Santa Cruz does away with the cords, sensors, and PC required on the Oculus Rift, and what a difference a fully wireless VR experience can make.
With Oculus VR’s upcoming Santa Cruz headset, virtual reality fans have reason to be excited.
I had a chance to demo the prototype device for about 15 minutes at the Oculus Connect developer conference this week, and I found it to be the most impressive VR headset to date.
The Santa Cruz prototype does away with the cords, external sensors, and high-end gaming PC required on the existing Oculus Rift headset. With Santa Cruz, all the necessary components are built into the headset itself, and what a difference a fully wireless VR experience can make.
That sounds great, but how does Santa Cruz work in practice? Quite well. At times, I felt almost removed from the real world.
During a demo of the game Dead and Buried, I scrambled to avoid getting killed by zombies. In another title, Timestalled, I lunged back and forth to fend off a robot attack. The action was nothing new for experienced VR gamers. But with the Santa Cruz prototype, I could play without having to worry about ripping out or tripping over a cord.
As a result, I was free to physically spin my body around, leaping and moving through the space with abandon. In every instance, the Santa Cruz headset tracked my movements fairly accurately as I rotated 360 degrees.
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Source: PC Mag