Tactsuit x40 from bHaptics -The vest with haptic feedback for PCVR and Oculus Quest (Review)
The x40 haptic vest provides an increased immersion in many games. But is it worth the money? Let’s take a look.
When the package with the vest was delivered by DHL, I felt like a child on Christmas. With shining eyes, I lightly jiggled the package to hear what was inside. With a big grin, I slowly opened it and held the box of my dreams in my hands. I couldn’t wait to see what was waiting for me inside the black and grayish box, labeled “Tactsuit X40”. Shortly after opening the box and catching sight of the vest, I immediately felt like I could be the next Batman.
But what else was waiting for me in the package and whether the vest could convince me or not, you can see now in my review.
What‘s in the box?
If Brad Pitt should read along, I’ll tell you now without detours what awaits you in the box. The first thing you’ll see when you open the box is the Tactsuit x40. Just below the vest you’ll find two compartments where you’ll find a manual and various accessories. The accessories consist of a Bluetooth dongle to connect the vest to your PC. A charging cable to charge your vest. Also included is an audio connection cable to connect the vest to your smartphone or console for Audio-Feedback. You also have an audio splitter in the box, so that both the vest and your headphones can receive sound when you use it with a smartphone or a console. So you have everything you need to get started right away.
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Straight from Batman’s closet
Before I get into the vest’s features, I wanted to talk briefly about its appearance, general quality, and comfort. The look of the vest really looks like it’s straight out of our latex-loving batman’s closet. The design is well chosen and gives off that superhero vibe very well. Once you put the vest on, you’ll immediately feel like a crime fighter (or supervillain, that’s your choice) and be ready to put any VR enemies or foes to fight. The build quality is also great and you won’t find any loose threads or cheap material anywhere. The vest’s wearing comfort is okay and it feels quite good even after a longer playtime. Due to the side openings, which consist of only two elastic straps, one does not get too warm even after long and intense gaming sessions. The weight of 1.7kg/3.7lbs has not been a problem for me so far.
How does the vest work?
The haptic feedback of the x40 vest works with 40 small vibration motors that can be controlled in different strengths and combinations. This is done either through native support implemented by the developers in one of their games, or through mods that enable support for the haptic vests manually. Also, through the bHaptics Player PC software or smartphone app, any audio signal, either from the PC or an external source with a headphone jack, can be converted into haptic feedback. You’ll find 20 vibration motors on the back of the vest and 20 vibration motors on the front, which then display different vibration patterns depending on the input they receive. The vibrations range from very gentle jerks to stronger ones. Thus, light touches or even strong explosions are simulated very well. But don’t forget that these are only vibrations. These do not equal to real touches in any form, but still increase the immersion during gameplay.
Which games are supported?
A whole range of VR games are supported by the bHaptics vest. However, not all of them have received native support. Some of the supported games still require mods to add the bHaptics functionality. Among them, unfortunately, are such titles as Population One or Half Life: Alyx. Sadly it still looks grim when it comes to native quest support. The selection of supported games is still relatively small, but is supposed to grow over time. That’s why I can only recommend the vest to people who also play PCVR, since you simply have the most supported games there. But that may change in the future.
A list of which VR games are supported can be found here.
The bHaptics Portal you can download here is really helpful to get the games or mods running. It gives you all the links and guides you’ll need.
The Swiss Army Knife for Haptic Pleasure
You also have other options to include the vest in your entertainment media. Besides the native support for games, you can also use the vest with VR games which are not directly supported, connect your consoles, listen to music from your PC or smartphone, or even use your x40 vest while watching movies. We will now go into detail about how this works and what limitations you will have to live with.
VR games without native or mod support
You want to play VR games without native support or mods with haptic feedback enabled? No problem. With the help of the bHaptics Player PC software you can also convert any audio signals into haptic feedback. A nice gimmick in my eyes, but it doesn’t come close to native support. The vibration patterns seem arbitrary and don’t always match the game content. It is still quite nice for rhythm-based games like Pistol Whip. For the Oculus Quest you simply connect the headphone jack withe the audio cable and audio splitter to the vest and your headphones to the audio splitter to have haptic feedback and audio even in unsupported Quest games.
Console player have feelings too
You can also use your vest with various consoles or even PSVR. However, this means that you only convert the respective in-game sounds into haptic feedback. This is a good solution for rhythm-based games, but it still cannot keep up with native feedback. I still think it’s good that this option exists, even if the implementation isn’t the best. And you have the disadvantage that the vest has to be connected to the headphone jack of the respective console or PSVR glasses and you can only hear the sound through your headphones with the included audio splitter.
Feel the beat
You can also convert any audio output from your PC or smartphone into haptic feedback. This happens either through the bHaptics Player PC software or the bHaptics Player App. For me, this feature is quite nice, but not a selling point. It’s especially inconvenient with a smartphone, since it has to be connected to the vest with the included audio cable, and then you can only listen to the music through wired headphones via the included audio splitter. Music feedback through a Bluetooth connection is only possible with the PC so far. Also, the haptic feedback in general is very inaccurate for many songs and feels like wildly jumbled. It is quite nice for the first attempts with the vest, but definitely not a feature I will use more often.
Movies with feedback
What I wrote under music is the same for movies. The whole thing is too cumbersome and only a nice additional feature. Besides, I wouldn’t feel like just sitting around with the vest for two hours and feeling randomly generated jerking when you can also comfortably watch a movie laying down on your couch. The vest rather shows its strengths in terms of VR games, since it can at least contribute something to the immersion there. But sadly not so much for movies.
Conclusion: I don’t want to give it away anymore, but it’s definitely not for everyone
I could now test the vest for some time and do not want to miss it. But I would still like to point out that I was a little disappointed after the first use. It is just not a vest that brings you blows or strokes in the usual way, these are only emulated by targeted vibrations. This should be clear before you decide to buy a bHaptics vest. However, I still have the feeling in some games that the immersion is already increased a lot by this. Heartbeats are well represented in tense situations and give you an oppressive feeling, explosions seem more lifelike and it’s the next step towards Ready Player One. And while I’m still not 100% sold on the vest at times, I miss it a lot as soon as I start another supported VR game without it. It’s not something you really have to have. But once you have it, you don’t like to give it away. Unfortunately, the price of just around 500 dollars or 600 Euros makes it only interesting for real enthusiasts and should only be considered if you want to get the last bit of immersion out of your games. The vest also has a few drawbacks. Depending on the vibration level, it can get loud, which was also noticed during gameplay. And the zipper holder rattled around wildly due to the vibrations, but I was able to solve this quickly with a strip of tape around the holder. But I would have liked something like a rubber cover for it, which would have prevented this from te start. But all in all this is the best solution if you want haptic feedback at home and bHaptics seems to be very ambitious to support more and more games over time. So it’s well worth the money if you’re willing to spend that much.
For a smaller budget there is also the x16 vest which comes with only 16 vibration motors. Unfortunately, I couldn’t test it yet, but it is supposed to be sufficient for many applications and costs “only” under 300 Dollars or around 400 Euros. This could be interesting for people who like to play competitive shooters in VR since the vest is a bit lighter with 0.95kg/2.1lbs and still has enough vibration motors to feel the directions where they being shot.
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