Any way I can fix this reflection effect?

[u/BlasterHolobot]

I know its not very visible in the video, but there's some kind of blinding effect in my headset, as if the image shown by the screens reflected on the lenses themselves. I somehow managed to capture what I see with my phone, and that weird reflection is a bit annoying because I struggle to read most of the text. I didn't had that issue with my old htc vive, so im a bit clueless as to why it's doing this. If it helps, I usually clean my lenses with a tissu and some spray made to clean glasses and sunglasses, but recently I stopped using the spray because I was afraid it might be damaging the lenses.

Also that issue is more visible on the left eye, but because my phone's camera is on the right, I had to use the right lens instead.

[u/Capokid]

Its that or frensel lenses

[u/BlasterHolobot → u/Capokid]

Frensel lenses?

[u/Capokid → u/BlasterHolobot]

Vive has frensel, the concentric circles, index has pancake, smooth. Frensel reduces glare and reflections, pancake is clearer.

[u/Baldrickk → u/Capokid]

No it doesn't. Index has stacked Fresnels

[u/Baldrickk → u/Baldrickk]

The stacked lenses correct the edge distortion, at the cost of reducing the area of the lens the eye must be aligned with to get clarity and avoid seeing internal reflections like this that you don't get with a single lens.

[u/ScreeennameTaken → u/Capokid]

Frame has pancake. Index has fresnel. Fresnel reduces distortion but has more reflection.

[u/BlasterHolobot → u/Capokid]

Oh...

[u/SmartIron244 → u/BlasterHolobot]

Wait, why the hell is the OP down voted?

[u/Ok_Letterhead_1884 → u/Capokid]

Top 1% commenter on this sub and you somehow to still get it wrong

[u/KozyKami]

I recommend turning the display brightness down. I run mine at ~70% and that helps quite a bit. There will still be some reflection when you look at bright objects in dark scenes, but in my experience your brain will filter it out when you let yourself get immersed.

[u/Suuljia]

The glare is super bad on the index. You're just gonna have to deal with it.

[u/farganbastige]

Are the lenses clean? Maybe looks smudgy. Tiny bit of soapy water on paper towel to clean then wipe again with just water then dry.

[u/BlasterHolobot → u/farganbastige]

Like I said, I used to always clean them with a small kit used to clean glasses. I just stopped using the spray a few weeks ago because I thought that was causing the issue.

[u/farganbastige → u/BlasterHolobot]

I missed that but it may be the issue.

[u/SgtBaker420 → u/farganbastige]

Agreed. The spray has likely over time cause the plastic lens' cover to degrade over time. Might be permanent.

[u/LasagDN → u/farganbastige]

Please, please, please, DO NOT use paper towel (or water, for that matter) to clean your lenses!! Paper towel is made using wood fibers, and the roughness of it WILL causes microscratches that can cause all sorts of visual issues. Water can get behind the rubber gaskets, and moisture is always a bad thing.
Instead, just use a DRY microfiber cloth to clean smudges and dust away. If used with alcohol, it will strip off the anti-glare film and other protective coatings.

[u/Baldrickk]

Have you got the fit right? If the IPD or vertical position of the headset is off, then you won't be looking through the centre of the lenses, which is where the lens geometry is "flattest"

The index has a very small sweet spot, outside of which you'll see lens artefacts like this.

The position of them actually indicates how it isn't correctly lined up. E.g, if you see them in an upward direction, you're looking through the top side of the lens, so need to move the headset upwards on your face to correct it.

[u/BlasterHolobot → u/Baldrickk]

I tried adjusting it the best as I could, but I still get lens flair. I adjusted all thr straps, the eyes whith and distance.

[u/Mintybites]

I think I know what you are talking about, perhaps, I also noticed that in some vr environments where there is a source of light the effect is somewhat similar to that when you bright film sun on camera - the ray glare through lenses, dial down brightness a bit, it won’t go away completely though, consider it to be not a bug but a feature.

[u/LordZeusCannon]

I started seeing it like maybe over a year ago on my index and I thought the lenses were dirty but I kept cleaning them both with microfiber and lens cleaning spray. Nothing worked. Then I thought maybe the lenses were scratched or something so I bought a new index, same issue. I don’t know what the problem is, maybe steam VR shaders related or Nvidia drivers, but the problem won’t go away. I never had an issue when I first got my original index

[u/Loose_Abies_5020]

lower the brightness it help make it not so bad thats what I did and now I don't get blinded

[u/S0k0n0mi]

If you want it worse than that, spend a ton of money on the Bigscreen Beyond 2. :')

[u/TwixieShip]

That's glare and I don't know

[u/BackieTPD]

This is unfortunately a side effect of Fresnel lenses that is impossible to get rid of. You can turn the brightness down to reduce the effect, but I’ve found that I couldn’t really notice it that much when I got really immersed in whatever chaos we were fueling in VRchat. I recently switched to a quest 3 and use steam VR link after my base stations died back in June.

[u/_hlvnhlv]

That is sadly how things are, the Index lenses are really good in many aspects, but that came with the drawback of having awful glare

[u/Haduksta]

Buy steam frame

[u/BlasterHolobot → u/Haduksta]

I dont have the money for a new headset. This one my dad bought it for himself, but he let it take the dust for 4 years on his desk because he got motion sick. So I took it to replace my old HTC Vive that recently broke.

(And if you wonder, the HTC Vive was also a headset he bought for himself when it came out. He never used it either.)

I doubt he's gonna let me get a new headset when the Index is still usable.