Virtuix’ Omni One transforms VR gaming into a physical workout experience

The quest for humans to completely immerse themselves in a three-dimensional virtual environment has become closer than ever, thanks to the Virtuix’ Omni One system.

This stand-alone unit works to attempt to finally solve full-body movement in simulated reality.

The magic starts with an omnidirectional base (roughly 4 feet in diameter) attached to a slippery concave dish that allows owners to walk, run, crouch and turn while staying centered in a space.

A mounted vertical, aluminum arm swivels around the base in tandem with an adjustable harness and vest to keep owners locked in without breaking immersion, and specialized sandal-like footwear is worn over regular shoes with embedded trackers.

That combination translates real steps directly into in-environment movement.

The final important pieces to the system are the stand-alone PICO 4 Enterprise VR headset that covers the eyes and a pair of haptic feedback controllers (think Nintendo Wii Nunchuk controllers) for each hand for owners to get true 360-degree locomotion and interaction without traditional joystick crutches.

Before slipping on the shoes, strapping into the vest and popping on the headset, owners should make sure they have access to their home broadband password and have set up an Omni One account information with credentials memorized to find the games.

The first immersion has an owner stand in a large modern room overlooking snowy mountains, and it’s an eye-opening introduction to becoming part of virtual reality.

Walk around the room, pick up a weight, move to a computer work station, swing a hanging metal ball to knock over wooden blocks (aka a permutated Newton’s cradle), and even pick up the blocks and put them back into position.

The experience, as a complete newbie to virtual reality, often brilliantly showcased the current state of technology through a very comfortable VR headset and responsive controllers.

Standing on the unit for the first time was potentially perilous, as the shoes are slick on the dish. However, a tutorial found in pulling up a 3D navigational menu really helps demonstrate how to walk around, by far the most difficult part of the action.

It will require about an hour’s worth of practice before feeling comfortable using a sort of slide-and-glide technique. 

Specifically, move forward by pushing one foot back while sliding the other forward, letting the low-friction surface carry the feet rather than lifting them high. Hips lead the motion, not the shoulders — think “shuffle with intent,” not marching.

The menus will also take owners out of the room to an extended demo of the product as they visit Greek ruins and shoot arrows at clay pots; walk down the streets of Paris and feed bread to pigeons; pop Mylar balloons; or enter a cave to try and walk across a thin board and over a rocky chasm, the latter guaranteed to deliver a bad case of vertigo.

The hand movements to grab objects and shoot are surprisingly intuitive and natural but maybe future releases might use a sensor-based glove system.

So, for those embracing the Omni One, it’s time to have an adventure in the most revealing aspects of the system.

The games

The connected Omni One store offers about 30 native games to download into the headset for purchase, ranging in price from $12.99 to $44.99, with genres covering action and adventure, shooters, horror, sports, role-playing and exploration. Buying a premium membership ($140 yearly for 14 months) offers access to the online multiplayer community, including tournaments, a custom profile, member deals and immediate downloads to about a dozen full games.

Arizona Sunshine 2: By far the best game available, this gritty zombie-survival shooter takes a player through roughly 19 chapters across diverse post-apocalyptic Arizona locations — desert towns, sewers, malls and train areas — with standout set pieces woven into the story arc.

A defining feature of this sequel is your AI companion Buddy, a loyal dog who tags along almost the entire campaign, helping you fight zombies (“Freds”), fetch items from out of reach and even carry extra weapons.

The main campaign typically runs about 5 to 7 hours for most players if you focus on the core narrative and even offers a horde mode to simply kill zombies.

Getting used to pulling guns from holsters on either side of the player and reloading bullet clips that must be pulled from an ammo belt and inserted into the weapons will first frustrate, but it gets easier after a few undead horde attacks.

Treks: Explore the World — This VR travel simulation drops an explorer into real-world wonders and scenic spots through guided tours that one can literally walk through using the Omni One. The launch locations include iconic settings such as the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, New York City landmarks and historic sites in Saudi Arabia, letting a traveler explore photo-realistic vistas, trails and cultural highlights.

The experience has fantastic potential if developers focus on the educational opportunities of the virtual explorations and allow for deeper walking area environments. Imagine a guided tour of American Revolution hot spots as led by George Washington, for example.

Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom — Strap into a roughly five-hour interactive episode of Netflix’s gritty gangster drama while physically moving through the back alleys, taverns and smoky streets of 1920s Birmingham, England.

The player becomes a World War I deserter caught up in the hunt for Winston Churchill’s missing “Red Box,” a briefcase containing sensitive intelligence. Along the way, you’ll interact with iconic “Peaky Blinders” characters — including Tommy Shelby and Arthur Shelby — voiced by many of the original actors — and explore iconic locations such as The Garrison Tavern, Charlie’s Yard and the Shelbys’ Betting Shop.

Stand on a balcony and overlook an industrialized early 19^th-century England (you can almost smell the soot), pick up and insert a bulb into a radio and turn it on and tune into a station, or take a crack at a shooting gallery to hone skills. These are just some of the extra elements to appreciate when not following the story.

In addition to the native games, players can tap into their PC through SteamVR and connect the Omni One for use with select worlds, such as Half-Life: Alyx, Skyrim VR, Fallout 4 VR, No Man’s Sky, Blade & Sorcery and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

The bottom line

The Virtuix’ Omni One system delivers on all aspects as promised and offers one of the most amazing and immersive 3D virtual reality experiences that I and my multiple test subjects have ever seen.

However, before buying, owners should take into consideration the following observations.

Weight and space: The first elephant in the room is literally that it feels like the device weighs as much as an elephant. Attempting to bring the system into a home for set-up will require at least two bodybuilders. It lists as only 150 pounds, but it is a bulky girth that eats up a roughly 5-foot rectangular space and not easily moved when the time comes to return to the reality of a living room or home entertainment room.

Owners will need a dedicated area to station the unit, never to be stored in a closet, near an electrical outlet and with a stable broadband connection.

Price: Owning a system costs a whopping $3,495 and includes one size of shoes (additional sizes are $99), which makes it fairly inaccessible for most consumers. Two points might help swallow the price. An interest-free financing option is available and, more impressively, the system is considered a health device for its workout potential, so it can be purchased using a pre-taxed FSA or HSA account. It also has a 30-day money-back guarantee, with shipping the unit back included.

Stamina and performance: At all times, players should remember that they are not sitting on a couch, eating cheese doodles and holding a controller. This is a full-body workout.

They now exist in a full 360-degree environment that actually requires walking around, leading to quick bouts of exhaustion. Wear a comfortable T-shirt and pants with sturdy sneakers, do not eat a heavy meal before engaging and stay hydrated.

Motion sickness: When first starting, I was getting a potent dose of serious, sweaty motion sickness after about 10 minutes of action to the point of getting dizzy and nearly falling multiple times, even as I became more comfortable with the unusual way of walking.

I was alerted by Omni that properly adjusting the interpupillary distance (IPD) (the spacing between lenses to match your pupils) on the VR goggles could actually reduce bouts of motion sickness.

Sure enough, I found the quick setting to adjust the spacing on the lenses to make them wider and had a much better session.

I will note that more test subjects, including a 26-year-old male in excellent health with prior VR experience and a 67-year-old female in good health with no VR immersion, had the same reaction and required IPD adjustments.

Now, a 26-year-old male, tall (6 feet 4 inches), 180-pound hardcore gamer in excellent health, had no motion sickness right from the start as well as a 25-year-old female, short (5 feet) and also a hardcore gamer with no VR experience. Both were completely smitten within the realms.

Also, maybe another trick with walking and motion sickness: When I flipped back the pads on the shoes to make them less slippery (used for getting off the base), while in an active VR session on the base, moving more deliberately with much less jarring seemed to help, though that probably ruins the point of the action-oriented treadmill experience.

Maintenance: Future costs for keeping the unit working properly are unknown. The unit comes with a 12-month at-home warranty that will require owners to remove broken items and attach new parts and not replace any internal computer boards or mechanics.