We’ve all felt it before – the feeling of being sucked into a game. As you walk down the map in your avatar, you creep around the area, completely sensible of your in-game surroundings while oblivious to the obvious glare from the neighbor’s cat staring into your window. As you creep down a dark alleyway – boom – you’re dead. Then, the immersion is gone. As you stare at the kill cam, reality comes back and you’ve lost your focus on the game.
However, what if there was another way to game, one which wouldn’t sap the immersion we all love feeling? This was our exact thinking when we came across Virtuix’s Omni One. While not available to the public yet, Virtuix promises to be “the most promising and seemingly effective locomotion option to date.”
More than just a VR set, the Omni One’s biggest selling point is its omnidirectional gaming system which allows players to turn, walk, and run in full 360 while experiencing the captivating sensation of Virtual Reality. With a system that includes a newly designed VR treadmill, a VR headset, and exclusive access to a curated collection of original content, Virtuix’s mission to provide customers with a fully immersive experience is not fruitless.
Diving into the actual mechanics of the Omni One, one of the most impressive, yet unadvertised, features of the gaming system is its ability to decouple body orientation from foot tracking. We imagine this is one of those things the user doesn’t notice is done correctly unless it is done the opposite, but Virtuix managed to achieve this perfectly with a designated sensor to decouple your body movements. The prospect of being able to look left and right as you walk around without the worry of your orientation changing as you move your head is one of Omni One’s biggest strengths: being able to mimic how people walk and look at things in the real world.
In addition to the experience, simply the convenience of the gaming system is stellar. The Omni boom stand is perfect for comfortable VR and provides the ease of easy cable management. The stand can be tailored to whatever height the user requires, allowing them free body movement – whether that movement is jumping or crouching. The overshoes offer a surprisingly smooth contact with the Omni treadmill: allowing players to fluidly walk, jog, and even run without worry of falling over or slipping off. Coincidingly, the dual foot trackers provide seamless and precise responses in-game to movements from your legs.
Some of our issues? With the $2,595 price tag, the Omni One experience comes with one Omni One Incline Vest, one Headset, one pair of Hand Controllers, one pair of Overshoes, one pair of Foot Trackers, and a Cleaning Essentials Kit. The price is one of our biggest issues with the Omni One, as most high-quality VR headsets and controllers currently available to the public come at a price range from $300-$600. So, do the other four items in this kit warrant the $2,000 price tag on them? We find it hard to believe. However, if you’re willing to invest in the experience Virtuix promises or just the idea of getting a fun workout in through their treadmill, this purchase may not be a bad choice.
Overall, we’d advise waiting a bit longer until technology regarding augmented and virtual reality advances. While the promise of an immersive escape from reality sounds propitious, the time for that hasn’t come just yet. If you’d like to still experience this feeling, however, we’d recommend grabbing three of your friends and heading down to an Omni Arena entertainment space. With 73 locations across the U.S., you and your friends will be able to temporarily feel the engrossment the Omni One promises at only a fraction of the price.
