Evaluating whether Joy-Con tracking is worth your time depends heavily on your hardware inventory and personal tolerance for troubleshooting.
If you already own two to four Joy-Cons, a compatible Bluetooth dongle, and a reliable PCVR streaming connection, the financial investment sits at roughly zero dollars. It serves as an entertaining technical experiment, letting you test how full-body movement feels in social spaces before opening your wallet for a commercial tracking system.
If you must purchase Joy-Cons specifically for this project, the math collapses. A new pair of Joy-Cons costs $80, and acquiring four to achieve stable waist, knee, and foot coverage pushes costs to $160. Add in elastic mounting straps, extension cables, and an external Bluetooth adapter, and your total bill approaches $200.
For that exact budget, you can purchase pre-assembled SlimeVR tracker sets or assemble genuine open-source IMUs running superior BNO085 sensors. These dedicated alternatives offer eight-hour battery runtimes, dedicated Wi-Fi broadcasting, and vastly superior drift mitigation.
