>>275878282
ignore the shitposts. A "basestation" is a lighthouse that strobes your room with pulses of invisible infrared light. With at least two basestations, the controllers and headset can use the timing of the pulses to figure out where they are in 3d space via simple embedded light sensors. Vive and Index use this system for both headsets and controllers. Pimax too but nobody has pimax. This Steam VR lighthouse ecosystem is the competing technology to Oculus's camera-based tracking.

If you're buying a vive/index without basestations/lighthouses you're buying a paperweight lol