Just received the Vive Pre kit from Valve. I am very grateful for them sending these out to developers, and I’m giving back by offering some design feedback, in hopes that they can address these issues for the final consumer release.
This post only lists out problems, but that doesn’t mean I’m bashing their design! There are many nice design features about the whole Vive Pre Kit, and it’s amazing that they are one of the companies leading the charge in the VR hardware market.
-When plugged in, one of the two points of contact on the ground becomes the cord rather than the controller.
-Also there is no orientation marking on the cord plug, making it more difficult to orient when plugging in.
-The status light on the controller, being below, gets blocked by the user’s thumb when pressed, thereby severely reducing feedback on user’s actions.
-Also the wake-up vibration is too subtle to notice, which was not the issue with Vive DK1
-The two points of contact of the controller to the ground when oriented this way are both arcs, which reduces stability and causes the controller to see-saw when let go.
-This also makes it harder for the floor calibration portion of the room-scale setup.
-Overall weight distribution is more top heavy than the DK1, feels less secure to hold the controller, which can also be due to the flattened cross-sectional shape of the handle.
