If it’s too difficult to stand for hours on end playing a VR game, you’ll eventually want to move to a chair since a couch is a bit too stationary. And if you’ve played in a VR headset from the comfort of your swivel chair, then you know the Flintstones action you need to do with your feet to spin around. The Roto VR Explorer gaming chair is doing away with all that extra effort with a full motorized base that doesn’t have the extra bulk.
However, it’s the one device that makes me sick from VR vertigo just by looking at it. The Roto VR Explorer essentially acts as an all-in-one station for your headset, specifically the Meta Quest 3 . To get the chair to spin on its own, you’ll need to wear a device that looks like a hockey puck on the top of the Quest’s head strap to track when you turn your head.
There’s also a haptic motor that runs through the seat and back of the chair to offer some force feedback while gaming. For those longer sessions, you can pass the Quest’s power cable through the chair to give it some extra juice. The Roto chair enters the realm of expensive, highly specific movement peripherals such as the omnidirectional treadmills and other devices with concave, low-friction surfaces to walk on.
Some researchers have also tried foot-sensing floormats and motorized shoes to offer that sense of movement without moving. We’ve yet to see a more sedentary setup designed specifically for Quest than the Roto VR. The Explorer has a circular stand and.