bhaptics Haptic Vest and Accessories Review

Nowadays more and more people come into contact with with Virtual Reality and it is less special than it was in the beginning. This has to do with with the fact that Virtual Reality is becoming more and more accessible. For example, you already have the Oculus Quest at home for a relatively low amount and you can enjoy good VR content completely wirelessly, without spending hundreds of euros on a gaming PC. But precisely because VR is becoming more famous, developers and providers want to make the experience more realistic and immersive. One way to do this is to add a haptic feedback suit to the experience.

A haptic feedback suit is a suit that provides feedback in the form of a vibration. For example, when you are shot in a VR game, you actually feel a vibration where you are shot. This feedback ensures that you are not only playing with the Headset on, but that your body also senses that you are playing! This suddenly makes the experience a lot more realistic.

bhaptics Tactot Vest

The bhaptics vest is currently the best developed haptic feedback vest in the world. In the vest there are 40 feedback points that can all give a vibration individually. This makes it possible to determine extremely accurately where on the body you feel the feedback. In comparison, Nullspace's Hardlight Suit only had 16 feedback points in total. In combination with with the other bhaptics accessories (face mask, sleeves, shoes and gloves) the suit has a total of no less than 58 feedback points.

One of the earlier versions of the bhaptics vest weighed about 2.5 kg. It soon became clear that this was too heavy for anyone to play with fanatically. That's why bhaptics with tried the new bhaptics Tactot Vest to save as much weight as possible. The vest now weighs 1.7 kg and that has been a good choice. When you put on the vest you will notice that you have something on your body, but it is far from annoying or heavy. You can play with it for a long time without getting tired. The zipper on the front also makes the vest easy to put on and take off, and the adjustable straps on the side and back allow you to tighten the vest around your body. This makes the vest suitable for everyone and it is comfortable.

The Tactot vest comes with with a large 8250 mAh battery. This battery has about 15 hours of playtime before it needs to be recharged (assuming all 40 vibration points vibrate 1 second every 10 seconds at maximum intensity). To recharge the battery, you can plug the battery into a power adapter. It then takes about 4 hours for the battery to return to full capacity. In practice, the battery of the bhaptics vest lasts fine for 2 or 3 days. For commercial (VR arcade) use it is advisable to purchase multiple vests, because changing the battery is not very convenient. The connection of the vest is completely wireless and via Bluetooth. This is useful, because it allows several bhaptics vests to be placed in one room without problems with with the connection between the vests or headsets.

bhaptics Tactal accessories

There are several accessories available for the bhaptics vest to put together a complete package. There is a haptic feedback face mask that fits all common types of VR glasses, a haptic feedback sleeve for the arms, gloves and separate haptic shoes. Many of these products are still undergoing extensive testing by the team behind bhaptics, so they are not yet available in Europe. Only the bhaptics face mask is expected to be available for purchase at the end of 2019. This face mask is similar with to a VR Cover face mask that you stick on VR goggles. The mask consists of a 'wide' and 'standard' version. The wide version is suitable for the HTC VIVE Pro, VIVE Focus and Pimax series. The standard version is suitable for all other VR headsets. with 6 individual vibration points, the face mask provides a special experience. For example, if someone takes a headshot at you while playing Pavlov VR, you will immediately feel this in the feedback. And don't worry, you can easily adjust the intensity of the feedback yourself!

bhaptics software, native support and SDK

bhaptics has developed its own (free) software platform called bhaptics Designer and bhaptics Player. bhaptics Player is similar with SteamVR; you use this program to establish a connection between your bhaptics products and the Computer. You can also test the vibration points in this program. You can do this by drawing a pattern in the program, after which the vest will vibrate at the points you draw.

The other program, bhaptics Designer, is a web-based program. In this program it is possible to make a sequence of patterns yourself. This opens up a lot of cool possibilities for developers who create their own VR content, because you can specify exactly where and when you want the vest to provide haptic feedback. For example, imagine that you are watching a VR movie, and just as a monster walks by ... you feel that the vest gives a light vibration! This gives a unique experience because you are not only watching a movie, but you are also almost physically present. Click here to read more about the programs.

bhaptics is natively compatible with with some popular games such as Space Junkies, Tower Tag and Arizona Sunshine. But in addition to these well-known titles, there are also a lot of lesser-known games that use bhaptics's haptic feedback! You can see an overview of all VR games that are compatible here with bhaptics. As the haptic feedback suits become more famous, more and more games will be compatible. But for now there is already more than enough choice to experience the haptic feedback.

Conclusion

bhaptics is a company that is working hard when it comes to (affordable) VR haptics. The products are made with practical use in mind. For example, extra attention has been paid to the weight and fit of the vests, so that they fit everyone and can be easily transferred to new players. This makes the bhaptics products ideal for use in VR arcades to give an extra dimension to the total VR experience.