Gadgetory

gamers have always looked for ways to be more immersed in their games vibration inducing bodysuits omnidirectional treadmills headphones with pinpoint location accurate sounds these gadgets promise to take us deeper into the worlds we love but there has never been something quite like the vortex 4d environmental simulator Wow I mean look at this it's actually blowing air at him like in the game so how is it Riley are you immersed my eyes are kind of dry okay yeah let's talk about that antlion audios new mod mic wireless features low latency high recording quality LED status indicators up to 12 hours of battery life and more check it out at the link in the video description so this curious device comes to us courtesy of a company called whirlwind FX and it's called the vortex it's supposed to increase game or video immersion by blowing air at your face which may not be quite as stupid as it sounds so to differentiate their product from just a USB powered desk fan the air stream actually changes in intensity and even in temperature depending on the audio and video playing on your PC with the basic idea being that if you see like a snowy scene you'll feel blustery gusts of wind and if there's a fiery explosion you'll feel a hot blast so uh Riley how'd that work well so there's an intake fan at the back air is deflected with a plate to either pass through a heating element inside or to avoid it before exiting through this beautiful front nozzle now the vortex has a desktop app that uses what whirlwind Effects calls the e^x algorithm to monitor and analyze the audio waveform which informs the intensity of the wind blast the video meanwhile informs how hot or cold the air will be the orange and red in fire and explosions translate to heat while bluish colors translate to cold I mean that's really cool but you didn't actually tell you does it work I mean sort of you you should probably try for yourself to be honest ok yeah get in here alright I'm ready to get immersed oh yeah get in Myrtle ok so this is what kind of smells like electronics your referee yeah I thought that would go away really it smells like one of those cheap heaters you know so this is not a great first impression all right I'm gonna I'm opening up my mind okay I'm closing these earphones and opening up my mind so this is their demo video this is the demo video and it works like as soon as you make something fullscreen then the e ex algorithm will start like okay now it's analyzed okay so this is best-case scenario this is best-case scenario according to the makers of the vortex I've got to give credit where credit is due yeah does feel more like I am outside right right and I watch this part watch this part that slows down - slows down in slow motion then it gets going again oh oh wipeout sort of there is definitely a legitimate difference in in feeling yeah this should be blasting past your heads oh yeah hugely like it's just kind of a gentle breeze I mean a gentle breeze is better than nothing that's true very true in much the same way that you know force feedback through her controller was considered revolutionary for gaming even though obviously you know a slap shot feels different from array you know it's like it's blowing only at one side of my face though hmm yeah yeah part of the problem okay okay so clearly the solution is two of them my eyes are drying out though I've only been here for like three minutes yeah how does Batman fight Superman that's stupid okay Batman has and he's dead now he's human yeah again it's not really picking up on the correct intensity because yeah it kind of relies on the movement of the screen itself and it's just kind of going yeah you're outside there's probably a breeze I do hear can't try an actual game yeah okay so I'm getting air blown at me whoa some warm air blown at me that lots of warmness yep I'm running along there's some air blowing up okay I'm standing next to fire starting in the fire don't kill yourself getting a little hotter do you feel like you're actually fighting demons he'll infested Mars the smell is kind of distracting I mean it kind of smells like burning I don't feel like there's a strong connection between the airbursts right the action on the screen and that can almost make it feel like you you're reminded that you're not in the game world you're sitting at a desk with pretending to be the doom guy you're not actually the doom guy you know you know my mouth I am the doom guy okay hey that's fine man you live your life so is this the part where you make fun of my rocket League skills no there was some wind Wow see that's kind of interesting when when when the explosion when you get your goal it's like it blew a thing at me so watch this watch it a little bit yeah love the vortex embrace the vortex now it's time to really enter the matrix states immerse yourself that matrix reference is so so now and edgy well what are you ready player ready player one I'm just gonna I've actually never played the skinny before um yeah throw it yeah um grab that bat back you got to go slower man go slower why would I go slower because time moves as fast as you do it's like a just but there you go I can't believe I've never played this game no the doodad is not contributing in any meaningful way whatsoever maybe part of it is that I'm standing further than you were yeah it's not mine but also you said you felt it it's not super or hot and this is this is consistent with what so in response to my own question does the vortex increase immersion well it does something does something the first time you watch a video or play a game there's you're you're gonna have all whoa cool moment or like maybe uh whoa warm breeze moment and it's at its best when there's a sudden change in scenery that's accompanied by a blast of air and there are more than one moments when it actually works pretty well but the issues that we found that while actually gaming like not just watching the vortex demo reel 2018 whirlwinds detection engine just isn't smart enough to tell the difference between stepping out of a cave into the icy air and flipping on a light switch so it mostly translates into bursts of air being sent at your head every time you move your view from side to side which maybe makes a little bit of sense there's like a little bit of wind on my face my hair the issue is that for every time the wind syncs up with what's happening on screen there are three to seventeen instances where it doesn't like an event will occur where you would expect to have a corresponding blast of warm or cold air and it's not there and then other times you'll feel air on your face when you shouldn't like when you're driving a car flying an aircraft also I should hope that you don't feel air on your face when you're in a Starfighter because then something is definitely wrong because you're in space yeah so yeah for the most part it just feels like gaming with like an oscillating fan that's blowing at you from one side which can actually cause a bit of cognitive dissonance when the explosion is happening over on the other side since the vortex is supposed to make gaming more immersive I guess one thing we haven't addressed yet is motion sickness so the feeling of motion sickness is apparently caused by a mismatch between what a player is experiencing in game and in real life so Ansel one of our editors here gets motion sickness from using VR normally so we had him playing a racing game with the vortex and his verdict it might be a little better and then for comparison's sake we hadn't played the game again with a regular fan blowing at him and he said that that was just as good bummer looks like they probably could have saved themselves some R&D now for the sake of science since the vortex apparently uses colors to inform the wind temperature to a certain degree we wondered whether we could game the system by displaying full screen solid colors so what we did what is just bring up a full screen you know light blue solid color but switching between light blue and orange didn't consistently change the temperature instead like before we simply got a burst of air whenever the screen changed so air temperature does change between hot and cold when an actual scene is displayed so there does seem to be some aspect of the algorithm that informs that change other than just color so maybe that's whirlwind FX's actual end game to use the vortex as a development tool to continue to refine their sensing technology something that does have potential like I've done this bird simulator thing in VR where the changing fan blowing in front of you really affects the way that you perceive your rate of movement through the air but it should be noted that that's with a custom-built experience like there's a whole rig that you strap yourself into with a game that's specifically built for it and it's unlikely that we're gonna see that kind of integration with mainstream games anytime soon so should you get this for me I'm gonna say no not unless you've got a hundred and twenty bucks burning a hole in your pocket and you just desperately need some kind of air ejection device to put it out Riley do you have any closing thoughts no sorry can't talk I'm too immersed right now I'm very immersed check out private Internet access VPN PIAA hides your true IP address and allows you to bypass geo restrictions and censorship by making you appear as though you are connecting from somewhere else and you can use it on 5 devices at once it also helps prevent attacks by blocking unwanted connections it Auto blocks all traffic if the VPN disconnects and keeps your data out of the hands of advertisers and other activity tracking snoops with apps for Windows Mac Android iOS Linux and chrome there's always a PIAA client for you and they have over 3,000 servers in 28 countries with no user logs so what are you guys waiting for check them out today at the link in the video description so thanks for watching guys if you just liked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get subscribed and maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description not that we're like recommending it in this case also down there is a link to our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally join there's a bug in Riley's computer I gotta fix this bug ASAP hey