Just wonder what might be better or is most preferred option of headset tracking in VR with current users ?
PS : Merry Christmas to all of you ! 
Lighthouse is more ore less dead. All modern headsets uses inside out tracking and this is nowadays extremely precise and at least on par with the old outside in tracking systems.
I would not bother with lighthouses since they are also very error prone due to the fact that they are mechanical.
2 Likes
Hi @Mihaita ,
Thank you for your post! Your topic has been moved to a sub-category of the User Support Hub
The General Discussion category is meant for discussions that fall outside of our other sub-categories.
If you would like other users to help you with an issue you are experiencing in the sim, consider these User Support Hub categories for your future post:
User Support Hub > Aircraft & Systems
User Support Hub > ATC, Traffic & NAVAIDs
User Support Hub > Crashes (CTDs)
User Support Hub > Hardware & Peripherals
User Support Hub > Install, Performance & Graphics
User Support Hub > Scenery & Airports
User Support Hub > User Interface & Activities
User Support Hub > Virtual Reality (VR)
User Support Hub > Weather & Live Weather
User Support Hub > Miscellaneous
Your claims are wildly inaccurate.
-
Inside-out tracking is not and never will be as good as lighthouse, for the obvious reason that cameras on the headset have blindspots that exterior tracking does not. Put your hands to your chin to pull a bow in VR and inside-out tracking will lose them, causing them to jitter around, making aiming a nightmare. Same problem when winding up punches or swings with a melee weapon or various other common activities in VR. Lighthouse is plainly superior because it does not have these fundamental limitations.
-
It would be fair to say that low-end headsets are ditching lighthouse tracking but it’s still widely used in high-end headsets. Bigscreen Beyond 1&2 have been the best mid-ground headsets and use lighthouse tracking exclusively. Meganex has arguably been the best high-end and uses lighthouse exclusively. The newly released Pimax Dream Air and SE are now premiere models for high and mid tiers and both have versions using either lighthouse or inside-out.
It depends on your priorities, what headsets you’re interested in, if you already have controllers/headsets, your play space, etc.
Lighthouse tracking is fundamentally superior, as it has no blindspots. Unlike inside-out, it does not lose your hands when they go past your face and it can see trackers you might choose to use on your lower body. But this comes at the cost of having to commit to playing in a single space, as you need to mount the lighthouses in the room. They also need to be purchased separately these days and they do sometimes fail and need to be replaced, because they have internal motors that can wear out over time (though I’ve had mine for a decade and they’re still fine).
Inside-out tracking, on the other hand, is obviously included with the headset, so the price is included and you can take it anywhere (though this is a limited benefit if your headset is tethered to a PC).
Generally, what headset you want will determine this. If you’re on the lower end, the Quest is currently the only cheap, quality headset and uses inside-out tracking. Mid-range headsets may or may do one or both. The Bigscreen Beyond 2 requires lighthouses while the slightly superior incoming Pimax Dream Air SE will offer both (though the inside-out costs $300 more). High-end headsets are the same, with the Meganex being lighthouse only and the comparable Pimax Air offering either. Note that these are all purely PCVR though, so you’re tethered to a PC. There’s more headsets, of course, but that’s a representative sample of arguably the best. It’s also worth noting that you can use lighthouse-tracked controllers with an inside-out headset, if you have lighthouses (so you could have the best tracking even with a Quest).
If you want fully mobile VR that you can play anywhere, or cheap VR, you’re looking for something like a Quest. If you want a high-end experience, with light-weight and full tracking, or the option of full-body tracking, and you’re okay staying put in one room, you’re looking at a PCVR lighthouse setup.
I don’t share your conclusion. For head tracking, modern inside out systems are fully on par with lighthouse and, in most consumer scenarios (including flight simulation), just as precise. High resolution IR cameras offer excellent angular accuracy, require no mechanical components, and don’t depend on external base stations. That’s why all mainstream current generation headsets use inside out (Meta Quest 3 / Pro, Pico 4, Apple Vision Pro, PSVR2, Varjo XR‑4, HP Reverb G2, Lenovo, HTC’s newer models, DPVR). Claiming lighthouse is superior here doesn’t reflect where the industry has moved. Only some niche headsets like Bigscreen Beyond or certain Pimax variants still rely on lighthouse because they also target industrial environments where legacy lighthouse setups remain in use. For consumers, and especially for flight simulation, I still highly recommend the less complex inside out tracking.
Bigscreen Beyond is also a poor example: they use lighthouse purely because of the form factor. There is simply no space for cameras or the required compute unit. It’s not used because it is “better”. Pimax follows a similar path because they primarily target industrial customers with existing Lighthouse installations, again not because lighthouse is inherently “better”.
Controller tracking is a different matter, but even there it’s not as one sided as you describe. Inside out can lose sight of a controller behind the body, but modern IMUs (inertial meassurement units: accelerometer and gyros) are accurate enough to bridge short occlusions without noticeable drift. And lighthouse isn’t immune either: many users only set up one base station in front of their playspace for cost reasons, which means controllers also lose tracking when turned away from it, often without any or with very poor IMU based compensation. Both systems have blind spots, just for different reasons.
Your bow shooting example doesn’t match my experience. For instance, I’ve played In Death extensively (and other games with bow shooting), and as someone who shoots real bows (traditional horsback archery bows) at a high level, I never encountered the jitter or tracking loss you describe. It’s not an inherent flaw of inside out.
As stated above, a few niche headsets still support lighthouse, that’s true, but the broader trend is clear: inside out is the modern standard, while lighthouse is becoming a legacy solution maintained mostly by enthusiasts and industry users who invested heavily into it in the past. That’s fine, but it doesn’t make it the future, and I would not recommend going that route in 2026 due to cost, setup complexity (cables, placement, etc.), reliability concerns (mechanical parts), and the very limited or even nonexistent advantage over inside‑out tracking.
One niche use for lighthouse tracking is the use of the Index controllers. imo, the best controllers out there currently, unless I have missed some new ones that are better or on par.
I already had a lighthouse setup from my old Index kit. I am now on a PCL. I don’t use lighthouse for flight sim. I do use lighthouse for any room scale, controller use, as I want to use the Index controllers.
There is another niche application for outside in; Motion Compensation.
VR tracking assumes the Normal plane (eg, the floor) is fixed. If you have a motion rig, that normal plane can rotate. Since Inside out tracking cannot determine the difference between the two, it will add the angular difference to the projection) ( https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/v81pKalAcOU )
By using outside in (with something like the vive tracker), the angular component is subtracted and keeps the projection centered
Thanks for that info!
One day I absolutely plan on having a motion rig.