There’s been no shortage of quirky add-ons for VR headsets which promise you a more immersive experience, from full-body haptic suits to a VR chair which turns on three different axes.
Well, a recently-launched Kickstarter offers you the opportunity to help crowdfund Feelreal, a new kind of VR mask which magnetically attaches to your existing VR headset and offers you:
- smell (with 255 different scents available)
- heat (as if you wanted to feel even hotter in a VR headset!)
- wind
- vibration
- water mist
Here’s their Kickstarter promotional video:
Now, my very first thought at looking at this device was: Wait, not only is the upper half of my face blocked off, you’re gonna block off the lower half, too? No f***ing way.
But it would appear that there is no shortage of geeks out there that want to add smell and touch to their VR experiences, and are willing to put their money where their mouth is (literally). On April 11th, 2019, the company reported:
In less than 1 hour after launching our Kickstarter campaign, we hit our funding goal of $20K! We are now over 440% funded and still have 28 days left in our campaign.
At the moment, only 4 days into their crowdfunding effort, the campaign has raised over US$100,000, five times its initial goal. At US$120,000, the company promises to release custom scent packs for the popular VR games Beat Saber and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR:
The Feelreal VR mask is compatible with a wide variety of current VR headsets, including the Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, and HTC Vive:
For more information, I refer you to their Kickstarter page and their website. They’re also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Who knows? Maybe soon you’ll be able to add smell and touch to the sights and sounds of VR!
Oh, and Kyle Machulis actually got to try out the device for himself at the 2018 Game Developers Conference, and he gives a complete review of his experience in this Twitter thread (warning: this is not a rave review, and the language is NSFW).
