The Oculus Touch Motion Controller Review

[kcarbotte]

Oculus released the Rift VR HMD in March 2016 to mixed fanfare. Oculus built a refined piece of hardware, but the lack of hand controls hurt the Rift's appeal. It took Oculus many months to catch up, but it can finally offer hand presence with Touch.

The Oculus Touch Motion Controller Review : Read more

 

[edhem]

So it appears that the Oculus setup costs more than the HTC Vive, and for someone who does not have Donald Trump hands it might be uncomfortable? In addition, it appears that the Facebook Rift is not that easy to use for non-gamers, which to me seems to be very unusual for Facebook.

 

[scolaner]

After spending a couple of days with these things at OC3, I was super impressed. One thing I wish for, though--and Kevin pointed out--is control over (for lack of a better term) the DPI. I like to dial down my mouse DPI somewhat, and I want to do the same with the Touch controllers.

 

[stairmand]

I didn't bother to order these for my Rift, too expensive and the whole room-scale bit of VR didn't impress me. Driving games, flight sims etc are amazing but everything else seems a bit mediocre to me.

 

[dark_lord69]

I have an Oculus but having a hard time convincing myself to buy these $200 controllers.

When I first bought a controller it was about $25-30, which seemed like a lot for a controller. Then I bought one for my PS3 and I thought $50 was completely insane. So, no surprise that I'm not willing to listen to my wife bitch about spending $200 on controllers that don't even come with a game...

You'll have to do a lot to convince me that these are worth $200.

 

[Sakkura]

So it appears that the Oculus setup costs more than the HTC Vive, and for someone who does not have Donald Trump hands it might be uncomfortable? In addition, it appears that the Facebook Rift is not that easy to use for non-gamers, which to me seems to be very unusual for Facebook.

It costs the same as the HTC Vive, actually less for people who preordered. And the Touch controllers are extremely comfortable in my average hands.

As for ease of use, the Rift certainly has the Vive beat. Setup is very intuitive.

I didn't bother to order these for my Rift, too expensive and the whole room-scale bit of VR didn't impress me. Driving games, flight sims etc are amazing but everything else seems a bit mediocre to me.

I think you should reconsider, unless you're dead set on sticking to those genres. It is pretty damn mind-blowing when you first pick up and use these controllers.

 

[Chris_342]

I've seen maybe 5 reviews and none complained about the comfort and I agree. I have medium sized hands and after a long demo at Best Buy on 2 separate occasions I felt that the controllers were the best I've used for the games I played.

 

[kcarbotte]

So it appears that the Oculus setup costs more than the HTC Vive, and for someone who does not have Donald Trump hands it might be uncomfortable? In addition, it appears that the Facebook Rift is not that easy to use for non-gamers, which to me seems to be very unusual for Facebook.

I wouldn't go so far as the say its not that easy. Most of the games don't rely on the buttons that much.
The buttons and joysticks add complexity, which will deter newcomers, such as people who have never played a video game before. But i would argue that Touch controllers are no more intimidating than a gamepad to non-gamers. .

 

[problematiq]

Wish they used the "Lighthouse." I use them instead of the vive's wand.

 

[scolaner]

So it appears that the Oculus setup costs more than the HTC Vive, and for someone who does not have Donald Trump hands it might be uncomfortable? In addition, it appears that the Facebook Rift is not that easy to use for non-gamers, which to me seems to be very unusual for Facebook.

It costs the same as the HTC Vive, actually less for people who preordered. And the Touch controllers are extremely comfortable in my average hands.

As for ease of use, the Rift certainly has the Vive beat. Setup is very intuitive.

I didn't bother to order these for my Rift, too expensive and the whole room-scale bit of VR didn't impress me. Driving games, flight sims etc are amazing but everything else seems a bit mediocre to me.

I think you should reconsider, unless you're dead set on sticking to those genres. It is pretty damn mind-blowing when you first pick up and use these controllers.

Note: Parse out room-scale from the Touch controllers...those are two different things. Both great. I might buy a Rift without the third cam. But I would definitely *not* buy one without the Touch controllers at this point...they're really, really great.

 

[kjohnsen045]

A solution to the hand cramping issue the author had is to use something like Sugru to mold your own grip around the base
https://sugru.com/

 

[jpishgar]

Apart from the walled garden ecosystem of games, mandated exclusivity for what is essentially a display peripheral.
Apart from the extreme limits to any room-scale experience at all.
Apart from requiring the purchase of extra peripherals to achieve at a basic level what the Vive does out-of-the-box.
Apart from being riddled with DRM.
Apart from treating their early adopters as second-class folks, prioritizing Best Buy in-store orders over pre-orders from the Kickstarter.
Apart from a more limited field of view.
Apart from not having a front-facing camera.
Apart from being exceedingly more uncomfortable for people with glasses.
Apart from not having a chaperone system to keep you from slamming portions of your meat body into a wall or furniture.
Apart from lacking a virtual keyboard and friend chats.
Apart from having a hard head strap instead of a soft strap.

Sure, I suppose the Oculus Rift beats out the Vive. In cost, at least.

-JP

 

[Sakkura]

Pretty sad that a director of community spreads that level of misinformation.

 

[jpishgar]

Pretty sad that a director of community spreads that level of misinformation.

On which part, exactly? Happy to provide sources and references on each item presented.

-JP

 

[Quetzhal]

@JPISGHAR

They do have a chaperone system. It's called Guardian. Besides, a lot of what you list is either subjective or deliberately skews available information; saying the Touch controllers provide on a basic level what the Vive does out-of-the-box is patently false. Touch is capable of more given its finger tracking.

Besides, I could make a similar list for the Vive:

Apart from having a storefront choked with low-quality shovelware.
Apart from having an inferior resolution.
Apart from the terrible support provided by HTC. (See: Charger explodes, HTC tells customer "it is simple physics Robert")
Apart from being riddled with DRM. (Come on, Steam is literally DRM.)
Apart from having a dozen wires you have to mess around with, and a dozen failure points as a result.
Apart from the fresnel ring artifacts within the lens. (PSVR is the winner here.)
Apart from having a soft strap instead of a hard strap. (Entirely subjective and you know it.)
Apart from locking your framerate to 45fps and reprojecting if your framerate drops too low.
Apart from lacking ASW and ATW.

Etc, etc. I could go on and on - I suspect both of us could. The fact of the matter is that it does no one any good to list all the negatives of any particular headset; they are almost equal in function, and a discussion on how morally correct Oculus' approach to exclusivity isn't relevant to a discussion about the hardware.

The two headsets now have feature parity. Yes, each headset has its own advantages - but it's intellectually dishonest to go around touting a list of disadvantages. You're presenting the Rift as objectively inferior, when in fact it possesses an advantage over the Vive for each disadvantage (for instance, it has a lower field of view, but that in turn allows for greater apparent resolution).

 

[Sakkura]

Pretty sad that a director of community spreads that level of misinformation.

On which part, exactly? Happy to provide sources and references on each item presented.

-JP

-Walled garden and hardware exclusivity. That is not the case, as Oculus content can run through Revive and the Rift can run Steam content.

-Extreme limits to room scale. Extreme misinformation, more like.

-Apart from requiring the purchase of extra peripherals. Duh, Oculus has two boxes for $798 that do what HTC's one box for $799 does.

-Apart from being riddled with DRM. The hardware check DRM was removed soon after it was put in place to prevent Revive users from pirating games included with a Rift purchase. Other than that, Steam is as much a DRM platform as Oculus Home.

-Apart from treating their early adopters as second-class folks. The backers got a FREE CV1 that they were never promised or that was even hinted at.

-Apart from a more limited field of view. Well, true per se, but it's a tradeoff that results in better angular resolution and less discernible screen door effect.

-Apart from not having a front-facing camera. That is the first unequivocally true claim. Whether the front-facing camera is a big deal is questionable, but it is an advantage at some level.

-Apart from being exceedingly more uncomfortable for people with glasses. Feels fine with my glasses. Whereas the Vive is more uncomfortable for the great majority of users.

-Apart from not having a chaperone system to keep you from slamming portions of your meat body into a wall or furniture. It has a chaperone system. It's one of the first things you set up when you get the Touch controllers.

-Apart from lacking a virtual keyboard and friend chats. That has nothing to do with the Rift. Also a dubious advantage.

-Apart from having a hard head strap instead of a soft strap. The hard head strap is an advantage and part of what makes the Rift more comfortable than the Vive.

 

[jpishgar]

I can certainly see there's a nascent factional dispute forming here. Vive vs. Rift becoming the new Nvidia vs. AMD. Excellent.

-JP

 

[jasonelmore]

@Dark_Lord69

Touch comes bundled with 7 games.. 5 current games and 2 games not even released yet. The games included are expensive games to boot.. Zombie is $40, Medium is $20, and the rest of them are $30+ games.

your gonna get games with the controller purchase. If you dont want the games, sell the keys on ebay, and you will get your touch for half price most likely.

 

[utgardaloki]

@QUETZHAL
I think your list is down to the point. I’m not too much of a fan of either Vive nor Rift now that I’ve got used to them. Yet I really like them both for what they are capable of providing given they are 1st gen tech. Looking forward to gen 2 though.

I do like the Rift’s less screen door effect. But I also like the Vive’s better FOV… I feel “more present” using Vive only in a blurrier and more “screendoory” state.

I love the Vive’s larger Room-Scale tracking area compared to the Rift’s smaller given the size of my room. At the same time I don’t like the Vive’s steeper learning curve and fiddleling given setup of the technology… it took me some time to get the Lighthouses well installed meaning less occlusion and, first and foremost, less to no judder (whether the Rift exhibits the same I don’t know but at any rate the Vive was a little bit of a pain before getting it right and it involved some understanding of the system).
The Touch system seems less prone to the “problems” meaning easier setup which is important for customers. The only way to get the Lighthouse system to work flawlessly was to install them in the ceiling looking down (at a 45 degree angle in my case) making the laser signals hard to occlude. Once the system was fully calibrated how ever the result was tremendous. The accuracy is unbelievable all through out the 4 by 3 meters room (13.1 X 9.8 feet+) I have to play with given any region of it, even within the corners from top to bottom. I can even leave the room given line of sight with at least one Lighthouse where tracking resolution is still stellar given even the controllers.

I don’t care for the Rift’s finger gesture tracking regarding game play. If I as a human mean to gesture to another player while at the same time lacking a thumb or the like in real life I would still be able to gesture my point across given even larger distances than a raised thumb could by simply waving my hands and arms around in real life as well as in VR (easily tested in reality with people that lack even hands, they do get their point across). That makes the finger gesture no more than a gimmick.
And the fact that Vive can’t portray this means that something like half of the market won’t be able to use the feature. That means the feature will never be able to be used as anything more than a second order feature (so gimmick). As far as I can see the only time a feature matters game-playwise is when anyone and everyone can use it. That’s known as a first order feature. Such a feature provides possibilities of controllability that benefit all meaning they can be incorporated into the basic game play schematics vs. second order ones that are strictly limited to added eye candy.
Nvidia Physx is another example of strictly second order features that never took off and still matters for nothing given game play development due to the fact that only Nvidia owners can use it making it useless for actual game play implementations (why disable all of the AMD potential customers by making Physx mandatory/first order?). The Touch buttons are nothing more nor nothing less than this. Second order implementations mean nothing for the game play unless Oculus starts ruling the VR market, having to pay no attention to the Vive owners or others.
The same thing bothers me regarding Vive’s “next gen” controllers that are even more advanced than the Touch. In what way do they matter if those controllers are necessary for game play features given that just about no one will have them given the larger masses of VR owners? In either case you will not be able to implement special game-play features needed to fully play a game built from the ground up using those controllers. If you need those exact second gen Vive controllers for a game, that maybe 10% or less of the users have, then who will make a full blown game for exactly those controllers? I sure wouldn’t, knowing the demographic of potential customers.

Keyboard and mouse has been the pinnacle of PC gaming controls since its inception. That changes with VR. So how to change and agree upon a standard regarding this such as keyboard and mouse used to be?

 

[Jalag]

To the guy who said these are too expensive at $200 and "don't come with any games" - they actually come with: Dead and Buried ($40 otherwise), Oculus Medium ($30 otherwise), Quill ($30 otherwise). For people who pre-order, they also include The Unspoken ($30 otherwise) and VR Sports Challenge ($30 otherwise).

So that's $160 of content ($100 if you didn't pre-order), which comes down to $50 per controller. And you get a free copy of Bullet Train, Toybox, Rec Room, and Robo Recall (when released in a few months). Oh, and Ripcoil is also free if you buy anything on the Oculus store.

Overall, that's a pretty good value considering that these are a heck of a lot more sophisticated than an Xbox or Dual Shock controller.

 

[problematiq]

@QUETZHAL
I think your list is down to the point. I’m not too much of a fan of either Vive nor Rift now that I’ve got used to them. Yet I really like them both for what they are capable of providing given they are 1st gen tech. Looking forward to gen 2 though.

I do like the Rift’s less screen door effect. But I also like the Vive’s better FOV… I feel “more present” using Vive only in a blurrier and more “screendoory” state.

I love the Vive’s larger Room-Scale tracking area compared to the Rift’s smaller given the size of my room. At the same time I don’t like the Vive’s steeper learning curve and fiddleling given setup of the technology… it took me some time to get the Lighthouses well installed meaning less occlusion and, first and foremost, less to no judder (whether the Rift exhibits the same I don’t know but at any rate the Vive was a little bit of a pain before getting it right and it involved some understanding of the system).
The Touch system seems less prone to the “problems” meaning easier setup which is important for customers. The only way to get the Lighthouse system to work flawlessly was to install them in the ceiling looking down (at a 45 degree angle in my case) making the laser signals hard to occlude. Once the system was fully calibrated how ever the result was tremendous. The accuracy is unbelievable all through out the 4 by 3 meters room (13.1 X 9.8 feet+) I have to play with given any region of it, even within the corners from top to bottom. I can even leave the room given line of sight with at least one Lighthouse where tracking resolution is still stellar given even the controllers.

I don’t care for the Rift’s finger gesture tracking regarding game play. If I as a human mean to gesture to another player while at the same time lacking a thumb or the like in real life I would still be able to gesture my point across given even larger distances than a raised thumb could by simply waving my hands and arms around in real life as well as in VR (easily tested in reality with people that lack even hands, they do get their point across). That makes the finger gesture no more than a gimmick.
And the fact that Vive can’t portray this means that something like half of the market won’t be able to use the feature. That means the feature will never be able to be used as anything more than a second order feature (so gimmick). As far as I can see the only time a feature matters game-playwise is when anyone and everyone can use it. That’s known as a first order feature. Such a feature provides possibilities of controllability that benefit all meaning they can be incorporated into the basic game play schematics vs. second order ones that are strictly limited to added eye candy.
Nvidia Physx is another example of strictly second order features that never took off and still matters for nothing given game play development due to the fact that only Nvidia owners can use it making it useless for actual game play implementations (why disable all of the AMD potential customers by making Physx mandatory/first order?). The Touch buttons are nothing more nor nothing less than this. Second order implementations mean nothing for the game play unless Oculus starts ruling the VR market, having to pay no attention to the Vive owners or others.
The same thing bothers me regarding Vive’s “next gen” controllers that are even more advanced than the Touch. In what way do they matter if those controllers are necessary for game play features given that just about no one will have them given the larger masses of VR owners? In either case you will not be able to implement special game-play features needed to fully play a game built from the ground up using those controllers. If you need those exact second gen Vive controllers for a game, that maybe 10% or less of the users have, then who will make a full blown game for exactly those controllers? I sure wouldn’t, knowing the demographic of potential customers.

Keyboard and mouse has been the pinnacle of PC gaming controls since its inception. That changes with VR. So how to change and agree upon a standard regarding this such as keyboard and mouse used to be?

I enjoyed your comment/article. There are things I like about both, and a lot of mud slinging where there really doesn't need to be.

 

[murphdog7777]

big fail for Oculus. i ordered them instantly on day one of pre-order yet people who didn't pre-order can get them from Best Buy sooner then Oculus sends out the pre-order. Not very loyal to their customers!