The Oculus Rift S is a new Virtual Reality headset by Oculus.
It requires the same hardware and is compatible with the same software.
There are significant changes though when compared to the original Oculus Rift.
Some are good and some may be surprising!
In this video, we will talk about the changes and we will share our opinion on who we think
the headset is for and whether we think it is worth the upgrade for existing headset
owners.
Coming up!
This is an episode in our DIVE INTO VR series where we share our excitement about interesting
VR technology and news.
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A special thanks go to Oculus for providing travel and accommodation to PAX East so that
we can spend time with the headsets.
Let me start by saying that no review direction was received from them or else we would not
have gone.
So our opinions will be our own.
But again, thanks Oculus, because without them we would not have been able to inform
you all about the headset before it releases.
If you are looking for a specific subject, then you can find the timestamps down below!
So at PAX East, Oculus provided a creator’s booth that gave us the opportunity to spend
8 hours with the Oculus Rift S and the Quest over the course of two days.
The headsets we were using are not the finalized versions though.
So this won’t be a full review as we will need to spend more time with the final version
too to make a full one.
The following info is going to be our first impressions.
A lot of info is coming up now, so sit back, make yourself comfortable and enjoy.
So… this is it!
The Oculus Rift S. Compared to the original Rift, it has a new look, a new Halo design,
a different tracking system and it comes with new controllers.
The headset is 400 dollars, which is 50 dollars more expensive than the original Rift.
Right now, we still don’t have an official release date yet.
It is manufactured in collaboration with Lenovo, so it has a different look.
And surprise number one, it looks more like a Windows Mixed Reality headset.
It has 5 cameras on the headset as you can see here.
Two on the front, one on each side, and even one on top.
The cameras are used for inside-out tracking technology, which is the 360 tracking technology
used mostly in Windows Mixed Reality headsets.
This makes full room scale tracking possible without any external sensors and this is also
what will replace the sensors we used to have with the OG Rift.
There is a standard headphone jack here.
The Rift S has a built-in microphone and there is a speaker system much like the Oculus Go,
where the audio comes out of the strap when you are not wearing headphones.
Attached on the Rift S is a detachable cable.
One end goes into the headset here and splits into two cables at the other end.
You’ll need a DisplayPort 1.2 and a USB port for this headset.
The cable is 16 feet (5 meters) long, 3 feet (1 meter) longer than the previous Rift.
I always thought that the cables of the OG Rift had just not enough length, so the extra
foot might just be enough.
Unfortunately, there is no support for Virtual Link at the moment, but I heard that they
are thinking about making an adapter for it in the future, which I think would be a good
choice.
There is a spacer button here that you can use to move the physical lenses closer or
farther away from your eyes.
It doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room, but it is a much more convenient system than the
old Rift.
With the original Rift, you really had to fiddle with the straps to fit glasses in.
Chary’s glasses that you can see here fit well and she has medium-sized frames.
She found it very comfortable too and said that it is more comfortable now with her glasses
than with the original Rift.
The nose gap seems about the same.
I have a fairly small nose, so I always have light bleed in Rift headsets and in this headset
seems a little bit worse.
But the light bleed never bothered me much though.
Chary found the nose gap more comfortable and found that she had less light bleed.
You should probably compare our noses with yours to get an idea of what it is like for
you.
The slick little LED light here in the front of the headset doesn’t do anything, unfortunately,
except show you when the headset is on.
There is a new strap for your head.
This is the Halo design that is also seen on the PlayStation VR headset.
A dial at the rear of the strap can be rotated to enlarge the strap to fit your head.
Our first thoughts on the Rift S’ look and feel was that we miss the old Rift look, which
we really loved.
But seeing the Rift S in real life was not a disappointment, but that doesn’t really
matter much anyway when you are in VR and wearing the headset ;)
Inside the headset are a couple of significant changes too.
The original Rift uses dual OLED panels while the Rift S uses a single LCD panel – which
is a panel similar to the Oculus Go.
It has a higher resolution than the original Rift with 1280 x 1440 per eye.
Oculus says that the lenses are improved too, but what this improvement exactly entails,
I’m not sure.
With all this, the most noticeable differences compared to the original Rift are noticeably
less screen door effect than the OG Rift and since the fill-factor in LCD displays is better
than OLED you can also read the text a lot sharper.
However, this comes at the cost of greyer blacks and less contrast in the colors since
LCD displays use a backlight.
Is it really bad though?
No, it’s just somewhat noticeable.
I could see it immediately, but it wasn’t bad at all and honestly, I don’t think anyone
would really notice if you don’t look for it.
That said, the LCD display looked good!
I felt I was less distracted by god rays and screen door effect because of the less contrast
in colors.
As for god rays, I don’t think the god rays are any different here.
You can still see them, but they are less distracting.
Quickly comparing the Rift S to the VIVE PRO, which has a resolution of 1400 x 1600 per
eye and dual AMOLED screens.
I do not notice much difference in the clarity of text, both are as sharp.
The sweet spot, god rays and screen door effect seems pretty much the same.
But I notice the god rays and screen door effect more on the VIVE PRO, because of the
AMOLED screens.
Mind you, I didn’t have the VIVE PRO or the original Rift with me to compare on the
spot so I am comparing these by memory.
However, the Oculus Quest was there too and the Quest has dual OLED displays as well,
which gave me the same kind of experience in terms of perceiving visuals with the headsets.
We wanted to show you some through-the-lens footage of the headset, however, Oculus asked
us to not do that just yet, so this will come at a later time.
The Rift S also has an 80Hz refresh rate while the original Rift has 90Hz.
I didn’t notice a difference here though, which is good news, because I can get motion
sick from time to time.
However, the disadvantage of having only a single panel now is that there is no physical
IPD adjustment.
IPD is your interpupillary distance, which is the distance between the center of the
pupils of your eyes.
Being able to adjust the distance between the lenses to match your IPD helps with seeing
sharp, and fewer distortions.
This isn’t possible with this headset, surprising many.
The lenses are now placed in a fixed distance of around 64 mm.
You can change the IPD in the software that ranges from 58 to 72 max.
This can improve the rendered image based on your IPD, but it won’t be as good as
a physical IPD adjustment, so this comes at the cost of leaving some people out with an
IPD out of this range.
Oculus says the Rift S is best for users between 61.5 and 65.5 mm.
That said, we should mention that perception and comfort could be different per person.
For example, my IPD is about 59 to 60 (which is on the edge of this range) and I had no
problem playing with the headset.
Chary has an IPD of 66.5 and the headset looked and felt great for her too.
Unfortunately, we can’t check what it is like for people very under or above this IPD.
If you are in this range, I would recommend testing out the headset first before buying
and don’t forget to change the IPD in the software as well then.
The Field of View indeed FEELS SLIGHTLY bigger, but only if you put the display as close as
possible to your face using the spacer button.
I don’t think that this little bit of FOV is noticeable at all though.
When comparing it with the Quest straight away, which has the same FOV as the Rift,
I could see a difference, but I don’t think that I would normally notice a difference.
The sweet spot seems bigger too.
However, since I didn’t have the original Rift with me, I found it hard to check more
precisely.
I, personally, of course, wished we had better optics overall, but I can understand the choice
Oculus made here, which I’ll explain more at the end of this video.
I do enjoy the higher resolution, being able to read text better and seeing things just
that more crisp.
So let’s move on to the tracking.
Tracking questions were asked by many of you, which we took into account by testing it thoroughly
in games.
The Rift S uses inside-out tracking.
This means that you don’t need external sensors.
The headset uses the five sensors on the headset to see where you are and where your hands
are to track you in the game.
This makes it possible to have full 360 degrees room scale tracking out of the box.
However, there are some limitations to this.
Limitations that many of you feared of being bad, which we had our doubts about too.
I am excited to tell you though that the tracking is better than thought!
Most inside-out tracking headsets only have two sensors in the front, making controllers
that were moved outside the range of the front sensors lose tracking.
This is especially not great when playing archery games where you pull the arrow (and
thus your controller) behind your ear.
BUT since the Rift S has one sensor on each side of the headset and one on top, the headset
was able to track my hands in a way higher range than the headsets with only two sensors
in the front.
I tested by putting my hands right behind my ear, close to my head several times and
it worked fine.
It wasn’t perfect, because I did lose tracking when I intentionally moved my hand up and
down my ear (so up and down from the sensor) very slowly.
BUT do I think you need to be worried about archery games or first-person shooters where
you use a scope for example?
I don’t think it will be a major problem.
I tried making these movements in the games we got to try and it looks like any regular
gaming works really fine.
However, at PAX East we were only able to try out pre-selected games.
There weren’t any archery games or competitive first-person shooters available, so to be
able to give you a final say on this, I would have to try it out on those games in the future.
Also, if you move your controllers low behind your back while looking forward, then you
could lose a bit of tracking with your controllers.
Fortunately, most games and software are able to “guess” where your controllers are
when it loses tracking and it will lock the position, making it still possible for you
to climb a wall backward for example.
Yes, I tried this in Stormlands.
It was awkward climbing like that though, but that’s a totally different thing ;)
So the tracking of external sensors is still superior, but fortunately, the tracking of
the Rift S is not bad at all and for any regular use or gaming it won’t be a problem.
Plus inside-out tracking has its own benefits.
For example, just taking it with you to demo would be so much easier.
Right now, I would not take my Rift with me because setting up the sensors is such a pain.
And USB bandwidth problems wouldn’t be a problem anymore as well, which is great for
people with laptops for example.
That said I do hope that Oculus will still support the external sensors next to inside
out tracking, which is rumored that they are looking into it.
That would be the best of two worlds.
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We wanted to try out the Rift S’ pass-through+ feature with its new guardian mode.
Unfortunately, this mode was still locked on the Rift S we tried.
We did try this out on the Oculus Quest and we will let you know what we think of it in
our Quest hands-on video that will be up later.
The controllers are different too.
They are the same controllers as the ones that are coming with the Oculus Quest so you
can use the same controllers for both headsets.
They look and feel pretty much the same when inside a VR game.
They do feel more ergonomically to us since the handles seem a bit longer.
The same buttons are on these controllers.
On each an A + B or X + Y button, a thumbstick, a menu button, a trigger button, and a grip
button.
All of the same buttons are also capacitive on the new controllers, so making it feel
like your fingers are being tracked.
This is the same as the old Rift’s Touch controllers.
The straps are made from a different softer material, I think is silicone.
There is no input for a cable to charge the controllers.
Instead, you still have to use one AA battery.
The battery cover does have the same magnetic shut as the old controllers.
With so many similarities, it was very easy to get used to the controllers.
Do I feel that they are inferior or better?
Not really, they feel very much the same.
The only big difference I found on these controllers that it is harder to feel which controller
is for which hand now since they feel very much the same.
I didn’t have trouble at all with the placements of the buttons and thumbsticks though.
As for comfort, we both feel that the headset is much more comfortable with its new Halo
strap.
We’ve always found the PSVR headset the most comfortable, which has the same Halo
design.
Next came the original Rift for us, but now the Rift S would be, for us, the topmost comfortable
headset right now.
It is just much less front heavy now.
The Halo design also makes it easier to put the headset on and off.
I can put it on my head more easily now too for when I need to quickly look at my screen
for example.
I also don’t need to strap the headset on my head too tight anymore, making VR faces
less visible.
However, if you do that, your headset will move more when you shake your head since it
is more loose, which some might not like.
Here we try to show you how far you can adjust the strap by putting my Samsung S9 Plus in
between it.
I think that if you like PSVR comfort, you will definitely like this too.
However, comfort is such a personal thing and really depends on your head shape and
size.
So if this is a big deal to you, I always recommend trying it yourself first or at least
try to see if your head shape is similar to ours.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to check out the speaker audio or the headphones audio
well enough, because there was too much noise during the PAX East event so we will have
to come back to this point later.
The audio was just way too soft for us to hear.
We tried using headphones too, and unfortunately, it is awkward putting on big headphones on
top of the Halo strap.
Putting in earbuds works fine, but I don’t really like the cables tangling around.
More on this later.
So who should buy this headset?
Is the Rift S an upgrade to the original Rift?
And is the Rift S good enough to replace the old Rift or another headset?
Let me start by saying that I think the headset is not an upgrade to the old Rift.
It is not a gen 2 headset, but more of a version 1.5.
Many specs are not necessarily an upgrade, but I think Oculus made these choices to keep
the price low.
They added convenient and easy to use features to make the headset more accessible to the
group of people who do not have a VR headset yet or were not able to enjoy VR yet.
For example, there are a group of people not able to enjoy the old Rift, because fitting
glasses into the old Rift was very inconvenient.
Having a headset with some trade-offs also makes it possible to keep using the headset
with the same hardware.
This means you won’t have to do any expensive upgrades to your PC to use this headset.
And I actually find that all of this is a logical move for Facebook since their goal
has always been to get 1 BILLION people into VR and hopefully this way they will be able
to reach the group of people who do not own a headset yet.
More people into VR and a higher active user base would also get more money into the industry
and hopefully get more developers making content.
Content is what drives usage, so I think that is what we need right now.
Of course, it’s only my opinion and it’s still a bet.
Only time will tell.
Please let me know your thoughts on this too!
We are very curious to hear.
So is it a headset to upgrade to if you already own a headset like the original Rift or HTC
VIVE?
No, I don’t think so, since the changes are not major enough in my opinion to pay
another 400 dollars.
Especially if you are on a budget.
If convenience and comfort are what you are looking for, then I do think this is worth
the upgrade.
Especially for people who need to look at their screen a lot or bring it with them,
like developers.
If you don’t find convenience that important, then I would recommend waiting for the next
generation if you already own a headset that is.
My overall experience with the Rift S is that it is an improved headset, because everything
just looks sharper and is more comfortable.
I think it is a very well balanced headset that is not expensive at all.
If you are NEW to VR and are looking for a headset to buy on a budget, then right now
I would recommend the Oculus Rift S over the more expensive headsets.
Do I think you should quickly buy the original Rift before the Rift S replaces it?
No.
Because I actually think I would use the Rift S more due to its convenience, but that’s
probably also because I need to look at my monitor very often as a content creator and
need something that is easier to set up.
Again though, these are our first impressions and our final review might change based on
more testing.
We also didn’t have our original Rift with us, so most of the comparing were done by
memory.
Also, we tried taking all your questions you asked us on social media into account in this
video.
However, if we still missed something, feel free to ask down below and we’ll get you
an answer as soon as possible.
Hopefully, this video helps you out in finding the answers you need in your personal case.
We would really love hearing what you think of the Rift S now.
And would you buy it?
And I’d also love to hear if original Rift owners would upgrade.
Thanks to everyone who posted comments and questions on these headsets, helping us prioritize
what we should check out for this video.
Also, thanks for watching, we can’t say enough how blessed we feel to be in a beautiful
community like ours.
Besides our own passion for VR, all of you watching are the resason why we are making
these videos.
Ok enough with the lovey-dovey stuff.
Let’s move on.
And thanks for watching this video, that is the biggest support that you can give us.
And a special thank you goes to artArmin, our right hand Patron and a special shout
out goes to his Patreon page.
And as always, VR ON!