Oculus Remote input no longer detected in 4.17

We have a number of VR experiences relying on the use of the Oculus Remote, handled by an assistant, to guide the user through some steps. The user uses the Touch Controllers to interact with the experience.

Since 4.17.x it looks like the input from the Oculus Remote is no longer detected in Blueprints, no matter if in GamePad emulation mode or Oculus Remote mode. It used to work properly with 4.16 and earlier.

How can we bring back the previous behavior? Is this something related to the new OVRPlugin? I couldn’t find any documentation about this change.

Cheers,
Marco.

I just tested some previously released applications running on 4.15 and the Oculus Remote still works properly with them. This is not something Oculus specific but rather UE4 specific. I believe that changes introduced with 4.17 (and possibly 41.6) altered the way the Oculus Remote is handled to the point it is no longer recognized.

Never mind. I have found and corrected the issue. There is a logical bug in OculusInput.cpp preventing the state of the Oculus Remote from being processed properly.

I have submitted a fix and created a Pull Request for it: https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/pull/4030

Cheers,
Marco.

Dear Marco,
we have run into the same problem that you described and we have tried to change the OculusInput.cpp as you described here: [SOLVED] Input from Oculus remote not working in 4... - Meta Community Forums - 630979
Sadly this hasnt solved the problem for us… do you have any additional ideas for how to fix this problem?
BTW: we dont have this issue on all our workstations, it just doesnt work on one of our machines and of course on at our clients…
Thanks in advance!

@ruzky

Few things to check regarding your issue:

  • Is the Oculus Remote properly listed under Devices in the Oculus desktop app?
  • Is the battery status ok?
  • Did you try to remove/forget the Oculus Remote and re-add it in Devices? (any chance the remote for your non-working machine and the one at the customer have been accidentally exchanged?)
  • Does the Oculus Remote work properly within the Oculus Home?
  • In UE4, is the Oculus Remote recognized properly if you don’t activate the Touch Controllers?

Also to be aware of:

  • The input of the Oculus Remote is properly received and process only when the HMD is worn on the head. Otherwise no input is received from the Remote.

Happy to try to help further.

Cheers,
Marco.

hey ruzky, have you found out a way to solve this? i’m facing the same problem…

Hey guys!
The workaround that solved it for our case at least was to unpair the touch controllers in the Oculus settings. Apparently that moves the remote back to the “top of the list” and Unreal recognizes it.
I hope this was any help.

@vr_Marco: thank you for for your reply earlier and sorry that I haven’t replied earlier but it got really busy towards the end of our project and it slipped my mind…

Cheers,

My pull request is still open, so the issue persists in 4.18.1. You can fix it by applying the fix from the pull and recompiling the engine. This is how I currently do it. I am afraid there are no other solutions at the moment if you want to use the Remote and the controllers at the same time.

thx for the quick answer, I tried your solution but I didnt get it to work. Still don’t get any input from the game pad nor from the oculus remote.

It works for me and for others as well. Can you share your settings and input blueprints?

BTW, just to a make sure:

  • the Oculus Remote is set by default to operate in Gamepad emulation mode, so you have to use the gamepad input events, including Special Left and Special Right. To switch to the native remote mode you have to change the INI settings.
  • The Oculus Remote is active only when the proximity sensor is on, so either you wear the HMD, or put tape on the sensor or bypass it with the Oculus debug tools

No worries, thanks for letting me know. Indeed this is the issue with the original code. It only polls the Remote if it is the only input device connected. If any other input device is registered and connected, the Remote is totally disregarded.

hey vr_marco, trying again after a good night’s sleep made it work eventually. thx for sharing your solution and for trying to make epic aware of the problem!
we suspect that there is a reason behind this though: as we just realized, the remote is not included in the current kit anymore.