VR and AR Development Equipment

Development Getting Started & Setup
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Hi!
My name is Anabela work in a University in Portugal and I’m reaching out because we would like to create a laboratory for VR and AR development to be shared with our students, of course, but also with other institutions and enterprises. Our aim is to remove one of the main challenges developers face: the high cost of equipment. We believe this initiative will help foster VR and AR development for everyone.

My request is not related to funding, but to something even more valuable - knowledge. I would like to ask for your advice regarding the equipment needed for this purpose. From our experience, solutions such as the Valve Index paired with high-performance workstations tend to serve development better than the standalone options that are currently becoming more popular. But is this still true?

It would be a great help if you could help me in designing this space. In particular, I would really appreciate your thoughts on:

  • What equipment is best for VR development?
  • What equipment is best for AR development?
  • How many units would you recommend?

Kind regards, and thank you in advance!
Anabela

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My personal decision would be to primarily use standalone XR headsets such as the Meta Quest 3. These are much easier to set up and manage, can be used with multiple devices simultaneously in the same room, do not require additional high-end computers, but can still be used for PCVR. My recommendation is to limit the number of devices to 15 to 20 units.

Using pure PCVR headsets such as the Valve Index offers no advantages except for testing purposes and studying different VR tracking methods. They are also more suitable if you constantly need low latency response for pure PCVR applications. Depending on how many rooms or how much space you have available, I would not use more than three of them.

In addition, I would reach out to other universities, as many of them have already set up VR labs. I know of three universities in different cities in my area.

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