Oculus Rift S - Review
- allazarr
- Jan 2, 2021
- 3 min read
I bought an Oculus Rift S a year ago in order to experiment and work inside Virtual Reality. After the first year of intense use, I can talk about some pros and cons.
Virtual reality has come on leaps and bounds since the Oculus founder first introduced the world to the Oculus Rift back in 2012. Now owned by Facebook, the Oculus Rift S should represent the next leap forward for the company’s high-end, PC-based virtual reality experiences. But in practice, this is more of a baby-step process – the Oculus Rift S is not a true “Oculus Rift 2” successor. And so we have a virtual reality headset that in many respects, particularly pertaining to accessibility, is superior to its predecessor, but one that isn’t a generational leap forward, making trade-offs that actually feel like a step backward. The Rift S is good – but not next-generation good.
I bought mine for £399.99 which is a high price for what it does. However, this headset was released at a much lower price than Rift. In comparison with its grandpa Oculus Rift, this headset has more problems than benefits. However, there are pros as well. The image quality is improved and the spatial movement as well. There are not tracking sensors to care about and the headset is lighter.
On the other hand, the touch controllers are freezing frequently and remain stuck until you restart the headset. I got in contact with Oculus and they are working on this problem without any actual success. In action games such as Beat Saber, the tracking was lost from five to five minutes which is very annoying.
Like other VR headsets, the Rift S places two goggle-like lenses in front of your eyes, which give you a stereoscopic 3D view of a world you’re placed inside. A combination of sensors then calculate your real-world movements and translate them into in-game movements – turn your head left, and the digital world moves with it, crouch, and the in-game floor draws closer, in real-time. It remains a wondrous, almost sci-fi like experience, especially if the interactive world around you proves to be an interesting one.
However, not all the changes are necessary for the better. Firstly, Rift S has ditched the
Rift’s over-ear earphones in favor of directional speakers in the headband. On the one hand, they offer a reasonable sense of directional audio in relation to what’s happening in the scene in front of you, while also letting your unobstructed ears listen out for what’s happening in the real world. After all, with your senses obscured by the VR world, it’s handy to be able to have an ear out for what’s happening around you. However, they leak an incredible amount of sound, which could be annoying for anyone sharing the same space as you, and they lack any sense of bass, which can lead to a VR game’s more bombastic scenes feeling weak.
Working on Rift S is often problematic as the headset gets constantly disconnected and you need to restart your project. This dysfunctionality accrued to me from the first week and Oculus promised that the problem will go away in future updates. The problem persists even today without major improvement.
If you want to use the headset at its best capacity you will need to be in a well-lit environment with plenty of space around you. The connectivity is best to be made by the provided HDMI - USB3 cable directly to your dedicated graphic card. Controllers are very responsive, when they are properly working, and is preferable to use rechargeable batteries if you do not want to spend a fortune on new batteries every 2 days.
Oculus Rift S by Facebook is a strong headset with unique capabilities. In my opinion is a more consumer-based product than a developer tool. Today, this headset is left behind by its newer brother Oculus Quest 2 which again is a customer-orientated product but it offers more functionalities than Rift S.
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