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 two pegs to key your feet in place.
The chair is motorized and claims it can turn at a max of 21 revs per second, which sounds like the worst carnival ride of your life. In order to turn your body you’ll need to stick a “roto head tracker” on top of the Quest’s head strap. The chair is also compatible with “all seated” VR experiences, according to the company.
It may not be the most comfortable setup, though the company says it’s working on a “Pro” version that comes with adjustable armrests and a back-of-head cushion. That should supposedly add even more haptics to your spine, though we’re curious to know if it’s as capable as other haptic cushions we’ve used from companies like Razer. The large size means this isn’t something you’ll stick next to your computer desk to act as your go-to gaming chair.
The trailer for the chair shows a group of friends or family surrounding the headset-wearer stuck in the center of the room, like a metaverse rendition of a monkey in the middle. If you ever watched somebody play VR, you probably know it can get boring and isolating rather quickly. Ultimately, the chair is made for singular players who don’t really feel like standing to play VR games.
Roto VR claims it’s compatible with more than 400 games on the Meta Quest store, but the company did not respond to our questions about whether it could be compatible with other headsets, or even Apple’s Vision Pro . The chair is available for preorder now, but it will still set you back a whole $800 on top of what you already paid for the $500 Meta Quest 3 . The chair is supposed to start shipping sometime in October.
Roto VR plans to show off its chair at Gamescom starting on Aug. 21 if you happen to be in Cologne, Germany, to—literally—take it for a spin..
