tutorial Turn your Smartphone or Mobile VR or PSVR Headset into a working 6DoF SteamVR one

[GorujoCY]

Before that: please turn on night theme on ltt forums as there are white text involved here... Thanks!

 

Synopsis

you heard right, if you happen to have a standalone headset like the Oculus Go or maybe you have a Gear VR, mobile vr headset or a google cardboard with a headstrap/daydream lying around or you own a PSVR and you want to use it both on your PS4/5 and PC for example, you have come to the right place!

Now I'm aware that the oculus quest 2 is a better solution for budget VR nowdays but such thing has existed for a long time and has been one of the cheapest methods to get into vr before the Rift S and the Quest was launched (and even when the windows mixed reality existed, it was still a good alternative to vr). but this is also a good alternative to those who dont like the "facebook" elements that mark put on the quest 2 or those who just want to use their PSVR on both their PC and their Playstation Console (starting from PS4). This (well hopefully) also helps with the "Reuse" on one of the 3 Rs for your old headset...

 

"Ok but how do we get to do that?" you might be asking...

Great question!

Thanks to OpenVR Software like VRidge for example, it is possible to turn mobile vr headsets into a SteamVR HMD (Headmount) and use it that way and there are open source solutions too that serve this purpose too, for example PhoneVR here that it is available on github! PSVR is another story as there are more specific software for it to run like Trinus PSVR or iVry.

The issue with this is that those are 3DoF (which means you have rotation only) and excluding solutions like Vridge which can use 3DoF controllers and a phone with gyroscope as controller or control your hands using your keyboard and mouse, you really dont have any controllers you can use, especially 6DoF ones. So sit back and see how can you make it happen!

 

NOTE: What device you want to connect varies by different methods but the motion tracking setup process will work the same and the guide will use an application that works with every type of headset including PSVR and Daydream (alltho Daydream seems to have been discontinued so im not sure if I can mention it at this point)

 

Step 0: Requirements

In order to gain the 6DoF Experience, you need the followings:

 

The following headsets:

• Mobile/Smartphone VR Headset (could be cardboard or daydream too)
• Oculus Go
• Gear VR
• PSVR
• A Quest (2) works too but this is unnecessary as oculus link exists

A VR Kit called Nolo CV1:

What is a Nolo CV1 and who is Nolo?:

NoloVR (or "Nolo") is a chinese vr company that had one objective in mind: To be the first company to ever make a unique 6DoF VR Solution to work for Mobile VR headsets and more headsets that can't do 6DoF.

Nolo CV1 is NoloVR's product that fullfills this purpose mentioned above, it includes all the stuff you need like the base station, the controllers and the Headset Marker (of course along with the cables that you need to get started and mounts).

Where to buy:

unfortunately those are available china only but here are the methods:

• BangGood (has the 4 meter steamvr cable according to the description)
• Giztop (this does not have the 4 meter SteamVR cable but it's at least cheaper even than the quest 2)

BangGood is currently on sale at the time of writing but almost the same price of the quest 2 with shipping, but you can use the new user coupon if you register an account and get it for about 269 US dollars, which is really good!

Both listings are in new condition!

 

All links do not have affiliation codes or anything like that, see for yourself if you dont believe me...

 

I bought mine on Giztop, and it was unfortunate that it did not come with the 4 meter SteamVR Cable that i wanted but Nolo is generously sending me one for free but i would really recommend you buy it from banggood so you can save nolo some trouble because as you know, sending/shipping items outside of china really does cost money (mostly not a lot but still) and it would be nice to do that for this sake, even if it is that they are willing to send one for free! But the kit overall works really well despite that!

 

A well-capable VR Gaming PC but the minimum requirements are as follows:
OS: 64-bit Windows 7 or Windows 10

CPU: Intel i7-4790 / AMD Ryzen 5 1600

RAM: 8GB

GPU: According to NOLO: GTX 970 or 1050 / AMD Radeon R9 290 or RX 560

 

I'm running VR on the minimum specs and yes I normally shouldnt be but when it is configured properly, I have no problems with it!

 

and at the very least, 1 USB Type-A port free (or 2)

 

here's the picture for most of the requisites

 

Step 1: Preparing and Pairing

 

Chapter 1: Mounting and Pairing
first take your headset or cardboard and then choose the right mount based on your headset that you are using, if it is a PSVR or an Oculus Go for example, you can use the two sided mount that you got in the box (shown in the second picture), if you have a smartphone headset like the cardboard, you must use the single sided mount shown in the below picture, when you decide the right mount, take off the red tape (shown with a red arrow in the second picture) then place it above it on the correct side of the headset (the way it should be placed is shown below), like for example here with my mobile vr headset in the below picture, if you have a cardboard or a mobile vr headset, make sure give space so you can open the cover to put your phone on or adjust your lens IPD

 

After that, take your Headset marker, (the one with the ball on top, and has a hole below but it it is shown in the pictures below) and align it with the hole like shown below and fully insert it until it is tight and it cannot be taken off:

when you are in the last picture, it means that the marker was fully inserted and ready to go!

 

Now let's get into the pairing process, nolo has a great guide here so you can go there, pair it and come back here to continue within this guide.
Please note that IF your headset marker, controllers and base station turns green after you turn them on for the first time, that means that everything was paired out of the box and no need to do this process.

 

After you are done with the pairing, let's get into the software side of things and how to upgrade the firmware when there is one available

 

Chapter 2: Software preparation and upgrading firmware

Note that it is not necessary to start updating the firmware but it is recommended per say...

 

Let's start by updating the firmware, first download Nolo HOME here or by going to Nolo's official website and then install it. Dont forget to install Steam and SteamVR too!
Now for PSVR Users, there will be an driver installation wizard for psvr appearing as you install Nolo Home like this shown below:

you can install the driver and use NOLO Home as the primary method for playing SteamVR but for this guide, we will just press Cancel and continue on with the installation
for non-PSVR users, just press cancel, it is not necessary to install the driver!

 

When the installation is done after that, Launch NOLO Home and you'll see this:

 

Choose an option based on what device you have. If you have a PSVR, click Wired connection, if you have a mobile vr headset, gear vr or standalones like the oculus go, click Wireless connection.

That step is normally not necessary as we are going to use a third party application and not nolo home for this guide but it is required by the software otherwise you cannot continue so i would say just choose whatever or choose as follows above.

 

After you choose and click Next. You should be greeted with a little tutorial, just keep clicking next and skip the user guide by keep clicking next until you see Complete and click on it. After that you should be in here (after you choose wireless connection but that does not make a big of a difference for what we are going to do)

 

Now click on the toolbox icon (or the nolo toolkit, shown below)

and you should be greeted wiith different options. Now click Firmware Updater and then select Nolo CV1/CV1 Pro and follow the instructions shown on the Window.

 

After you are done and the firmware of the devices are up to date, you can go ahead and uninstall NOLO Home if you want and or just dont and use that to connect your device but i do not recommend it as NOLO Home only uses wireless for Android Mobile, Oculus Go and more or move on from here:

 

IF you are keeping NOLO Home and you are going to use the third party application as per the guide, then we have to do one thing.

Launch SteamVR on Steam, go to the hamburger menu and click Settings. Click Show on Advanced settings section and then click MANAGE ADD-ONS and turn off nolo and alvr_server (mine is blocked but you should have the option to turn it off) as shown below:

Exit/Close/Quit SteamVR after that. This is so that we prevent the drivers between nolo home and our third party software so it does not give us some unexpected issues or tries to run one driver to another altogether in which the driver facing the same devices and that causes issues like crashing SteamVR!

 

Else IF you are willing to use NOLO Home instead, then click on User Guide on the nolo home software and actually follow the instructions and you can skip the pairing instructions and then click connect or start and go on your way to Playing VR Games. But again for this guide we will use a third party software.

 

Just be aware that Nolo HOME isn't guranteed to work on your phone if you are using this device, while it is (was actually) being updated about every month, you should just keep that in mind...

 

Now it's time for our next step which is running our third party software

 

Step 2: Installing and Running the Third party software:

 

Chapter 1: The third party software

The third party driver software that we are going to use for this guide is called "iVry", it works with both your Phone, Mobile VR Headset, PSVR and Quest (alltho again for the quest just use the oculus link) and has built in drivers for Nolo CV1 out of the box, Fantastic! (this is the reason i was recommending you turn off nolo and alvr_server in steamvr settings at some point).

This also has many good features like:

• H264, and H265 Encoding support for higher refresh rate and higher resolutions, support for wireless (wifi) and wired (usb) and also wired without usb tethering (as long as you turn on usb debugging, for iPhone users I cannot tell, I'm sorry)! On devices like Android, iOS, Oculus Go and more mobile devices (ah yes, did I mention that iVry works with iPhone too? Unlike Nolo HOME! I dont use an iPhone so this guide will be for android only, sorry iPhone users but the steps should be the same for you to get it up and running!)
• Multiple driver modes with both Direct and Virtual
• You can use your GearVR (or maybe Oculus go) 3DoF Controller as a Vive emulated one (but for this guide we will use the Nolo CV1 kit)
• very configurable and user friendly settings that you can configure within your phone, desktop (will be located on the tray in the taskbar and that opens a window settings for iVry) or if you have a nolo cv1, within SteamVR too!

Don't worry tho, we will go within the settings and im going to try my best to explain what are each setting to make you understand.

 

The good thing too is that the lite version has only one limitation which is when you are playing for a few minutes later or so, you will notice the color saturation slowly degrading, ending up with a black and grey color on your HMD (Headmount) Screen which means that you can at least still try iVry without being interrupted or having to worry about the time limit! After you feel like you are satisfied with it, give them a credit, pay the premium (this is on another discussion as there are multiple premium version for each devices) and you will have the limitation removed!

 

if you are having issues, iVry has a subreddit, a steam discussions and an email so the community and iVry themselves are willing to help you if you have any issues with it (im active on the subreddit btw)!

 

Now let's get it installing!

 

Chapter 2: Installing and Running

(Once you install Steam, registered an account, and you went to the store and searched for "SteamVR" and downloaded it, let's get iVry on your pc.)

first go to the steam Store and search the term "iVry" then click on iVry Driver for SteamVR like this:

 

After that, just go ahead and get the driver, it's free! Once you install it, you should be ready but not 100%!

For PSVR Users, you have to download the downloadable contents too here: either try with lite first or pay the premium along with the original driver application installed too for both

 

For the rest of the users, depending on your device there's diffferent ways that you can install it.

For instance:

If you are going to use your phone (or maybe your daydream), you must download and install iVry on the Google Play Store or App Store

If you are using an Oculus Go or Gear VR (or maybe you want to use your quest but again just the use the oculus link for this), you must download and run the installer and follow the steps below accordingly where it says "Important" (and GearVR Section for GearVR users. Click Read More on the bottom left corner where it says "Important" to see them).

 

For this guide, I already have iVry installed on the Google Play Store for my Android phone so we will go forward from here!

 

Plug in your phone or mobile headset via USB (you can use any usb either type-c or micro usb depending on your device or the micro usb with a Type-C adapter on it in the SteamVR Cable) then the headset marker with either the Micro USB cable you received or the Micro USB port on the SteamVR cable (they should be labeled so you can understand which one is which) and then plug it in the two open Type-A USB ports of your computer. And then turn on your base station and both controllers (it is recommended you make sure they are charged decently too).

 

If you want to use wireless and only have the headset marker only plugged, here are the following steps to take:

1. Launch iVry Driver for SteamVR if you havent, you dont need to have your phone plugged in but it might be recommended and then close steamvr once it launches.

2. Go to the destination to where steam is installed (in most cases "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam")

3. Look for the "config" folder and then open steamvr.vrsettings file using Notepad or any other text editor you could probably be using

4. Scroll down until you find "driver_ivry:{", from there on the bottom, you will see a name called "address", That's where the IP Address is specified. Now normally iVry does detect ip address from your phone or headset if Wifi is on so when you disconnect the phone from the pc it will switch back to wireless, but since this is our first time trying to get it to connect that's required.

5. With the quotation marks set aside I think, Insert the IP address here of your device here (like this : "192.168.0.128" //example ip address), save it and you are good to go!

I still do recommend you just launch it using USB wired because i dont gurantee that it will work well, especially when it will try to generate the Cardboard parameters on the configuration but yeah...

 

for PSVR Users, download the contents as I mentioned above and plug it according to the diagram below:

 

After you have plugged, installed and turned on everything, First launch iVry and NOT SteamVR and be patient as the driver setup automatically occurs (and do it accordingly*) and then iVry will launch SteamVR for you!

 

(*For example here for the PSVR users, iVry explicitly says:

)

 

After SteamVR launches when iVry configured all the drivers, you should see the nolo drivers and your headset being picked up immediately looking something like this:

 

of course you can launch the app without the nolo kit if you just want to try it out first but remember that for this guide we are aiming for a 6DoF VR Experience...

 

Now we finally ran it! But you should probably configure your settings before you start playing...

 

Step 3: Configuring iVry

After you are done with the plugging and installation and it is complete, let's start configuring our settings so we can have our best experience possible...

 

FOR PSVR or Other specific Users, skip to Step 4 for when we launch SteamVR

 

For this guide, we will show the options and help you configure them within the perspective of an android user (or maybe for iOS too)...

 

The main settings for iVry on Android and/or iOS will have the following sections and it should be more or less the same for other mobile devices:

• Connectivity
• Perfomance
• Headset
• Tracking
• Audio
• SteamVR

NOTE: Your mileage may vary on those settings or whenever you can access it depending on your device and you may see those slightly or significantly different!

 

If you have the connectivity section or not, that section varies differently per device

for instance in the android app we see those options:

USB Tethering Settings redirects you to the mobile hotspot settings where you can turn on USB Tethering for iVry. Alternatively the Developer Options one does the same but it redirects you to the developer options so you can turn on USB Debugging so decide accordingly which one you want to use!

 

Ok now let's get into the common ones:

Perfomance section is where you configure your framerate, resolution, encoding, bitrate and tracking rate. It will look something like this:

You should be able to tell the rest (framerate, resolution, encoding, bitrate) but unfortunately I am not aware what tracking rate can do but as far as I heard, I think it minimizes the "tracking drift" when you are turning your phone and stuff like that... What i would recommend is 90Hz on then Wireless and 120hz on thew wired which we will go about now but of course this can benefit in tracking one way or another.

 

on the top left corner you should see the "Wireless (Wifi) Settings" or "Wired (USB) Settings" if you are already connecting your device, Click here and you should see both options i mnetioned before. That means that you can configure different settings on different connections.

Now this must be adjusted to your comfort and to your liking...

For instance in the perfomance, Here's how i have it configured for both wired and Wireless, you can have mine if you want to:

I explicitly turned off auto adjust bitrate because there's an issue that for some reason, even using iVry wired, it will still switch the Encoding to JPEG and I dislike that alot so i have it turned off for that case, still your mileage may vary so you can still have it on if you want...

Again those are examples i have done, you can adjust your perfomance settings to your liking!

 

Next we have the Headset section, this option is a little more or less complicated so ill post a screenshot to what it looks like on me:

For this explaination, we wiil have the Lens Distortion off as it gives many other options here with it, but all i can say is, it is customizable to any headset you can have and you can adjust it well for beter comfort, just give it a try and see what works for you!

there are many options here unless lens distortion is off. In which we will explain this way.

Renderer: Renderer is the option that you can choose the way your device will render as a Headmount, for Android devices and likely iPhones too, we have OpenGL which is the original renderer that it is used to display the image of your phone or "Headmount". and then the GoogleVR (Or Daydream if that's a thing) renderer is used for the cardboard(/daydream I think) lenses. Choose a renderer based on what's comfortable best and I think you wont see this in Mobile headsets like the Oculus Go but as I said before:

Quote

NOTE: Your mileage may vary on those settings or whenever you can access it depending on your device and you may see those slightly or significantly different!

Lens Distortion: basically "distors" the display to fit for some lenses that have that "zooming effect" fit with the specific lens you have, that's not it for my case so i tend to turn it off but when you turn it on, you see options like Scale to screen, which esentially scales the screen per eye based on the value is set, Image Circle for circular lenses and and Soft Vignette.

Cardboard Viewer Profile: Tells your current Cardboard Viewer you are using, simple!

Aligment Markers: are pretty useful depending on your headset, this is found on Android and iOS only as far as I can tell, it allows you to show small red lines so that you can align your phone with the headset properly so you can have iVry working, this is not needed in most cases but in some it should be useful for ya.

Lock Orientation: Locks the rotation/orientation of the screen, again simple!

 

Moving on to Tracking and Audio:

Here's what it looks like on my android device:

Google VR Tracking: allows you to utilize the Gyroscope of your phone for 3DoF rotation, but dont worry you can still utilize your Nolo CV1's tracking whenever you have turned it on or off so even a phone without a gyroscope will work as long as you have that...

The last one should be pretty self explainatory.

For Audio we just have Audio streaming, which should be straight forward. It streams the VR Audio back to your phone, for some reason this did not work on one of my devices however your mileage may vary!

 

And finally we have the SteamVR section:

Driver Mode has 2 modes: "Direct" and "Virtual", they both should be pretty explainatory and I recommend you keep direct mode over virtual as there are usually more benefits in terms of perfomance and consitency...

Restore Defaults and Restart SteamVR are again pretty self explainatory!

 

 

If you happen to not see any of the settings or just cant open it and everything, as I explained before for the last time:

Quote

NOTE: Your mileage may vary on those settings or whenever you can access it depending on your device and you may see those slightly or significantly different!

Now if you have configured iVry on your mobile device and it feels like up and running, let's continue! Of course take your time and configure your settings as properly as possible and even when your are running iVry!

 

Step 4: Configuring iVry after launching SteamVR

Now when you you are all ready, Start your Nolo CV1 devices, make sure they all light up green, plug in your phone and/or Headset Marker (make sure the marker lights up green too) with the appropriate cables and launch SteamVR or iVry itself!

You should see this popup again after it launches

You can click the notification or go in yout tray icons and find the iVry icon (shown below) and double click it:

then multiple other settings are normally not presented in your mobile device should appear! Like this shown below again

On SteamVR or In VR with the Nolo controllers, Press the system button and you should find the iVry icon here and it should look familiar.

 

Perfomance has the same settings as we configured before but this is still useful if you want to adjust your resolution, bitrate or more while in SteamVR, tho you cannot adjust the tracking rate here

Headset has the same settings too except lock orientation, this has to be turned on/off on your phone/mobile device.

Tracking is where you can adjust your tracking rate along with what tracker to use, I recommend you use the default tracker if you are using Nolo, then we have the 2 same options we had before which is Google VR Tracking and Adjust tracking for orientation. The we have Apply head model which is optional, I'll keep it off as it isnt necessary for me and probabaly for you.

Then we have NoloVR shown below:

you can toggle the built in driver to use headset only, enable or disable it. In most cases I would still recommend you keep it on if you want to use your controllers and base station, if one of the controllers (or both) ran out of battery, you can use the headset only option and continue on like that but if the base station ran out of battery too, you can completely disable the built in driver and then reenable it when they are fully charged. 

Use Device Orientation should be self explainatory. Use Drift Correction allows it so that when you are rotating or turning around with your headset, It tried to prevent the tracking from drifting, I have had that happen almost alot and it's not so perfect but it's better than nothing!

Of course NoloVR Controller icons and models just show the icons that you see on SteamVR Status and the model is when you see it inside SteamVR when you press the system button (and you have probably pressed it by now), the Disable Haptic Feedback should be self explainatory I hope.

Audio has the same setting, which is to allow streaming it.

SteamVR has the same option with the driver mode and then you will see the "Render Resolution", there you must adjust the render resolution accordingly so that your native resolution can be displayed.

For example:

My phone on Wired USB is set to 2192x1068, so in order to get that full resolution at least displayed enough, the render resolution for me is set at 2584x1232.

 

After you are done with the options and you have configured them, you'll have to restart SteamVR for most changes to apply so go back to the main menu and click on the red button that says "Restart SteamVR" and then Click Ok

Wait for it to restart and then try playing a VR Game, If you want me to recommend a free one, you can try VRChat, since the Udon release, not only can you hang out with others but you can now play a variety of games and the social game itself is free!

 

Verdict/Conclusion:

I hope this has teached you something about how accessible has VR Technology became over the couple of years and again I hope this serves any purpose for those folks like me who have a VR headset like mine lying around and/or (are) looking to reuse it or for those folks who have a PSVR and they have been looking for ways to use their PSVR on a PC!

 

If I get a working phone, If you guys want ill try making a seperate guide using just Nolo HOME. And for those who are willing to use PSVR Controllers instead because they have them lying around or they use them on their PSVR, It is possible to do that but I just do not own one of these, im not going to force you or anyone but you can dm me if you are willing to send me PSVR Controllers (maybe spare ones preferably) for a guide on how to get them working on your PC and I'll try my best (preferably the controllers with the Ball LEDs).

 

I'm not looking for too much attention at all for writing this paragraph but this is my first guide and it took almost a week and a half to finish so I hope the effort pays off and doesnt get removed and English isn't my first language (of course if any moderator wants me to remove some of the lines here, let me know.)

 

Contributions are welcome, again this guide has been written for almost a week and a a half from now so there may be a lot of spelling or grammatical errors that I have missed, of course it would be nice if you mention me that you spotted any mistakes around. Feedback and Questions about the guide are also welcome too so I can ensure this guide is as clean as possible and try to solve any user concerns!

 

Video portion on YouTube is coming soon I hope, so the technical stuff can be understood easier, it wont be great I think but again effort pays off.

 

That's all I have to say for the Verdict/Conclusion, hope to talk with you!

 

-Gorujo