Owo’s haptic vest will make games feel uncomfortably real

[The TechRadar story below describes a new wireless haptic vest designed to be more immersive and more comfortable than similar existing products; the author of the ExtremeTech story that follows it is more skeptical. But it seems extremely likely that if it’s not the OWO Game vest it’ll be another product that enhance the user’s presence experience and the TechRadar story makes the interesting observation about how the new level of realism will “make us approach our VR experiences differently.” –Matthew]

This award-winning VR shirt promises a level of immersion we aren’t ready for

Owo’s haptic vest will make games feel uncomfortably real

By Hamish Hector
December 21, 2021

Have you ever wanted your video games to hurt? Us neither, but that hasn’t stopped Owo from creating the Owo Game haptic vest, which will make your body feel every punch, cut and gunshot as you play.

This terrifying-looking invention has been honored at CES 2022‘s Innovation Awards. It boasts the ability to interface with games on mobile, PC, console, and VR platforms, and can currently deliver 30 unique sensations to wearers, with more planned by its creators.

To be fair to Owo, the vest doesn’t just deliver discomfort – it can also give you the sense that you’re free-falling or driving at 100mph, and you can even feel virtual hugs. On the downside, you’ll also be able to experience sensations that mimic being stabbed, shot (including feeling the exit wound as the slug leaves your body), and even bitten by an insect.

Thankfully, there are ways to turn down the intensity of (and even turn off) each sensation – so if you like your video games to be pain-free, you can keep it that way while still experiencing a deeper level of immersion.

That said, even given how frightening this Owo shirt sounds, we really want to try it out with every sensation set to a reasonable level. So far the best VR games have done well with immersing us using sight and sound alone, but with a third sense involved, we expect our digital surroundings will feel less virtual than ever.

We also expect that the vest will change how we approach compatible VR games mentally.

If you’ve ever played laser tag, you’ll know that while it’s a lot of fun it encourages a cavalier attitude, because at the end of the day you’re going to go home uninjured, even if your score takes a few hits when you get shot.

But if you then transition to a game of paintball, that attitude changes. Paintballs can actually hurt depending on how and where you’re shot – and that slight fear you’re instilled with encourages you to play very differently if you want to go home unscathed.

In the same way, even if it’s not going to be meting out that much pain, we imagine that the Owo Game vest will still engender enough fear to make us approach our VR experiences differently to how we might otherwise play a round of Halo Infinite‘s multiplayer.

Owo hasn’t confirmed a price or launch date for the Game vest yet, but we’ll hopefully get the chance to give it a try when we head over to CES in a few weeks.

[From ExtremeTech]

New Haptic Vest Lets You Experience Getting Shot, Virtually

By Josh Norem
December 21, 2021

Ask any gamer what they want right now and most will say a GPU, but when you say, “besides that” most will state they always want more immersion. It’s why we have ultra-wide monitors, 3D audio, and high-fidelity graphics, after all. However, a new haptic vest from a Spanish company called OWO is promising to offer a level of immersion we never knew we wanted. We still aren’t sure.

The company’s yet-to-be-launched vest, which is called OWO Game, is pitched as being able to simulate a wide range of sensations on your upper body, according to TechRadar. The sensations are delivered in real-time, for any game you are playing, wirelessly. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing on mobile, in VR, on console or on PC, it supposedly works. To achieve this the company has deposited what appear to be tiny little “vibration pods” for lack of a better phrase, in 10 areas around the vest, which is made from lycra, breathable fabric, and elastic cables. Based on the artwork available, it looks like there’s two sensation zones on your abdomen, two on your chest, one on the front of each arm, and four across your lower back. Since this is 2021 there’s also an app, and it lets you customize the amount of force that’s used. According to the company, “Our algorithm of sensations allows us to create infinite different sensations such as the rain, a gunshot, the wind or a hug.” One catch is you have to wear the vest without anything underneath it, as there are “gel patches” which must make contact with your skin to deliver the sensations. Also the word “infinite” here means 30 different sensations.

Easily the most insane “feature” that this vest offers, according to the company’s press kit, is the ability to experience the following: being shot and feeling the bullet enter your stomach area, then feeling the bullet leave your body out your lower back, then experiencing the sensation of bleeding out from your gut. Maybe we’re reached the “get off my lawn” phase of our gaming careers, but this doesn’t seem like a particularly fun thing to experience, even virtually. As to how the technology can even pull that off, the only hint on the company’s website is in its FAQ, which states it uses “conductive gels,” and it’s battery powered, so now we’re picturing the typical torture scene from a movie where electricity is applied to certain body parts. We can imagine that would be painful, but it sounds more like when a charge is applied to the gels they just vibrate a bit. That’s just an educated guess, however.

Though we’re always excited about new technology, especially when it comes to haptics and VR, we are skeptical about this technology’s level of precision simply because its website is curiously light on details about how it was designed. For example, in explaining its haptic system, the website reads, “At OWO we have developed and patented a haptic system that allows users to feel real physical sensations. This system is composed of hardware and software. We have named the system technology: Sensations Technology.” Really? Hardware and software? We never would have guessed. That said, we would be glad to be proven wrong here, but our Spidey sense tingles a bit when cutting-edge technological innovations are announced with what reads like pure PR content without much detail. This isn’t our first rodeo, after all.

We’ll be able to find out more about the OWO Game vest soon, as it has already been given an innovation award by the people who run CES, and is expected to debut at the upcoming trade show. No pricing or availability date has been announced, but you can “pre-order” on the company’s website, but that appears to just let you know when they will be available, or something.

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