It's pronounced "tooie".

So, this is a quickie, but we've posted something similar enough times between Bluesky and Mastodon that it was worth putting something public.

One question we end up fielding a lot is "should I upgrade to a Bigscreen Beyond"... and after 6 months, that answer is a little more complicated than we'd like.

The biggest question to ask is if you're already invested in a SteamVR lighthouse based tracking approach - if you already have an Index/Vive or the like, or if you currently only have a standalone setup or no VR at all.

I do not have Lighthouse based tracking

You should not buy a Bigscreen Beyond 2e. It is not worth a new investment in a now-discontinued ecosystem. Maybe if you find Lighthouses used at a stretch.

I do have Lighthouse based tracking

Now the question becomes more complex.

Our comparisons here will be to the Index, since it's what we had before and what we suspect the most popular . Your mileage may vary compared to other headsets.

The Bigscreen Beyond 2e is a very good headset - but it also makes tradeoffs for the form factor. The way we've taken to describing it compared to the Index is "you got what you needed, but you lost what you had". It is substantially more of a sidegrade than we expected.

The visuals are improved over the Index - although I think some of our hardware setup is limiting it. While audio sounds fine (and we've heard no complaints over mic quality)... the official audio strap is incredibly flimsy compared to how bulletproof the Index headphones are. The Bigscreen ones disconnect themselves from the frame, leaving them only hanging by a thin wire, and have to be awkwardly snapped back into place. This gets more likely to happen the more you have to take the headset off (or at least, it does with our big head).

Comfort is another area where it isn't a slam dunk. It's smaller and lighter than the Index and most other headsets, sure - but the universal face gasket that comes with orders of the Halo Mount [1] is an awful rubbery affair which starts uncomfortably sticking after too long. After several months of owning it, we had to swap to a third party kit that mimics the foam padding found on the Index.

And then there's just... unanticipated technical problems. SteamVR has always been a little unstable no matter what hardware is thrown at it, but it's been particularly bad with the Beyond - possibly remnants of ALVR interfering, I don't know. It generally won't work after plugging it in the first time - only after unplugging and plugging it back in. The SteamVR dashboard sometimes crashes on launch leaving us without access to desktop or keyboard. Sometimes the eyetracking camera seems to just latch on to the wrong point and just cause them to be closed in game.

so, what would you recommend?

I don't know.

This was meant to be an easy decision at this point. "Just wait for/buy the Steam Frame".

But then, of course, the biggest enemy to the Frame turned out to not be Valve Time, but RAMageddon. Given the Steam Machine prices, it is likely the Frame has been pushed out of affordability for many. The Beyond might not be the cheapest, but as a tethered device it at least gets to ignore the increases... as long as you've already got everything it needs. I do think it's probably the best if you're already in the SteamVR ecosystem, but... the grass just isn't always greener. (And also, now that the Index is discontinued, things like Lighthouse tracked controllers are going to become rarer/more expensive over time, too).

So I don't know. If you've already got something, make it work as long as possible would be our best advice.

footnotes

  1. Which we must note hasn't shipped yet - last update on it was in April. ↩︎