.
Like the Valve Index. Index Controllers Bigscreen Beyond 2.0 Vive tracker 3.0 Vive tracker Tundra tracker etc.
Original Vive Headset or Vive 1.0 Controllers.
| 1.0 Base station | 2.0 Base station | |
|---|---|---|
| Laser hardware | Two 60 rps motors & laser diodes (one vertical, one horizontal) + IR LED array flash | |
| Single 90 rps motor & laser diode with a dual‑slit mirror; no LED flash, uses “sync‑on‑beam” instead. | ||
| (Bitcraze) | ||
| Field‑of‑view | 120 ° H × 120 ° V | |
| (VIVE) | 160 ° H × 110 ° V | |
| (early units 150 °H, later 160 ° H) | ||
| (VIVE, Reddit) | ||
| Recommended range | ≤ 5 m between stations and devices 5m × 5 m | |
| (VIVE) | ≤ 7 m to devices; 10 m × 10 m with four units(VIVE) | |
| Channel scheme | Hardware switch A / b / c (A = master‑with‑cable, b = master wireless, c = slave) | |
| (VIVE) | Channel ID #1‑ 16 | |
| (Bitcraze) | ||
| Clock synchronization between bases | Optical LED flash or 3.5 mm TRS “sync” cable; | |
| must stay in mutual line‑of‑sight unless cabled | ||
| (VIVE, Reddit) | Timing sync is encoded in every laser sweep, so each station is completely independent (“sync‑on‑beam”) | |
| (Bitcraze, Bitcraze) | ||
| Stations per SteamVR environment | Hard‑limit of 2 (time‑slot TDMA scheme) | |
| (Bitcraze) | Up to 16 can operate simultaneously on channels 1‑16 | |
| (Channel adjusts lighthouse RPM. So beam collision becomes very rare.) | ||
| (Bitcraze, Github) | ||
| Stations a device actually solves against | 2 | First 4 sweeps that reach its photodiodes (driver limit per SteamVR device?) (Reddit, comment from Vive dev) |
| Accessory port | 3.5 mm sync jack present (HTC‑labelled 2 × 3 pins) | No accessory port |
| Compatibility | Works with every SteamVR‑tracked device | Only works with 2.0‑firmware” devices: Vive Pro/Pro 2, Index, 2.0, 3.0 trackers, etc. |
| Power draw | 2500mA (Reddit) | 833mA (Less power because they don’t have to generate LED array sync pulse) |
|
| Beam looks like | — (Top rotor) | (Bottom rotor) | /// (Top rotor) \\\ (Bottom rotor) | | HZ | 60Hz slave, 30Hz when optical, but 60Hz and 60Hz when sync cable is used
(30Hz optional is to avoid crosstalk with slave) | 50-54Hz (Reddit) |