So far, the only real options have been Quest 2 style inside out tracking and lighthouse tracking. There have been some other types, but nothing that has caught on.
I consider inside out tracking such as found in the Quest 2 to be generally inadequate. The tracking of the VR headset itself is good. But the tracking of the hand controllers is poor. It works well enough for common use cases where you you are working with your hands in front of you, but circumstances come up where you need to move your hands outside of the tracking zone with considerable frequency, especially when using social VR platforms like VRChat. Even just having your hands down at your sides in a natural resting position puts them outside of what the tracking cameras in the headset can see, and so you learn to always have T’rex arms in VRChat.
Inside out tracking falls short even worse when you consider full body tracking. It essentially can not provide this capability, and other tracking methods have to be used instead. If inside out tracking is used in combination with FBT using some other tracking method (usually basestations), the problem of the limited area that the hand controllers can be tracked becomes worse because you can be in any arbitrary position and don’t have to be just standing with your arms in front of you. In addition, mapping two different tracking methods together is hacky and subject to imprecision in calibration and especially calibration of the two tracking systems drifting away from each other over time.
Lighthouse tracking remains the best tracking method available today, especially if you’re doing full body tracking. Its primary downside is having to purchase and mount basestations. But this is something you only have to do once, and then you have high quality tracking indefinitely.
Lighthouse tracking does come up short for mobile VR gaming. A lighthouse setup isn’t mobile. But I have to wonder what percentage of the customer base actually needs the mobility. There certainly are cases where this capability is crucial, but I suspect that most customers rarely if ever use VR outside of their usual playspace setup in their home.
Regarding the 12K and Crystal coming with inside out tracking, I view this as largely useless. It’s a significant downgrade from the lighthouse based tracking I have with the 8KX. I intend to purchase a 12K with the lighthouse tracking module, and I will likely never use the inside out tracking it comes with. “Quest 2” tracking on a $2400 VR headset seems like putting the cheapest skinny all season tires you can find on a Porsche.
