poleview://live.racing
How to watch a live race in VR
A live session, rebuilt as a holographic diorama on your table — the whole field at once, in true positions, while it is actually happening. Two free downloads, about ten minutes, once.
What you need
- A Meta Quest 3 or 3S. PoleView is standalone — all the rendering happens on the headset.
- A Windows PC on the same home Wi-Fi as the headset.
- PoleView, free from SideQuest.
- PoleView Bridge, our free PC program — one download, set up once. It's the piece that transmits the race to your headset.
- A live timing source you already run and are entitled to use, for the bridge to read. MultiViewer is one such source.
No PC? You're not locked out — recorded races play on the headset alone, with nothing to set up. Everything below is only for live.
poleview://walkthrough
The walkthrough
Six steps. Steps 1–3 are once, ever. Steps 4–6 are what a race day actually looks like.
> 01_headset
Step 1: Install PoleView on your Quest 3 or 3S
PoleView is a free sideloaded app for Meta Quest 3 and 3S. Install it from its SideQuest listing, then launch it on the headset from Library → Unknown Sources → PoleView. The install guide covers developer mode if this is your first sideload.
Do this part before race day. A recorded race opens by itself on first run — no PC, no account, nothing to configure. That is your proof the headset side works, and it means the only new thing on race day is the PC.
> 02_pc
Step 2: Download and extract PoleView Bridge on your PC
PoleView Bridge is our small free PC program — the piece that lets the headset see a live feed. Get it from globalphoenix.co.uk/bridge.
It is a .zip — extract the folder, then run
PoleView-Bridge.exefrom inside it. A status page opens in your browser with three lights. Windows will happily run the program straight out of the zip and it will start — but the screen mirror that ships beside it won't be there, and the in-headset screens will show nothing. Extract first, keep the files together.The bridge installs nothing, doesn't run at startup, and exists only while its window is open. To restart it ever: run the exe again.
> 03_the.two.warnings
Step 3: Click through the Windows warning, and allow the firewall prompt
These are the only two things that ever go wrong, and both are silent when they do.
1. “Windows protected your PC”. Click More info, then Run anyway — the More info link is small and easy to miss, and it is the only way to reach the button. This appears because the bridge isn't code-signed; a certificate needs a few hundred pounds a year, which a free project doesn't have yet. Windows shows it for every unsigned program.
Anyone telling you to click past a security warning owes you a way to check what you're running, so: the download page publishes the file's SHA-256. Compare it before you run anything:
Get-FileHash .\PoleView-Bridge.zip -Algorithm SHA256If it doesn't match, don't run it — you didn't get our file.
2. The firewall prompt — tick “Private networks” and allow it. This is the single most likely thing to break your first race. Dismiss the prompt and Windows writes a Block rule: the lights stay red with no other symptom. The bridge notices after about 45 seconds and says so in plain words. To fix it after the fact: Windows Defender Firewall → Allow an app through firewall → PoleView Bridge → tick Private networks. If it's already listed as blocked, delete the entry and run the bridge again so Windows asks fresh.
And turn off any VPN. A headset cannot reach a VPN address. The bridge names the VPN address when it sees one.
> 04_the.feed
Step 4: Give the bridge a feed to read
The bridge doesn't need telling where to look. Point a live timing feed at your PC and it finds it:
- Open your timing source and load the session.
- Start its PoleView feed.
- The bridge shows Data feed: green — and names what it found, so you're never guessing.
If your source is MultiViewer (multiviewer.app, an independent third-party timing app — not ours, and not something we distribute), the bridge attaches to it by itself. With MultiViewer open but no session loaded it reports “MV-follow armed” and waits; open a race and it connects.
Nothing live running? The bridge can replay a past session straight from disk — no timing app and no subscription involved at all. It reports the recording as a live source and names the session. That is the honest way to rehearse the whole chain before a race weekend, rather than debugging during one.
> 05_put.it.on
Step 5: Put the headset on and open PoleView
That's it. PoleView finds the PC on its own — there is nothing to type in VR. Put the diorama on your table and the whole field is there, live, in true positions.
Crouch to trackside and a pack looks like a pack. Stand up and you can see an overtake building three corners before it happens — which is the entire reason this exists, and the thing a broadcast camera structurally cannot show you.
> 06_screens
Step 6: Turn SCREENS on to bring your video windows into the headset
Turn SCREENS on from the in-headset menu and the bridge mirrors the video windows you already have open on the PC. They appear as floating screens beside the diorama, and the onboard screen follows whichever driver you select in the headset.
There is nothing to set up — the bridge starts the mirror itself once it has a source, and its third light (Screens) tells you what it's doing. Two conditions:
- The windows must be open and not minimised. The mirror captures the window; a minimised window has nothing to capture. Overlapping windows are fine.
- Leave the bridge running. Close it and the mirror stops with it.
If the Screens light is red it names the reason. The usual one is running the bridge from inside the zip instead of the extracted folder — step 2.
Nothing you watch leaves your PC: the mirror sends it to your headset over your own network and nowhere else.
Every race after that
The one-time part is done. From here a race weekend is three moves:
- Run the bridge.
- Open your timing source, load the session, start the PoleView feed.
- Put the headset on.
No addresses, no pairing, no accounts. If the lights are green, the headset connects on its own.
poleview://when.a.light.is.red
When a light is red
The bridge diagnoses itself and prints the cause on its own status page — you should rarely need this table. The causes, in the order they actually bite:
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| Data feed green, headset red forever | A firewall block on the bridge executable. Step 3 — and note Windows blocks per-binary, so an allow rule you granted some other program does not help this one. |
| “Cannot be reached at <ip>:<port>” | Another program holds the port, or the feed is bound IPv6-only. The bridge refuses to advertise an address it cannot verify rather than sending the headset somewhere wrong. |
| Headset red, a VPN address listed | The VPN is capturing the route. Turn it off. |
| Headset red, same Wi-Fi confirmed | Router “AP isolation” is stopping devices on the network from talking to each other. |
| “No race data to send” | A timing app is open, but no session is loaded. |
| Screens light red | Usually the bridge was run from inside the zip. Extract the folder and run it from there (step 2). |
As a last resort the status page prints your PC's address to type into the headset menu by hand. If you get that far, please report it — a setup that needs typing is a bug on our side, not yours.
poleview://faq
Questions people actually ask
Ready for the next session?
PoleView is free and built by one developer. If it earns a place in your race weekend, support keeps the series adapters coming.
MultiViewer is an independent third-party application, not affiliated with PoleView or Global Phoenix Solutions Ltd, and is named here only as one example of a timing feed PoleView Bridge can read. PoleView visualises position data you already have and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any motorsport series, team, championship, or sanctioning body.