The Roto VR chair reminds me of my most traumatic carnival experience

Virtual reality already provides a much more tactile gaming experience than the traditional act of lingering in a chair in front of the glow of a computer screen. The Roto VR Explorer chair asks: why can’t we have both? Does it work? Yes. If all you wanted was an automated chair designed specifically for the Meta Quest 3 or the upcoming Quest 3S, the $800 Roto VR Explorer will be the one for you. In this bargain, you’re giving up ease of use and, if you’re tired of VR like me, lunch.

To understand my problem with the chair (and many types of VR games), you need to know that I haven’t been safe on any roller coaster for over a decade. I haven’t been able to go on any amusement rides since that idiotic teenage version of me decided to get on one of the carnival rides at The Zipper after eating a full bowl of beef stroganoff. I can’t even read my phone for too long while sitting in the passenger seat of a car without feeling nauseous.

This makes VR a difficult task for me. If my character is moving but my body remains still, I will quickly change the Meta’s Quest headsets to a pale cream color. That’s a pretty bad deal for an $800 Roto VR Explorer. To use the chair, you turn your head and the chair turns accordingly. The concept makes some sense. This could be a big accessibility benefit for people with mobility issues who want a more immersive VR experience. However, my problem with VR sickness is that my body stays still when my character moves.

The Roto VR Explorer requires significantly more effort than the Simple Quest headset

Typically, you just need to put on your Meta Quest 3 and 3S headset to jump straight into your favorite VR title. Roto VR Explorer takes more effort to set up. The parts fit together logically and putting them together isn’t too difficult if you’ve ever assembled your average Ikea chair. The hardest part is triggering the Roto VR haptic effect. You need to pair the wireless headphones to the chair by disconnecting them from your other Bluetooth device, then hold them close and pray for the audio to pair with the head tracker. There were a few instances where I gave up and just used my own Quest sound.

For the chair to function, an additional hockey puck is needed, called a head sensor. The puck slides into the top of the Meta Quest headband and tracks the movement of your head. It can be easily paired and charged wirelessly from a slot in the base of the chair. It also makes you look more dweeb than Quest. You can at least connect a USB-C cable to the Quest 3 or 3S to keep the headset constantly charged if you really want to game beyond the standard two hours of battery life.

Once setup is complete, head tracking works as expected. I didn’t notice anything beyond the tiniest millisecond delay when I moved my head before the chair began to rotate. The chair makes a loud mechanical cabling noise, which I heard when wearing AirPods Pro with ANC turned on. The further you move your head, the faster you can go, although I never felt like I was going so fast that I would fly out of my chair. I felt like the big bad of a James Bond movie, turning to my co-workers with an evil smile. That was until I tried to remove it without first turning off the hockey puck. Then I looked much more cartoonish as I spun around uncontrollably like Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.

The swivel chair is the stationary roller coaster I never wanted

The design poses a bigger problem if you’re playing a more intense game. If you rotate at high speed and straighten your head, the Roto VR Explorer jars will stop. It’s much more gentle if you don’t turn the head 90 degrees. This is difficult in gallery shooters like Vader Immortal. You must turn a full 180 degrees to deal with the enemy directly behind you. Upcoming Batman: Arkham Shadowcombat requires you to throw your arm to the side and turn to face an enemy attacking outside your field of view.

There are some games that will not work well with Roto VR. Any game that requires you to move your body sideways to avoid obstacles, like many levels Defeat Saber, or any title that requires you to physically move around the room, e.g Drop Dead: The Shackis seriously hampered by the immobility of the chair. Works best in gallery shooters or any game that requires you to stay still and rotate around a single point.

Sure, heavy machinery simulators like that Excavator simulator Or DigVR seem to be a hit or miss for this type of device, but if you’re like me, you’d want to try it out in a game that’s worth playing, e.g. Wrath of Asgard II. This is where I experienced the worst VR sickness. When I moved with the control stick and turned my head, it felt like I was in a roller coaster seat. I stopped, leaned forward on my knees, and breathed heavily until the nausea passed. Sweat beaded under the band of the headband. I felt as uncomfortable as I’ve ever felt in VR. It will be better if you are back on the mount and do not need to move independently.

It is better to play with any teleportation movement capabilities. Still, enough of these games allow you to rotate the analog stick. Even by touch, I couldn’t say I was any more submerged than I would have been had I been standing. The real question we need to ask is whether this is really useful in certain games. The manual included with the chair states that Roto is working on a large drive module that can be connected to Roto VR. I don’t need to remind you that you don’t have to turn around in the cockpit of a race car.

RotoVR hopes to be compatible with other headsets such as the Apple Vision Pro. The headset may be more interesting when paired with Apple’s spatial UI or 360-degree video viewing. Still, you’ll need some sort of table to use your keyboard and mouse to transfer files from your Mac. There may be more niche uses for the Roto VR Explorer, but I have no desire to go back to anything that will remind me of the terrifying Zipper of my youth.