The Oculus Rift: My Virtual Reality Experience

Wow Factor

Any new technology that uses virtual reality usually gains a lot of attention. The “wow factor” alone is enough to excite people. The Oculus Rift clearly wowed people, earning over $2 million on Kickstarter. As soon as I was in the same room as the device, I could feel the anticipation of being transported to another world.

Becoming Immersed

I didn’t immediately feel immersed in the virtual world but I eventually learned how to obtain that feeling of true immersion. All of a sudden you feel yourself leave your living room and enter the virtual world in front of you. If you haven’t felt it yet, don’t worry. Keep trying and you’ll know it when you feel it.

The main thing for me was not touching anything in the real world. Stand up so you’re not sitting in a chair. In order to move around, though, you still need to touch the controller or mouse/keyboard. I let someone else control so I could just move around in a circle as he walked me forward. I found myself walking in place to emulate the movement so it could be interesting to integrate something like a Wii balance board that tracks steps for movement controls. Using a spinning chair to move around would also be fascinating but you would still be rooted to something in the real world then.

So Sick! So sick…

As exciting as the immersion was, that excitement was quickly replaced by queasiness. After using the device for barely a few minutes, I started to feel nauseous. While moving around in the virtual world, I sometimes lost my balance in the physical world. Going up steps was an accident waiting to happen. An unintentional slip of the hand could send me moving too quickly to process or focus on the virtual world.

I really wanted to stay in the virtual world because it truly was such an awesome experience, but my stomach and my head just couldn’t handle it. If I stayed in virtual reality for too long, I’d be cleaning up a regurgitated mess in reality sooner or later. Thankfully, the updated version of the Oculus Rift looks like it will leave users less queasy. I’d love to spend all day in a virtual world without the risk of vomiting!