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Comment by auslegung | Hacker News Reader

This is very intriguing. I can see myself using this during my lunch break where otherwise I just watch YouTube videos. I’d love to hear others’ experience. Anyone else here do this, or know of other articles like this?

I’d prefer not to buy anything from Facebook for privacy issues, though…

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I've been using Beat Saber as a cardio mixup, though I agree with the sentiment that the headset gets a little stuffy. My bigger issue with VR in general is that the tethered PC experience has a lot of friction. The Oculus has more "pick up and go" power, but Facebook is a hard pass, so I'm patiently waiting for some other company (anyone, really) to come out and compete with a similar form factor.

VR doesn't replace exercise for me; my regular routine involves weights, but it compliments it nicely on my off days. I think it's good to mix in, but wouldn't want to rely on it as the sole form of exercise. Maybe that's just me; I can't do the same thing every day, and since weight training requires a strict routine, cardio is where I mix things up for spice.

I have an index and have done a bit of beat saber. I wouldn't really recommend it for exercise. Beat saber specifically, can be exhausting, but it doesn't require much more than moving your arms for most levels. You may soon learn to adapt and actually just move your wrists more than your arms. I can do all but 5 or so of the base content songs on expert+ and while I do enjoy and recommend the game, I cannot say its a great idea for exercise.

Being out of breath isn't actually great evidence of of a good exercise. A few things I particularly dislike:

* Headset gets sweaty

* Content that requires you to perform well can be harder to do when tired, so the exercise part gets less and less as you just fail. Yeah, you can tweak settings to not auto lose, but if the gamification of your exercise stops working then you might as well just do real exercise. This goes the other way too in that you may just get too good at the game and the gamification part is gone for all but the most extremely difficult pieces of content.

> You may soon learn to adapt and actually just move your wrists more than your arms.

I'm not convinced that someone learning that they can cheat themself out of the exercise, and then doing it, is a proper criticism of Beat Saber.

Beat saber is not an exercise program. It's a rhythm game.

It's not a criticism of the game to say that all of its design elements aren't conducive to a good workout. Novice players will move their arms much more than they have to. As you get better at the game you will probably learn to move your arms less.

This is my point. Playing better tends to result in exercising less. Saying you'll just play suboptimally to get more exercise is counterintuitive and will probably not work as it will force you to ignore all of the feedback that the game gives you, e.g. score and missing blocks.

VR is a good workout, but to be honest, I still find the headsets unpleasant enough to not want to use this over other forms of exercise. The headsets are too heavy, moving vigorously cause them to move and lose your visual sweetspot, they got hot, the foam interface gets sweaty and gross, etc. And for the amount of time I spend on screens, I’d rather go for a run outside and enjoy the fresh air.

But I could see most of the above being improved in a few generations such that it’s a really great exercise option.

The stock headset definitely needs to be upgraded for this kind of application.

I own a BoboVR headband with an external battery, which helps balance the weight of the headset. I had the elite strap with external battery and the BoboVR is much more comfortable for me. It’s also leatherette instead of foam, so much easier to clean.

I also have a fan (BoboVR F2) attached to the face mask in order to prevent condensation and overall I get a great experience even when I drip of sweat after exercising.

If you have the oculus quest, put on the silicon/rubber piece over the foam. I’m pretty sure that’s how they intended people to use it.

I just had the foam for a while as well and it was disgusting.

From what I understand, the silicon cover was only added to the Quest in September of last year. Though if you have a model from before then you can get one for free.

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro...

https://www.oculus.com/quest-2/removable-facial-interface-al...

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