Oculus Rift S Review

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Oculus Rift S 7

The Bottom Line

The Oculus Rift S improves on the previous Rift headset with a sharper screen and a camera array that doesn’t require external sensors.

PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing.

Oculus Rift S Specs

Name	Value
Type	Tethered
Resolution	1,440 by 1,280 (per eye)
Refresh Rate	80 Hz
Motion Detection	6DOF
Controls	Oculus Touch
Hardware Platform	PC
Software Platform	Oculus

Oculus popularized modern virtual reality with the Rift and is taking two different approaches with its new virtual reality headsets. The Rift S is a direct follow-up to the Rift that simplifies the setup process, updates some specs, and provides a generally improved experience overall. It also offers access to more VR software than the company’s other new device, the Oculus Quest. Both headsets are available for $399, but the Rift S needs to be connected to a PC, while the Quest operates completely on its own. They each represent a step forward for Oculus, but as far as we’re concerned, the standalone Quest represents the future of VR.

Headset Design

While the Oculus Quest was developed in-house at Oculus, the Rift S was built as a joint project with Lenovo. That’s why, while the headset is simple, black, and curved similarly to the original Rift, it carries some design elements reminiscent of the Lenovo Mirage Solo and Explorer headsets (and has a Lenovo logo on the right side). The front panel features two prominent outward-facing cameras, which work with two more on the lower left and right corners and a fifth facing upward to provide positional tracking and environment recognition without the use of external sensors like the previous generation requires.

Aside from the sensors, the harness is the Rift S’ biggest departure from its predecessor. It’s still a three-point headband with a strap that goes over the top of your head, but its design is otherwise much closer to the Sony PlayStation VR or the Lenovo Mirage Solo. The visor is mounted on a large, curved piece of plastic that rests against your forehead, with side straps that extend around to another padded plastic arch that runs across the back of your head. A wheel on the back arch tightens and loosens the entire assembly, which can be further adjusted with the elastic top strap’s hook and loop fasteners to find a proper fit.

Instead of attached on-ear headphones built into the headset like the Rift has, the Rift S uses speakers that project sound into your ears, similar to the Oculus Go and the Oculus Quest. A 3.5mm jack on the side of the headset lets you use your own headphones.

Oculus Quest

HTC Vive

Sony PlayStation VR

Oculus Go

HTC Vive Pro

Nintendo Labo VR Kit

Lenovo Mirage Solo With Daydream

HP Windows Mixed Reality Headset VR1000-100

Acer AH101-D8EY Windows Mixed Reality Headset

Oculus Rift

Still Tethered

A 16-foot cable runs from the left side of the headset and along the side of the harness, terminating in DisplayPort and USB connectors. The good news is that these are the only things you need to plug in to start using the Rift S. The bad news is that it’s DisplayPort, not HDMI, so many gaming laptops won’t be able to use the headset without an adapter. A mini-DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort adapter is included with the Rift S, but not an HDMI-to-DisplayPort adapter, and Oculus doesn’t guarantee compatibility if you use one to connect your HDMI-only PC.

As a tethered headset, you need to deal with a cable whenever you use the Rift S. This is a now-standard frustration we’ve seen with the previous Rift, the HTC Vive, the PlayStation VR, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. You can use cable management solutions to help reduce the annoyance of playing with a cable draped over your shoulder or down your back, but it remains an ever-present aspect to the PC-based VR experience. Oculus doesn’t offer a wireless adapter for the Rift like HTC does for the Vive (which requires a free PCIe card slot, so it can’t work with any laptop), but third-party wireless adapters have been appearing online. We can’t guarantee whether those adapters can wirelessly stream input and output data with low-enough latency, so we can’t recommend them yet.

Unlike the previous Oculus Rift, the Rift S doesn’t need any external sensors thanks to its outward-facing cameras (similar to Windows Mixed Reality headsets, but with more than two cameras for movement tracking). This means you only need one free USB 3.0 port instead of three. It also means you don’t need to worry about setting up two additional wired devices around your play space to track your movement. It’s a convenience the HTC Vive and the PlayStation VR still lack, since the former requires a pair of external sensors and the latter needs the PlayStation Camera to work.

PC Requirements

You need a PC to use the Rift S. Oculus recommends at least an Nvidia GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics card, an Intel i5-4590 or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X or higher CPU, and at least 8GB of RAM.

Those were pretty beefy specs two years ago, but if you’ve purchased even a midrange gaming-capable computer since then you’re probably already covered. Just make sure you have Windows 10, a DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort port, and one USB 3.0 port.

New Controllers

The Rift S comes with the same redesigned Oculus Touch motion controllers as the Oculus Quest. They’re smaller and lighter versions of the previous controllers, with the same motion-sensing features and physical controls. The two devices are mirrored symmetrically, featuring a prominent black grip and a circular ring that extends from the top to enable six degrees of freedom (6DOF) position tracking through the cameras on the headset. The ring placement is the biggest change from the first controllers; they extend up over the physical controls of each device, encircling your thumbs while giving them plenty of room to move.

The top panel of each controller has an analog stick, two face buttons (X and Y on the left, A and B on the right), and a system button (Menu on the left, Oculus/Home on the right). A pair of triggers rest on the underside of each grip, sitting under your index and middle fingers. Each controller uses a single AA battery.

Sharper Display

In addition to its outward-facing cameras and internal speaker system, the Rift S also gets a display upgrade over the Rift. Instead of an OLED panel that displays 1,080 by 1,200 resolution for each eye, the Rift S uses an LCD with a 1,280 by 1,440 resolution per eye. Its refresh rate is a bit lower at 80Hz to 90Hz, but that’s still quite comfortable considering we had no problems with the Oculus Quest’s 72Hz refresh rate. The shift from OLED to LCD is curious, especially since the Quest still uses an OLED panel with a higher resolution (1,440 by 1,600 per eye, the same as the HTC Vive Pro), but it’s still a step up from the Rift.

The Rift S’ display looks bright and sharp. While it has a slightly lower resolution than the Oculus Quest, I didn’t find either headset to look grainy or distract me with individual pixels. The LCD panel still offers satisfyingly dark black levels, so games like Beat Saber and Thumper produce strong contrast with vibrant colors that stand out against dark backdrops.

Setup and Guardian

The Rift S uses the same Windows 10-based Oculus software as the Rift to set up your VR experience. This is done through your PC display for the first part of the process, walking you through making a free Oculus account, plugging in the headset, pairing the controllers, and making sure everything fits. Once you’ve done that, the program tells you to put on the headset and go through the rest of the setup process in VR, which primarily involves setting up your Guardian boundaries.

The Guardian system lets you define virtual walls around an open space you so you can safely play in VR; Oculus recommends at least a seven-by-seven-foot square for this. The previous Rift requires holding an Oculus Touch controller in sight of two external sensors and dragging it around where you want to place a virtual wall. The Rift S makes setting up Guardian boundaries much faster and easier.

The headset’s cameras give you a monochrome view of your surroundings, projecting a horizontal pattern to determine where the floor is. Placing a Touch controller on the floor and picking it back up again will set the floor height. After that, you can point the controller toward the floor like a laser pointer and draw your virtual wall. You don’t have to take off the headset or worry about keeping the Touch controller in view of fixed spots in the room; just wave it around and Guardian will be set up in under a minute.

Once Guardian is configured, the headset will track your surroundings with those virtual walls in mind. If you get close to the edges of your play space, a blue grid will appear where the walls are, letting you know you’re approaching them. If you make contact with the walls with the headset or Touch controllers, they will turn red to let you know you’re leaving the play area. If you completely move your head past a virtual wall, the cameras on the headset will turn on and give you a live view of your surroundings in monochrome. The addition of a live view when you’re outside of your play area makes this new implementation of Guardian much more helpful than simply displaying virtual walls.

Oculus Dash and Home

The Oculus software lets you access all of your apps and games in virtual reality through two interfaces: Oculus Dash and Oculus Home. Oculus Dash is a menu system that appears in front of you, starting with a row of buttons that let you bring up floating windows featuring your software library, the Oculus Store, and various other menus. You can access Dash at any time while using the Rift S by holding down the Oculus button on the right Touch controller for a second. Dash is simple and useful, and if you only want to access specific software and media on the headset, you can rely entirely on it.

The only hiccup with Dash compared with the Oculus Quest interface is how the pop-up row of buttons appears. Instead of a floating window with icons, the buttons appear as a 3D control panel in front of you that you can reach out and press with your virtual hand by pointing (holding the lower trigger down without pressing the upper trigger). You can also activate these buttons by pointing at them and pulling the upper trigger. The laser pointer sometimes floats around the corner of a button but doesn’t actually select it, in which case you need to wiggle the controller or physically reach out with a virtual finger to "press" the button, which is slightly annoying.

You can also set up your Oculus Home as a more detailed, customizable virtual space through which you can play, watch, and read. It defaults to a stylishly decorated home overlooking a mountain, similar to Windows Mixed Reality’s Cliff House virtual space. You can load other templates, like a cafe or a theater.

Whichever space you choose, you can decorate your Oculus Home with a variety of virtual objects. This includes 3D models of furniture and art you can scatter around to personalize your virtual space. You can also place useful objects around your space, like screens of various sizes and shapes, from an arcade cabinet to a curved video wall, that displays whatever is on your monitor and provides access to your desktop (which you can also access in Dash). Oculus Home has simulated physics for many objects, so you can set up a basketball hoop or ping-pong paddles and toss balls around your space. You can also place your individual VR apps and games as boxes or game cartridges, arranging them on shelves and tables for easy access.

The game boxes are decorative, but the cartridges let you load the games themselves through a virtual game console; grab hold of the cartridge of the game you want to play and insert it into the slot on the top of the console, then press the button on it. An Oculus Rift will appear in front of you, which you can then grab and bring to your face to load the game. It’s a bizarre, roundabout, and meta way to access VR software, but it’s a fun option.

VR Games

The Oculus Store has established itself nicely in the last few years and offers hundreds of different VR games and apps. If you can’t find what you want through Oculus, you can also use SteamVR with the Rift S. However, SteamVR’s integration can require some troubleshooting to get working properly, from setting the correct launch parameters to tinkering around various settings. In our tests, the new Touch controllers’ vibration features didn’t work with Beat Saber launched through SteamVR, while they worked fine with the version of the game launched through the Oculus interface. The software is certainly there and available, but you can expect some quirks getting it to work.

I started testing the Rift S with the two games that helped sell me on the Oculus Quest: Beat Saber and Superhot VR. Because the Rift S uses the PC Oculus Store, these versions of the games are much more developed; both versions I tested on the Quest were effectively demos with limited features.

Beat Saber is a rhythm game where you slash at blocks that fly toward you in time of the beat. Like I said in my Quest review, it’s both very simple and immensely satisfying. Slashing in different directions as blocks fly at you becomes a choreographed dance where you feel like you’re really moving in time with the music.

The Touch controllers tracked my movements accurately in testing, and I had no problem keeping up with higher difficulty levels and faster songs. My colleague, an avid Beat Saber fan who’s been playing on the HTC Vive, said the controls felt slightly laggy. This wasn’t my experience, and I found them to be quite responsive. However, because the Touch controllers are tracked with a moving cluster of cameras on the headset instead of two external sensors that triangulate their positions like the HTC Vive and its controllers, a slight latency is possible; I just didn’t feel it.

Beat Saber is still an early-access game, but its PCf version is much more feature-complete than the Quest version. It has more songs, more gameplay modifiers, and a single-player campaign that progresses through the songs with increasing difficulty. More importantly, as a PC game, it’s much easier to modify, and that means the ability to add your own music to the game. Modding games isn’t always recommended by developers, but the ability to do so opens up Beat Saber a great deal.

Superhot VR is a first-person shooter where time only moves when you do. Unless you’re aiming or dodging or otherwise fiddling around, enemies stay frozen and bullets float in the air. Between this mechanic and the ability to virtually grab guns, aim, and otherwise fight with both hands, Superhot VR makes you feel like John Wick. It’s satisfying and feels just as good on the Rift S as it does on the Rift, the HTC Vive, and the Quest. The version we tested on the Quest is a demo, while the PC version for the Rift S is the full release, but both platforms will ultimately have the full versions of the game.

The motion tracking in Superhot VR worked very well, keeping me oriented and within the boundaries of my play area while I ducked gunfire and disarmed faceless red enemies. I punched a (real) wall a few times, but this was my fault; I should have given the virtual wall at least a foot of space from the real one.

I tried another first-person shooter on the Rift S, Zero Caliber. This is more of a conventional military shooter in the style of Call of Duty, where you play a member of the armed forces and fight terrorists. Tactical maneuvering and accurate gun handling are emphasized much more in this game than in Superhot VR, forcing you to assemble, load, and sight your rifle, and stay behind cover when under fire.

Zero Caliber uses the Touch controllers well, but its focus on realism combined with dated graphics make it feel stale against Superhot and more creative uses of VR. While properly holding a rifle to aim and align your sights feels satisfying in its own right, last-gen visuals and an old-hat concept keep it from standing out or offering as much staying power as a conventional first-person shooter you control with a gamepad or a keyboard and mouse.

I also tried Thumper, another rhythm game that’s vaguely cosmic horror themed. You control a scarab-like machine running down an endless track in an empty voice, pressing buttons to break through barriers and moving the analog stick to navigate turns. Instead of upbeat dance music, Thumper uses dark, grinding, almost industrial sounds to signal when to act. Combined with unidentifiable, undulating creatures, it’s very creepy. It’s an entertaining game, but since it’s played from a third-person perspective and doesn’t use motion controls, it doesn’t have much reason to be in virtual reality in the first place (which is why non-VR versions have been released on several platforms, like the Nintendo Switch).

I then played Rush, a flying game where you use a wingsuit to glide down mountains in a race against other gliders. I was underwhelmed, mostly due to the awkward controls. You dive and steer by holding your arms to your sides and twisting in different directions, which made me feel more self-conscious than my frantic arm-swinging in Beat Saber. This sort of steering by tilting and swinging felt unresponsive, and combined with 3D graphics that don’t offer much of a sense of depth or speed, the game feels rather hollow. Really immersive vertical experiences that capture the feeling of flying or falling are harder to execute in VR than activities that involve you on your feet or in a driver’s seat or cockpit.

A Viable VR Upgrade

The Oculus Rift S is a worthwhile follow-up to the original Oculus Rift. It does all of the same things as the previous headset, but with a higher resolution and a 6DOF motion tracking system that doesn’t require external sensors or three USB 3.0 ports. At $400, it’s an excellent way to enjoy the full software library and processing power of PC-based VR. Just make sure you have a DisplayPort to plug it into; the switch from HDMI can leave some gaming laptops out in the cold.

It’s hard to get past the wires of the Rift S, though. While it doesn’t have cables running from your computer to external sensors, the tether to the headset is still there and it still feels cumbersome. The Oculus Quest has proven that wire-free 6DOF VR with satisfying performance is possible, and it costs the same amount as the Rift S. The Quest’s Android-based Oculus store has a much smaller library than any PC-based VR platform, but it already has some excellent games and apps on it. We think cutting the cables is the next big step VR needs to take, which is why the Oculus Quest earns our Editors’ Choice. The Rift S is still an excellent headset, but it’s only an iterative update to the Rift while the Quest is a massive step forward from both the Rift and the Oculus Go.

Valve Index VR Kit Review

The Bottom Line

The Valve Index is the most impressive consumer VR headset we’ve seen yet, entirely due to its revolutionary, finger-tracking controllers.

PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing.

Valve Index VR Kit Specs

Name	Value
Type	Tethered
Resolution	1,600 by 1,440 (per eye)
Refresh Rate	120 Hz
Motion Detection	6DOF
Controls	Valve Index Controllers
Hardware Platform	PC
Software Platform	SteamVR

At $999 for the full headset, controllers, and base stations package, the Valve Index is an expensive PC-tethered VR system. The headset itself, while capable, doesn’t do much to rise above the competition besides delivering a smoother, 120Hz refresh rate. The controllers, however, wowed us with their individual finger tracking and much more natural, immersive feel than other VR controllers we’ve tested. They’re the stars of the show, and the reason the Valve Index earns our Editors’ Choice award for tethered VR headsets (though if you already have a Vive headset with base stations, you can add the controllers for $279 and save a ton of money).

The standalone Oculus Quest 2, another Editors’ Choice pick, is a much more affordable headset that’s simpler to use, lacks cables, and doesn’t require a PC or console to work. However, the Index lets you enjoy smoother action, much more advanced graphics, and controllers that are a huge leap ahead of what Oculus uses. The Quest is a good entry-level, all-around VR headset. The Valve Index is for VR enthusiasts and dedicated PC gamers.

Solid, Standard Headset

The Index itself is a fairly cookie-cutter PC-tethered VR headset, with a large, face-mounted display connected to a sturdy adjustable head harness. The entire assembly is black, and looks like a larger and more elaborate version of the Oculus Rift S. The front section is mostly matte black plastic with a glossy black front panel that comes off to reveal a recess with a USB port Valve calls the “frunk.” The frunk currently doesn’t have any official use, nor does Valve have any public plans for the compartment. In theory, it could eventually hold additional sensor modules, but right now it’s effectively useless.

What isn’t useless are the two cameras located below the front plate that provide a unique room view while you’re using SteamVR. The cameras highlight nearby objects with 2D or 3D outlines, letting you know when you’re near anything you can trip even if you’re in the SteamVR Chaperone boundaries. The view also shows your hands, so you can accurately reach out for physical objects while wearing the headset. It’s a much more useful feature than the camera passthrough on the Oculus Rift headsets, because it displays a natural field of view with its 3D tracking rather than the very awkward, limited view you get with a direct camera feed.

Meta Quest 2

HTC Vive Cosmos

Sony PlayStation VR

The headset’s underside features a utility button that launches the SteamVR overlay; a sliding switch for adjusting the lenses’ pupillary distance (PD); and two pinhole microphones. A knob on the headset’s right side, where the strut for the harness connects, lets you adjust the lenses’ distance from your face. A pair of speakers designed to function just slightly above the ears sit on rotating arms, slightly further back on the struts.

The headset’s harness consists of two, large, curved plastic bands for the back of the head. They’re padded with soft memory foam covered in anti-microbial fabric (the same materials as the facemask part of the display) and a fabric strap that goes over the top of the head. The harness’ sides connect to the headset through thin, stiff plastic bands that offer a few springy inches of give when you don the headset. The plastic arcs on the back of the harness have a ratcheting dial for tightening the headset securely over your head, and Velcro fasteners let you adjust the top fabric strap’s length for better fit.

If the Index feels loose on your head after making all the possible adjustments, you can use the included foam insert to add an additional layer of thick padding for a more secure fit. After I made some minor adjustments, the headset fit securely and comfortably on my large head, aided largely by the soft fabric and memory foam against my face and the back of my head.

A 16-foot cable runs from the headset, around the left side of the harness, and out the back to connect to a three-foot breakaway cable. The second cable branches off into three connectors: DisplayPort, USB, and Power. The DisplayPort and USB plugs connect to your computer, while the Power port connects to the included power adapter. Yes, the headset requires its own separate power, and its adapter is a wall brick, so make sure you have an open outlet.

Speaking of plugging things into the wall, the two base stations require their own outlets, and are necessary to track the headset’s position in a room. Each base station is a 3-by-2.5-by-2.5-inch black box with a curved front for holding all of its sensors. Each one has a dedicated wall adapter with an approximately 10-foot cable that ends in an awkward brick. The base stations’ screw mounts connect to the included, adjustable stands, and they can be set on a flat surface or mounted on a wall (mounting hardware is included).

If you buy the headset without the base stations, you can use the slightly larger HTC Vive and Vive Cosmos Elite base stations instead.

The Main Event: The Controllers

The Valve Index controllers are the most interesting part of the package. At first glance, they look similar to Oculus Touch and HTC Vive controllers. There’s a large, grippable handle; a front trigger; a circular control surface on the top with two face buttons; a system button; an analog stick; a touch-sensitive strip; and a large, plastic arc mounted on the outside for tracking the controller’s orientation and position. An additional, adjustable fabric strap runs between the handle and the plastic arc that curves over your knuckles to keep the controller comfortably in hand even when you let go with all fingers (a wriststrap is also built-in, of course).

The controllers’ truly unique aspect is built into the handles. Sensors individually track each finger, so you can use your hands to their fullest in VR. This is a big leap compared with the Oculus Touch and other controllers that follow index finger and thumb movements, but don’t provide total control over each finger.

The finger tracking works well, but it isn’t perfect. Your index finger curves around the trigger near the controller’s top in order to be properly sensed, not around the grip that the rest of your fingers wrap around. It feels a bit unnatural at first, because the grip below the trigger is easily large enough to hold all four of my fingers with room to spare. After getting used to that, the tracking was mostly accurate, and I could reliably move each finger. Each finger’s registered, full flexing motion (particularly my middle and ring fingers) was a bit fidgety, though. It wasn’t enough to feel jerky or unnatural, but it made the experience fall slightly short of total and precise motor control in VR.

Getting Ready for VR

Internally, the Valve Index uses LCDs to provide a 1,600-by-1,440 image for each eye. The LCDs have a 120Hz refresh rate, and they’re backward compatible to 80Hz and 90Hz (and included an experimental 144Hz mode). For comparison, the Oculus Quest 2 displays 1,920 by 1,832 pixels, and the Vive Cosmos displays 1,700 by 1,440 for each eye (but their refresh rates top out at 90Hz).

The Valve Index’s hardware requirements are relatively light for a tethered VR headset. Valve lists a dual-core CPU (with hyper-threading) and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 480 GPU as the minimum specs; the company recommends a quad-core CPU and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 or better GPU for better performance. Half-Life: Alyx’s (included with the Valve Index) requirements are a bit more specific, and include an Intel Core i5-7500 or Ryzen 5 1600 CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 580 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU with at least 6GB of RAM, and at least 12GB of system memory. For 2021, these aren’t insurmountable gaming PC specs, though obviously you’ll enjoy better performance if your rig has a newer or faster CPU or GPU, and more RAM.

Setting up the Index has multiple steps, but they’re all pretty direct, especially once you’ve figured out how to plug everything in and where the base stations should go (and cleared out an area of at least 6.5 by 5 feet for your play area, unless you want to use the much more constricted stationary mode). You plug in the base stations first, then connect the headset to your PC and the power adapter. Open Steam if it isn’t already open, and you’ll be prompted to install SteamVR if it’s not already on your system.

Once SteamVR is up and running, it should automatically detect the headset, base stations, and controllers (after you turn them on by holding the system buttons for a moment). SteamVR then prompts you to set up your play space. First, you set your initial position by standing in the middle of your play area, pointing a controller at your monitor, and pulling the trigger. Then you set the floor height by setting a controller on the floor and pulling the trigger again. Finally, you determine the edge of your play area by holding the trigger down and drawing the tip of the controller along where you want the boundaries to be set. It’s an easy process, though physically moving the controller around the edges of your play area is slightly less convenient than just pointing a VR laser at the floor and drawing those boundaries, like you can with the Oculus Quest 2.

Playing With Valve

I played Aperture Hand Labs (free) and Half-Life: Alyx (included with the Index) on the Valve Index. To start, both VR games look excellent on the headset. While it has a slightly lower resolution than the Oculus Quest 2 and Vive Cosmos, the Index still produces a picture that’s bright, colorful, and sharp. I didn’t notice any significant pixelation or graininess in either game, and I could easily see details both virtually close and far away.

The 120Hz refresh rate is a beneficial aspect that makes looking around and moving smooth and fluid. I switched to smooth directional motion in Half-Life: Alyx, which replaces the default snapping between directions with a quick black flash to more conventional turning with the right analog stick on the controller. Due to the clean movement, I didn’t experience any motion sickness or disorientation. Though, to be fair, I prefer this movement scheme to the snap-around default in most VR games.

The Index controllers are technically impressive, and easily the most advanced we’ve seen in a consumer headset (enterprise-level and development hardware have access to much more precise and expensive motion tracking, but they’re out of reach of most users, and most games can’t take advantage of them). As promised, they detect each individual finger grip, which translates into nearly fully functional VR hands. The inner straps also keep the controllers connected to your hands even when you let go of the handles, which means you can comfortably move your open hands in VR as easily as you can move a fist or gripping claw. Of course, you should still use the wrist straps, because the hand straps aren’t tight enough to keep the controllers from flying off with wild motions.

Aperture Hand Labs demonstrates the controllers’ effectiveness by walking you through waving, hand shakes, fist bumps, and manipulating objects. Every interaction felt natural, and the controllers offered gentle vibrations to indicate when I touched a robotic hand or other object. Vibration adds to the immersive, finger-detection effect by letting you know when you’re directly interacting with something in- game. It can’t replace feeling something with your fingertips, but it’s a good start.

Half-Life: Alyx is a much more full game than a stand-and-interact experience like Aperture Hand Labs, so I spent more time with it. It plays well with the Index controllers, offering the same individual finger controls and force feedback. This translates into precise controls for manipulating objects, shooting guns, and solving puzzles with the multitool. Handling the pistol and shotgun in the game feels natural, both with simply firing both weapons and reloading them by using my off-hand to take ammunition out of my backpack, sliding in a magazine or some shells, and pulling the slide to chamber them. The controllers have excellent position tracking, so these two-handed interactions are intuitive. Multitool puzzles also work well with the controllers, offering the same fine position and orientation tracking that let me precisely arrange holographic power lines.

Not a Perfect Package

While revolutionary, the Index controllers still have a few minor frustrations to consider. First, while the finger detection is immersive, it isn’t completely 1:1 and mostly focuses on your grip. Delicate finger flexes—especially your middle, ring, and pinky fingers—aren’t tracked nearly as well as your index finger and thumb. You probably couldn’t type quickly on a VR keyboard using these controllers. This is a minor complaint, because following your fingers that precisely isn’t necessary in most games, and gestures (full-hand grips, and pistol grips with the ability to pull triggers) are handled perfectly. Of course, this highlights how the individual finger-tracking is mostly useful for immersion when looking at your hands, and doesn’t serve much of a function when you’re playing in VR.

The controllers’ natural-feeling grip still takes a bit to get used to, because of the more conventional physical controls. While the handles are large enough to accommodate even my big hands, you need to rest your index fingers over the triggers, higher up on the controllers. I found myself repeatedly gripping the handles with all of my fingers when trying to get a grip, and it took some time to get acclimated to returning my index fingers to the triggers instead. The controllers’ face buttons are also slightly awkward; I could naturally rest my thumbs on the analog sticks or touchpads, but the two physical buttons always felt a little bit far and off-angle for me to easily press.

Despite these quibbles, the Index controllers are the most natural-feeling VR controllers I’ve tested. They make gripping and other fine interactions in VR much more precise and intuitive, even if they aren’t quite the same as perfectly using your own hands yet. It’s an impressive effect that reaches past the grip trigger of the Oculus Touch controllers for a new level of immersion.

Two other Valve Index aspects lead to more frustrations to consider, one of which is fundamental to all tethered VR headsets. The cable that runs from the headset to your computer is long, flexible, and generally rests comfortably on the floor without curling upwards to make it easy to trip over. It’s still a physical cable that runs from the headset to your PC, though, and that means you need to mind where it is as you play, especially in games where you turn around a lot. Every tethered VR headset has this problem, because the wired connection lets it run VR software with much more advanced graphics than a standalone VR headset can with its mobile processor. It’s a necessary evil for this type of VR system, but you need to keep it in mind while playing.

The other problem is the headset’s use of base stations to track position and movement. With the base stations properly placed, your head movements will be consistently and smoothly reproduced in VR. The base stations track controller position, too, and depending on their location they can temporarily lose tracking if you turned around and your body blocks the line of sight between the controllers and the base stations. The layout of my test space required me to place the base stations at wide angles in front of me, to the left and right. This resulted in the controllers freezing for a few moments when I was turned away from the base stations. Ideally, you can put the base stations at opposite corners of a room, in which case you should be fully covered. This isn’t necessarily possible for everyone, though.

Revolutionary VR Control

Despite a handful of frustrations, the Valve Index is the most impressive VR system we’ve seen to date thanks to its revolutionary controllers. Their individual finger-tracking tech—and the ability to use them with your hands open, as well as gripping the handles—produces a much more immersive VR experience than we’ve seen and felt with other controllers. They simply feel amazing to use, even if there’s little point in extending only your pinky in most VR games.

Whether this experience is worth $1,000 depends on your budget, your commitment to VR, and whether you have a PC capable of running it. The full package is expensive for a VR headset, even a tethered one (the Vive Cosmos is only $700). The headset-and-controllers bundle is much more reasonably priced at $750, but the system requires the base stations to function. If you already have an HTC Vive, Vive Pro 2, or Vive Cosmos Elite, you can put their base stations to work, and simply add the controllers for $280. They work separately with the HTC headsets and base stations, so you don’t need to buy the full kit for the full experience (though the standard Vive has a resolution of only 1,200 by 1,080 per eye at 90Hz, so you might want to https://jiji.ng/ get an Index headset, too).

If you want to simply dabble in VR and don’t want to invest that much money into it, the Oculus Quest 2 remains our favorite headset for its accessibility and ease of use. It’s a standalone headset without any cables to trip over, and offers a comprehensive VR experience with a strong ecosystem for just $300. The Valve Index is our new favorite tethered VR system, though, and the choice to go with if money (and cables) are no issue, for the best possible control and graphics. As a result, the Valve Index is our Editors’ Choice pick for PC-tethered VR headsets.