Oculus Connect 3: Augment your VR experience with the Rift's impressive new accessories

Oculus Connect 3 was an important event for Oculus VR, some might say even a seminal one. The company announced a bunch of new, but necessary accessories for the platform, and also gave us a glimpse of the future of VR. Oculus Touch: It’s finally here

Oculus may have made the best quality headset on the market, but leaving out VR-ready controllers was a huge mistake. The HTC Vive offered a competitive headset, but it was the Vive’s controllers and room-scale VR system that stole the show. While Facebook has teased the controllers before, they were officially announced yesterday at Oculus Connect 3. The design of the controllers hasn’t really changed much since we first saw them. Both controllers feature two, feather-touch triggers and an assortment of buttons. A bunch of LEDs on the front help the Oculus Camera keep track of their position. A controller kit will be available for pre-order worldwide on 13 October and it’ll ship on 6 December. The controllers are priced at $199 (around Rs 13,300). Oculus Camera: Now there are more  The Oculus Camera is a tracking unit that comes with a Rift and it does double duty as a head tracker and controller tracker. Zuckerberg, however, added that you can add up to three cameras in a room and suddenly, room-scale VR becomes a reality! A three-camera setup will track your position in your room in 3D and in real-time. The camera tracking units will be available for $79 (around Rs 5,300). Oculus Earphones: You now have an option  The Rift comes with headphones as part of the Rift package. They’re good, but if you wanted earphones, you didn’t have an option. Now you do. These earphones will retail for $49 (Rs 3,300). Oculus Santa Cruz: Look ma, no wires!  

The Oculus Santa Cruz prototype is the most interesting announcement at Oculus Connect 3, but it’s not a unique concept. The headset sits between the Gear VR and Oculus Rift CV1 in terms of features, price and functionality. This headset packs in a PC within the headset itself ( Intel and AMD had demoed this many months ago at GDC 2016 ) and integrates multiple cameras for keeping an eye on the world around you. This headset will have no wires since everything that’s needed is within the headset itself. Since the cameras are bundled on the headset, they’ll provide room-scale VR and tracking without the need for external sensors. The Santa Cruz is never going to be as powerful as the Rift, but it’s a stand-alone device that might offer the right compromise between price and features. It’s still a prototype, however, so it may not even develop into a fully-featured product.