I was setting up an order on Amazon to purchase all the necessary (and some unnecessary) components for room scale VR, and I ran into a problem: The Oculus cameras are not wireless. So I threw a pile of inactive and active USB 3.0 extension cables into my cart, making up for the ~100 ft of cable I need to run all around my room (in total, the longest distance is about 30ft if I recall correctly).
I ran into one problem though: My plan was to use a longer active cable, followed by a shorter inactive cable(like this one) (like one of the cables included with the Rift). I would run these cables in series, with the active cable plugged directly into my PCI-E USB 3.0 hub. Will this work, or should I just get all active cables?
EDIT 1: I have done away with the cheap Amazon inactive cables, however the link still leads to them. The inactive cable I am talking about is the one found on the Oculus Rift's sensor cameras. I have also started using this active USB 3 cable as well as one (as opposed to the three I was planning to use prior to this edit) CableCreation cables.
Best Answer
Random combinations of active/passive parts from Amazon likely won't work. There are technical difficulties when transmitting USB 3 signals over that long distances. Two solutions exist so far:
Active cables with re-timers every 4 meters, see products from Newnex. Maximum cable without a hub in between is 16 meters, with three re-drivers in between; This is mostly very new developments.
More established fiber-optical converters (USB-fiber-USB), made by Corning Optical Cables. These can run for 30 meter distance.
I haven't tried any active extender cables myself yet. None of these cables, AFAIK, have USB-IF certification logo, but I personally would trust more the Corning solution.
But if your active extender ends with active Type-A receptacle,
it is very likely that the USB 3 signal would be fully restored at this end, and extra passive cable of your device will likely work.