Has the Valve Index (and its controllers) reliability issues?

The Valve Index is one of the VR headsets of the moment. Thanks to its supreme design (that fostered very positive reviews) and the hype created by Half-Life: Alyx, it is gone sold-out in all the 31 countries it is sold in. When I reviewed it, I praised it as probably the best headset I have tried. It is, together with the Oculus Quest, the defining headset of 2019.

But all roses have thorns, and it seems that the Index may have some problems with its manufacturing. According to some rumors, the production initially started in the US, but when the demand got too big, Valve started manufacturing the headsets and controllers via third parties in China. This has been good to ramp up the production, but it seems having been a bad move from a reliability side.

Thanks to my friend (and VR ergonomics expert) Rob Cole, I discovered that on Reddit there are tons of complaints about the Valve Index, with many people having had to return the controllers, the headsets and the base stations. We have to praise the fact that usually Valve customer service is doing a great job in answering all the requests, but the RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) procedure is not always pleasant for the users.

Strangely, the main VR outlets are not talking about these problems, so let me give voice to the problems of the community. What are people complaining about?

The controllers

The main problems are in the controllers. The very expensive Index controllers ($250) were the topic of the “Clickgate” of some months ago, where most users weren’t able to click the thumbsticks in all directions, preventing them to play games where this was needed. When I reviewed my Index many months ago, in fact, I noticed that my units were defective as well, and only clicked in two directions and not in all four.

Valve initially claimed it was by design, but after the community backlashed, it fixed the next batches of controllers. This caused the first big RMA of controllers from the community. Now the clicking issue is mostly gone, but there is a new one about “drifting”. It seems that after some weeks of usage, the thumbsticks may start moving your character even if you’re not operating your thumbstick anymore. Let me copy some messages from angry users on Reddit to show you how the problem is widespread:

Yep, I got the exact same problem, if I move my left joystick left or right it keeps moving the character even after I take my finger off the stick. It happens with every game and it’s a clear design flaw.

Add to that the non-clicking and loose cover for the right controller, of course.

There’s no defending Valve here, it’s a design defect that I can’t believe went into the final design after so many years of testing.

Got the index in August and I’ve been having some minor issues with no real consequences, until last week I got pretty serious controller drift every time I flick the right controller down at all. Deadzone changes don’t change anything and even if they did it wouldn’t be acceptable.

It really isn’t acceptable and I want to make sure I have them fixes/new ones when Alyx releases. If I RMA them the week after new years, when do you think I’ll send them in, and when will I get controllers back?

Same exact scenario. Second set lasted maybe 10 days. Amazing they are still pushing out this garbage.

I wouldn’t worry about it. I didn’t click and tilt, just tilt, and it still got drift after the usage threshold is hit. There’s no escaping it. Just enjoy using the controllers until it’s time to RMA. (some games have autorun, like Pavlov, where you don’t have to press click, but you still have to move the joystick in the forward direction, and this is ultimately what will lead to the drift problem after x hours of accumulated usage)

It sucks, but it’s the new reality for now until Valve figures out how to make durable joysticks.

There are also other kinds of weird problems, like this one:

One of the replacements I received has tracking glitches when any moderately intense haptics kick in. Has anyone else experienced this? For example, when firing a weapon in Space Pirate Trainer, the controller becomes floaty and will sometimes vanish momentarily. In the vrserver log, there are a number of “unlikely gravity”, “IMU misalignment” and “IMU related panic” entries that correspond to those events.

My other controller doesn’t have this problem but the haptics on that feel weaker, they’re also louder and have a different tone to them. Guess I need to get back in touch with support.

There are many, and you can hang out on the Valve Index subreddit to find more. Rob jokes that the Index subreddit has become a place to mostly complain about Index orders and broken equipment, and not where to talk about technology 😀

As I’ve said, Valve is being very responsive for its customers, but between the fact that the requests of assistance are many and that the Index is sold out everywhere, people are having a hard time doing an RMA, because the replacement parts take too much time to arrive, or because the customer service “forgets” about them, or because the new units don’t work anyway:

Well i’m glad you managed to get new slightly less broken £260 controllers. meanwhile i cant get so much as a reply from support and the second set they sent me where completely unusable just like the first.

First pair was wave 1 pre order. -Drifting after 1 month and had joystick clicking issue

2nd pair had a trackpad sensor issue after 2 weeks

Current pair (3rd) – 0 clicking issues but developed drifting after 2 months

What am I supposed to do?

My right index controller has been at the warehouse for 16 days now ands steam support has been ignoring me since the 30th November.

I have no idea if /when I’m getting a replacement controller.

I am receiving no response.

Rob knows this issue very well: he’s now at his 9th controller (5 left, 4 right) for the Valve Index. Every time different problems, but most of the times, the big issue is in the thumbsticks, which seem very low-quality for such a premium set.

Anyway, the good news on all of this is that Valve maybe has changed its controllers: in these days, people on Reddit are claiming that the new controllers they received with an RMA look different, and behave better (no click problems, no drift issues for now). In fact from the pictures, you can clearly see that the thumbstick on the new controllers is higher. I really hope that Valve has listened to the complaints of the users and fixed all these problems!

The headset

It is not only a matter of the controllers. Also the headset has its issues. Some times ago, many people reported problems with vertical scanlines, but a driver update fixed it for many users. This hasn’t been the only problem though, and various users claim problems with the display: vertical or horizonal lines, dead pixels, blurred vision, problems with the backlight, etc… Also problems with the headset in general are not absent.

“The vertical line pattern you see in the VR image when moving your head seems to be the same on both headsets. So I guess that is a side effect of the display panels they used.”

I have also got a replacement unit and I was able to compare them, and gotta say my original headset did not have the vertical lines but the replacement has them. If i was you I would’ve tried to get another replacement till you get a non defective one. Since I have compared them gotta say that the difference is night and day

I have been stuck in ”RMA hell” for a little over a month now, with no getting out of it yet.
I have RMA’d the following:
3 headsets (third still pending) and 2 sets of controllers (sofar).
Headsets:
1. had a lot of Mura, more then enough to be immersion breaking, no matter the scene.
2. The backlight from the left panel started malfunctioning.
3. (my current one, waiting to be RMA’d) has a weird slanted scanline like issue, not vertical, not horizontal, but (kinda) pointing up-right, if that makes sense, and it’s always visible , doesn’t matter if i’m moving my head or not (noticed on my VRChat avatar very easily on the skin)

I noticed my headset is getting “sloppy” with the metal arms that slide in and out of the rear harness plastic now have developed a wobble where the metal has worn the plastic guide. Both my ear speakers are rattling where the ear pod is joined to the speaker arm, it’s become loose on both sides (more plastic). 

Because of this slop it’s easy to twist the headset between the front display block and the rear harness, meaning it can be fitted wonky.

While analyzing these posts, we should take in mind that hardware failures are part of the game. Usually, 5% of all LCDs have problems, according to some statistics reported by a Redditor, so it’s normal that some people will have problems with the displays. Anyway, I expected less problems on the Index…

Base stations

Base stations are not immune from issues. Sometimes they die, or they start rattling or emitting weird sounds:

This happened to me as well. Unfortunately it’s dead.

First base station died December 15th. Opened a ticket and support was fast respond. No troubleshooting and just said they would issue an RMA for it but had no ETA when replacement will ship.

Just a few days ago my other one died. They are going to RMA that one too. Same thing, no ETA for when they will ship those.

I had a similar noise.

I RMA-ed my base station.

I’m making this post i guess as a warning for new buyers of the Index, because this may potentially be a huge deal breaker.

First of all, both base stations make this exact noise and the noise is clearly distinguishable as a motor. There is a chance that both base stations could be faulty, but i seriously doubt that.

The base stations make a high pitched whining sound, similar to coil whine if you are familiar with that. Not all people will hear the whine for example, i tried to see if my mom could hear it and she didn’t.

Problems with base stations are probably not the most common, though, and most people usually complain on the controllers.

Delays

As I’ve said, delays in performing the substitutions are also annoying the users:

Escalate. A full month is unsatisfactory. I had my HMD RMA turned around in 8 days.

Check out whatever your local consumer laws and cite them to Valve if needs be.

I had the issue of a really washed out and weirdly blue tinted screen on my headset. Took about a week of back and forth with support before they finally agreed to RMA it. They told me because of the unusual nature of the issue, they wanted me to ship the old headset to them as soon as possible, and that in the mean time they’d immediately send me out a new one. I didn’t get any tracking number for a couple days, so I just shipped out my old headset. Ended up having to contact them three more times asking when my replacement was going to ship. Each time they responded that the headset should be shipping soon and to contact them again if I didn’t hear anything in a couple of days. Ended up being two weeks after I sent back the head before I finally got a tracking number.

In my opinion it’s not good enough that people are waiting days for a response from customer service or some people have waited over a month for a replacement part. There also should be a dedicated live customer service team for people who bought the index but it’s Valve so what more should be expected? Lets focus on what Valve can do to improve the situation for those of us who do have problems rather than the problems themselves.

People were expecting a more premium assistance service, especially for a premium headset like the Index.

All together

The RMA championship award goes to Redditor u/DjBasAA:

After 3 months of RMA’ing both the HMD and Controllers a few times, i decided to refund the Index kit, cause i think it’s not worth going through the hassle of getting a ”perfect” kit and being forced to use my Vive in the meantime, so when the replacements arrive that i have to get used to the blacks again (and a bit to the controllers).

The first RMA was for the HMD (having very distracting mura, was indeed the hmd, replacement didn’t have it) and the controllers (having the click issue (which i didn’t mind at first) but seemed to be causing a drift in the direction i clicked it in the most).

The second RMA was only for the controllers, developing a drift after minimal use of a bit over a week.

The third RMA was for the HMD having the backlight die on the left panel (so i could only see on my right)

The fourth RMA was for the Controllers for not registering clicks at all (not even in the center i could get it to register)

The fifth RMA was for the HMD having slanted lines on the right display (looks like the vertical scanline thing, butwas always there, didn’t matter if i moved my head or not in the right eye only, was quite noticeable, the lines went over the whole display going ”up” to the right.) (was indeed a display issue, the replacement didn’t have it)

​RMA number six was for the glue on the HMD coming lose (the glue that holds the rubber cover in place on the lenses).

RMA number seven was for the controllers ”skipping” positions on the sticks. (issue developed slowly)

RMA number eight was for both the left and right controller drifting out of the box (with the right stick being pointed down in software enough for SteamVR to recognize it and see it as an input)

RMA number nine was for the HMD only connecting one controller at the same time. (could only use the left or right controller, when disconnecting the left, the right would connect, but can’t connect the left anymore, the same otherway around).

And now i’m in the refund process for the HMD having some dust particles on the screen (not dead pixels, or mura either, definitely looks like dust that moves around with the screen when tilting the hmd up and down on my face, doesn’t follow the lenses, some dark looking round spots going over a few pixels

A truly horror story! :O

Final considerations

As I’ve said, I’ve written this post to give more voice to the Valve Index community on the problems it is having. But don’t misunderstand it: I have gathered some complain posts, but there are out there many people not having any problem with the Valve Index headset and all its related accessories. People that are having complaints are more inclined to write a post than the ones for which everything is working great, that’s why the impression is always the one of the problems being more of how many they actually are.

Customers of all headsets are having problems and the ones of the Valve Index are no exception. Manufacturing a VR device is not easy, and faulty parts may happen. It is part of the game of buying a piece of hardware of an experimental technology.

We have also to praise Valve because most of the times its customer support honors its duties and replaces the defective units. Also the company is actively working in improving the device, and the new type of controllers, just changed in these days, is a proof of that. Good Guy Valve is caring its customers a lot.

But on the other side, I also want to be critic. The Valve Index is a premium headset retailing at $1000. How is it possible that so many people are having issues? And how is it possible that someone has to return the units 2, 3, or 4 times to finally have a working device? For that price, I would expect another type of quality control.

The problems on the controllers are also absurd, considering that Valve has waited so much before launching them because it wanted to be sure that quality was the best possible (do you remember the 3 different iterations? Pepperidge Farm remembers). Why haven’t they delayed them a bit more, to be sure that the quality was the one expected?

And then the last critic is on the waiting times. It is no good that people have to wait many days to have a replacement of the controllers or the headset. Again, with a premium device, I would expect a premium assistance. The reason is that the Index is sold out of course (and that’s a piece of fantastic news)… but considering that they knew that Half-Life: Alyx would have generated a big hype, why haven’t they ramped up the production before?

The Index is a premium headset, and I think that it could also become interesting for business cases (e.g. for prototyping, interior design, manufacturing, etc…). But after having read all these complaints, as a consultant, I don’t know if I would advise my enterprise clients to buy it, mostly because:

• It has not a clear business licensing
• Due to the fact it is sold out, it is impossible to buy a big batch of it
• There are problems in durability of the device
• RMA times may be long.

So, another question that I have is: will the Index remain a gaming headset, leaving the B2B sector to companies like HTC, HP and Varjo?

These are interesting questions, and I will try reaching out to Valve to get an answer on all of this…

(Header image by Rob Cole)