**The Oculus subreddit, a place for Oculus fans to discuss VR.** Last month I got the word from Virtuix that I was one of the lucky 50 pathfinders who would be getting their Omni early. Cooler still, I was basically the second person to get mine world-wide. I loaded up my truck and went to austin and picked it up, and was all excited to spill the guts on one of the most talked about VR devices out there. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CaAHZqYUYAApTjb.jpg Assembly was a snap, the thing basically comes together like Lego. It’s pretty much impossible to put the thing together incorrectly, as many of the pieces can only fit one way. In terms of ikea manual labor, the assembly was limited to 4 bolts and 6 screws. The unit is actually incredibly detachable, with the two base points at the corner and the actual dish itself being the largest components. I wanted to see how easy the Omni would be to store out of sight and out of mind, and was able to fit the dish behind my couch comfortably and tuck away all the metal framing in my closet without problem. If you can find a spot to place 2 vacuum cleaners and a duffle bag in your closet, you can store everything besides the dish without problem. Assembly time takes maybe 10 minutes top if you know what you’re doing, and, smartly, the Omni comes with a mat that also doubles as a set of lego-like wordless instructions in case you hit your head or something and can’t figure out how to assemble it. The main delay in getting any sort of review out of the Omni, not just from myself but from others, comes from the software side of things. It’s not that the software is buggy, but rather that the team has been taking feedback from the pathfinders on a weekly basis and making immediate changes, which is pretty neat to see up close. This makes describing the experience of the Omni a bit difficult, because any given issue I could potentially write about might be solved within a week. For the record, I (and the other pathfinders) are under a weak NDA which basically boils down to “use discretion.” Virtuix allows us to speak freely about our experiences, but asks us to at least give them a chance to address software concerns we have before speaking publicly. And to their credit, they’ve been very good at addressing my concerns. To give an example, the first revision of the software had some problems with Windows 10 that they hadn’t caught. We alerted them, and a week later, it worked in windows 10 without fault. Or, to give another example, the first revision we got felt a little “heavy” in getting the foot tracking going. We told them, and now it works like you’d expect. The give and take on tweaks has been pretty good, which has made many pathfinders weary about writing their experience. I’ll say that, today, the software side has become pretty great. The included game, Omni Arena, is incredible. The foot tracking in Omni Arena is native, not going through translation software, and it’s shocking how well it works. It feels very much 1:1, and the scenarios it puts you through are engaging. It’s actually been my most used Omni application thus far, and it’s the one I show people when they come over because it works so well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvNk10p5i8s- Video someone shot of Decoupled body orientation with the Omni Part of the reason it works so well is because of an unadvertised hardware feature of the Omni – the Omni can decouple body orientation from foot tracking. This is something I didn’t expect, and they dropped it on us in the pathfinder group out of the blue. It was a wonderful surprise. Without going into the nuts and bolts of precisely how it’s done (NDA, remember), the ring that holds the harness does the heavy lifting. There is actual hardware in the unit that lets the harness figure out it’s orientation in absolute space. Currently, only natively written games take advantage of it, but I have been in close contact with Bo Xuan Hon, author of GTAVR, and Virtuix, and they’re working on a way to get the body orientation tracking to talk to the translation software so that non-native applications can work with it. Having another sensor to decouple more of your body is amazing. It feels so good to be able to look left and right as you walk around and not have your orientation change with your head direction. It mimics the way we walk and look at objects in real life. The actual mechanics of walking in the omni feel good. Previously, when I’d tried the Omni, I had done it in 5 minute spurts in public demos with many people watching me, where I was one of many in a queue, which meant that straps were thrown on me quickly, and the overall experience wasn’t quite tailored to my body. With the benefit of an Omni at home, I am free to play around with settings and have figured out what works best for me. When I demoed the Omni in public, the handlers told me to keep the ring down low, at setting “4” on the arms (the arms have numbered height settings to let you know how high up the arms are reaching). I have found that’s not optimal for me. I prefer the arms up high, so that it cradles my waist and sort of lets my legs dangle a bit. At home, I use my arms at setting “6” and the walking gait feels natural. After a month with the omni, I am able to run and walk naturally, and it doesn’t feel awkward to me. One difference between home use and public demonstration is the “training wheels” they apply to new users. The harness that hugs the support ring has two pieces of metal above and below the rail, so that the harness stays snug. They call the bottom piece of this railing the “training wheels” as it keeps your torso horizontal and upright, but prevents you from, as an example, jumping or leaning. I found taking off the training wheels felt so much better, because when I step forward, my hips swing slightly. With the training wheels on, my hips weren’t free to swing, and it caused me to alter my step. With the training wheels off, my hips swung normally, and my step feels natural. The biggest perk of a treadmill like the omni is the ability to spin in space. It solves vestibular disconnect. Nobody gets sick when they try the Omni. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CaF5KQ8UcAA4b8_.jpg Undoubtedly, the question everyone asks is what non-omni games have I tried and enjoyed. The answers shouldn’t really be surprising. GTAV works well with the omni in gamepad mode (where it emulates a gamepad’s analog stick as you walk) as does skyrim and fallout 4. The so-called walking simulator games like Dear Esther and Gone Home are absolutely terrific with the omni – actually Dear Esther might be my favorite non-omni software I tried. I did a full playthrough of dear esther with the omni and was shocked at the end – the omni includes a sort of pedometer software to let you know how many miles or calories you’d walked or burned, and I had wound up walking like 10 miles in my dear esther playthrough. My legs burned for a good few days after that, lol. As an exercise machine, the omni makes me sweat like crazy. It can definitely get you in shape. I find I need to actually stretch before using it, as though I was going for a normal run. Incidentally, the Omni really screws with my dog, because prior to getting the omni, whenever I’d grab my shoes, that was an indication we were going to play fetch, but lately he’s been confused because I’ll grab my shoes to go into the omni. The Omni itself isn’t enormous, it’s about 5′ x 5′ big, which makes it about the same size as a big recliner or, perhaps more fittingly, a normal exercise treadmill. I’ve had people over who don’t know about VR – yes, including women I’ve brought back from dates – and they think it’s just a normal piece of exercise equipment until I explain what it is. I live on the second floor of a condo, and my downstairs neighbor has never come and complained, and we talk pretty frequently. I don’t even think he knows I have the a treadmill up here, but given that I have a dog he might just be used to noise coming from upstairs in general lol. When I’m not using my Omni, I push it to the corner of the room (it’s pretty easy to move, actually, at least on tile) and it doesn’t look obtrusive: http://i.imgur.com/XdQIAZ2.jpg Inevitably, people ask me “is it worth it? Should I buy one?” And that’s sort of a hard question to answer. Am I happy with my purchase? Yes, very much so. I think I got an incredible deal on the omni thanks to backing it early and because I did local pick up and didn’t have to pay shipping, but even at full price I think I wouldn’t have been upset with this purchase. However, with all VR, it’s a pretty big investment at the moment, given that you need a powerful computer and a VR headset. I think, given the adoption curve of VR in general, the Omni would see it’s first, immediate success in arcades. Thats what I compare it to the most, actually. It feels like I have an arcade machine in my house. I might be an edge case – I don’t balk at setting aside an entire room for roomscale VR tracking. I’ll pay whatever is asked for any piece of VR hardware. I’m pretty much the most fringe of all VR enthusiasts. Having this piece of equipment was never a question for me, I had been seeing omnidirectional treadmill concepts since the 90’s. I just always assumed this would be a part of VR. In the last survey, they asked if we could ever see ourselves going back to non-standing VR. I think that’s a bit of a complex question – obviously there are cockpit games I still want to play, along with games that don’t expect you to walk (like Sightline: The Chair). But in general, yeah, I need to be standing or walking in VR these days. Using a joystick to move around in VR either makes people sick or just outright doesn’t feel correct. The biggest compliment I can give the Virtuix Omni is that it makes my purchase of VorpX feel like a no brainer. So many games I would have never considered playing VR with VorpX I find myself enjoying now. If you’re getting into VR to play non-VR games in VR, then yeah, an Omni is something I’d say is a necessity. One other small thing to review – the Omni boom stand. This thing is terrific. I’ve been singing praises of using a boom stand for cable management for a long time now, but this particular stand is perfect for VR. It stands very tall – it can stretch to like 17′ in the air I believe, and it features a retractable cable system for your headset. I loop the cables of my rift through the retractable system to keep them out of my way. I would recommend the stand to anybody who is getting into VR, be it rift, vive, or PSVR. It’s the best solution for cable management. It lets you move and lean around while keeping the cable above you and out of your way. In a month, I should be able to try pairing the boom stand with the Vive to do full room scale tracking, but just walking around with my headset in the room and a cable extension, I know it’ll perform fine. I’m open to questions or comments about the Omni, but again, be aware that my NDA might tongue tie me a bit. EDIT: OH, one other tiny thing I forgot to mention – this works with GearVR too. You can use it with, as an example, dreadhalls. True, wireless, limitless VR.