Wondering if anyone else out there uses their Rift for cardio workouts, or anything that makes you sweat really. I myself play "Holodance" using osu! beatmaps, and it's the most fun I've ever had while sweating.
Problem of course is, the Rift isn't really designed to take the rain of sweat that I pour down upon it 😕 (or is it?)
Any tips, suggestions, headband-sweat-catching-esqe setups that anyone has to prolong the life of my Rift? Also, general comments about working out in VR are also appreciated 🙂
If you're interested in buying some hardware specifically to exercise with, there's always the VR-enabled exercise bike, VirZoom :wink: It's a god-send for people like me who have ADD and struggle to stay motivated through a workout; I've got a whole thread about it somewhere around here, or you can check out their website for more info.
Also, try playing The Climb with wrist-weights on. Getting all the way through a single climb becomes quite the challenge. Really heightens the experience too, when you find yourself physically struggling to reach the next hand-hold and you aren't sure if you can even make it to the top!
It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.
@FlakMagnet - I too bought the VR cover, and it does work great for soaking up sweat. But it seems like I'll be needing a few extras if I don't want to have to keep washing the single one constantly xD
@CrashFu - I had pondered about the VirZoom. When it first came on the market, it looked like it was going to be an expensive hit-or-miss item. What are your impressions of it? and how is the support/games for it? I too have ADD and get side-tracked as well. Also, the idea about wrist weights is a good one! I'll definitely have to try that out.
@CrashFu - I had pondered about the VirZoom. When it first came on the market, it looked like it was going to be an expensive hit-or-miss item. What are your impressions of it? and how is the support/games for it? I too have ADD and get side-tracked as well. Also, the idea about wrist weights is a good one! I'll definitely have to try that out.
I love my VirZoom. Without it I'd probably almost never exercise, lol. It comes with a free collection of short, replayable games (found as VirZoom Arcade on Steam, and hopefully someday Oculus Home as well) Compared to VR games in general, they aren't individually much to write home about, but as far as cardio workouts go I can't think of an alternative that is nearly as fun. Possibly the best part is that every game has its own score leaderboard, and some even have live online multiplayer, so on top of making exercise into a game you've got that competitive motivation as well. If you add other users to your friend list, you can set up limited-time friend challenges to help motivate each other... or just to show-off when you get an especially high score.
The devs are also really nice people, and they've been patching the game component pretty frequently, adjusting gameplay and UI, fixing bugs, and occasionally even adding entire new game modes (with more promised for the future) so it's a product that will only get better in the future.
Oh, and a few additional side-notes:
If you're really hard up for cash, they occasionally run promotional coupons for a pretty significant portion of the purchase cost, like $50. (I got my own super cheap by being one of the first people to pre-order :tongue: )
There's a gamepad emulator program available, in case you want to try playing regular games with the bike functions as input. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work with most Oculus Home titles, for reasons on Oculus' end..
The VR game Special Delivery has an input option specifically for the VirZoom bike, allowing you to throw papers with Touch while actually sitting on and pedaling a bike! (For some reason I haven't been able to get that to work, but Special Delivery's devs have been working to try and figure out the problem.)
It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.
The Thrill of the Fight is the absolutely best way to excersice in VR, but it's not really much of a challenge depending on your fitness (I*m currently not that fit, but enough to dominate throughout a 3 round fight) and fighting style. My second favorite game though, look forward to more rounds being added, so you can have 12 round fights.
Thank you for talking about the VirZoom. That's a great idea. I will meet with a research group soon to discuss a VR training rehabilitation project. Maybe I can combine VirZoom without other sensors.
I also find working out terribly boring now. I think I will get the VirZoom. That's a good excuse to get back into VR even if I don't get to develop with it. I find training terribly boring now but I have muscle problems after several years of sitting at a computer for several hours a day so I have to be more active.
