I broke my HP Windows Mixed Reality headset I bought five years ago in 2018. I made a repair effort, but the results are questionable with risk of electrical faults. I'm not comfortable risking damage to an expensive video card but I also appreciated having an excuse to upgrade.

A lot has changed in those five years. Most 3DOF VR garbage have faded away as the market realized that they sucked. Facebook poured a lot of money into virtual/augmented reality, including buying Oculus, spurring investment from others as well. Oculus launched the 3DOF Go headset (not interesting) followed by the 6DOF Quest headset (worth considering). Now we have the relatively affordable Quest 2 and the high-end Quest Pro. Both of which has onboard computing power to run standalone: no tether to break! But there are limitations to standalone operation: software-wise, we are limited to Oculus walled garden of applications, and graphics are limited by onboard hardware that are closer to phones than PCs. Fortunately Steam VR compatibility and better graphics fidelity can be had by using them as tethered PC VR headsets.

HTC, the other half of old PC VR duopoly, still exists and continues to evolve their line, releasing products across a price range that doesn't dip as low as Quest 2 at the low end but definitely gets to Quest Pro on the high end. As far as I can tell, evolution has been incremental improvements without any significant innovation like Quest and their standalone operating ability.

Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality initiative seems to have lost momentum. After a flurry of headsets from multiple manufacturers five years ago, only Acer and HP released follow-up products. And it's not just hardware releases that have dried up: I haven't seen anything notable on the software front, either. Certainly nothing as notable as Oculus' exclusives. I had really hoped Microsoft would port some variation of their Mars rover software from high-end Hololens to more affordable WMR headsets, but that never happened. It's a good thing WMR headsets are compatible with Steam VR, because that's where I've been spending my VR time.

I don't think I've spent 1582 hours, though. That multiplies out to over two months. Searching online, I found many people complain Steam overcounts VR usage time. I'm going to blame that, because I really doubt I've spent two out of past sixty months of my life in VR. (Or if it is true, I don't want to believe it.)

If I'm spending all my time in Steam VR anyway, then the obvious candidate is Valve Index who counts Steam VR as its home turf. It is a very well-reviewed headset with a notable innovation in handheld controller design. After evaluating the tradeoffs against other options on the market, I bought a Valve Index.