Virtual reality is truly a much more tactile gaming experience than the traditional act of sitting in a chair in front of the glare of a computer screen. The Roto VR Explorer Chair asks: Why can't we have both? Does it work? Yes. If all you want is an automatic chair designed specifically for Meta Quest 3 or the upcoming Quest 3S, then $800 Roto VR Explorer Fits the bill. What you're giving up in this deal is ease of use, and if you're as tired of VR as I am, you'll be giving up your lunch.
To understand my issue with the chair (and many VR gaming mascots), you have to know that I haven't been safe on any roller coaster in over a decade. I haven't been able to go on any kind of ride since my teenage model decided to ride one of the rides at The Zipper carnival after eating a bowl full of beef stroganoff. I can't even read my phone for long periods of time in the passenger seat of the car without feeling nauseous.
This makes VR a difficult feat for me. If my character moves but my body remains motionless, I will quickly gain the pale cream color of the Meta's Quest helmets. That's a pretty bad deal for the $800 Roto VR Explorer. To use the chair, turn your head and the chair will rotate accordingly. The idea makes sense. This could be a huge accessibility win for people with mobility issues who want a more immersive VR experience. However, my problem with VR sickness comes from the fact that my body remains motionless when my character moves.
The Roto VR Explorer requires a lot more effort than the Easy Quest headset
Normally, all you have to do is put on the Meta Quest 3 and 3S headset to jump straight into your favorite VR game. Roto VR Explorer requires a little more effort to set up. The pieces fit together logically and aren't too difficult to build if you've already assembled your regular Ikea chair. The hardest part is turning on the Roto VR's haptic rumble. You need to pair the wireless headphones to the chair by turning them off from any other Bluetooth devices, then place them nearby and pair your audio pairs with the head tracker. There were some instances where I gave in and used mission-specific audio.
The chair requires an additional hockey puck, called a head tracker, to operate. The dial slides into the top of the Meta Quest bar and adjusts well to your head movements. It pairs easily and charges wirelessly from a slot in the base of the chair. It also makes you look more foolish than the task actually is. At the very least, you can run a USB-C cable up to the Quest 3 or 3S to keep the headset constantly charged if you really want to game for more than the normal two hours of battery life.
Once setup is complete, head tracking works as expected. I only noticed a slight delay of a millisecond when I moved my head before the chair started turning. The chair makes a loud mechanical wiring noise, which I can hear when wearing the AirPods Professional with ANC enabled. The more you move your head, the faster you go, although I never felt like I was going so fast that I would jump out of my chair. I felt like the big bad guy in a James Bond movie, turning to my colleagues with a devilish grin. That was until I tried removing it without turning off the hockey puck first. Then I looked even more cartoonish as I turned around uncontrollably like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.
The swivel chair is the stationary roller coaster I never wanted
Design is a bigger issue if you're playing a more intense game. If you turn quickly and straighten your head, the Roto VR Explorer will suddenly stop. It will be smoother if you don't turn your head at a 90 degree angle. It's tough when pitchers love the show Immortal Vader games. In these titles, you are supposed to turn 180 degrees to face an enemy directly behind you. the next Batman: Shadow of ArkhamCombat requires you to throw your arm to the side and turn to confront an attacking enemy outside your line of sight.
Some games will not play well with Roto VR. Any game that requires you to move your body from side to side to avoid obstacles, like many of the levels in it defeat saber, Or any title that wants you to physically move around the room, e.g Useless Drop: CabinHe is very upset that the chair cannot move. This works best for gallery shooters or any game that requires you to stay still and rotate around a single level.
Of course, like heavy machinery simulator Excavator simulator or DigVR This seems like a must for this type of hardware, but if you're like me, you want to try it in a game worth playing, e.g The wrath of Asgard II. This is where I experienced the worst of VR. When I moved the joystick and turned my head, I felt like I was in the seat of a roller coaster. I stopped, leaned forward on my knees, and took deep breaths until the nausea subsided. Embroidered sweat under headband strap. I was as uncomfortable as ever in VR. It's better to sit on a mountain without having to do that independent movement.
This is best when playing with teleportation movement abilities. However, there are enough games like this that allow the analog stick to be rotated. Even with touch, I can't say I was any more immersed than if I were standing. The real question we should ask ourselves is whether this is really useful for certain games. The instructions accompanying the chair announce that Roto is working on a large drive unit to connect to the Roto VR device. I should not point out that there is no need to turn your body in the cockpit of a race car.
RotoVR hopes to make it compatible with other headsets like the Apple Imaginative and Prescient Professional. Headphones might be more interesting when combined with Apple's Spatial UI or when watching 360-degree video. However, you'll need some sort of tray to use your keyboard and mouse to stream from your Mac. There may be more specialized use cases for the Roto VR Explorer, but I don't want to revisit anything that reminds me of the creepy clouds of my youth.
