HiGame

Every VR demo on a PC I’ve seen begins with someone apologizing for the tether. At least with hosted demos, there is someone to manage the cord. Once you set up your own system, you’re left to trip over it shortly after you immerse yourself in your favorite VR game. Currently, the only way around having a tether is by using an expensive, special-purpose, backpack VR PC. Those aren’t all that much fun, either. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) aim to fix the problem by letting you cut the cord. By harnessing millimeter waves (mmWaves) along with a programmable reflector called MoVR, they expect to be able to provide enough two-way bandwidth to enable high-quality VR experiences without wires.

High-performance VR is hampered by the need for a tether



High-end VR headsets like the Vive and Oculus Rift feature two HD or better displays. That means they need to be fed data at nearly 6Gbps, with very-low latency. This has to happen while the user is moving around as they play a game or go through a VR experience. Today, that is almost always achieved by using a high-quality HDMI cable from the PC to the headset. In commercial settings it may be partially suspended from above, to stay off the floor. But for most consumers it’s snaked across the floor, where it can easily be run over by a chair, tripped on, or tangled up.

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