Woojer Vest Pro, a Powerful Location-Specific Haptic Vest
Featuring built-in 7.1 surround card that delivers the ultimate, full 360° immersive experience for VR, Gaming, Music & Movies. The Woojer Vest makes you feel like your inside the game!
- Out-of-the-Box Stereo Haptic Mode (4 LEFT / 4 RIGHT) – Vest connects via Bluetooth or 3.5mm audio jack (not included) and supports pretty much all game consoles (Xbox, PS4, Switch), VR Headsets (PSVR, Oculus Rift/Go/Quest, HTC Vive/Pro/Focus, Gear VR etc.) Mobile Phone & Tablets (iPhone, Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, Huawei, Nokia etc.), PCs and TVs. NOTE: Game Consoles require a certified BT dongle for BT connection (not included)
- 7.1 Full-surround Haptic Mode (8 location-specific haptic zones) – Vest connects via USB cable (included) to all supporting 7.1 content (games/movies) and devices (e.g. PCs, PS4 Pro, Samsung 8/9/10, etc). NOTE: Some game consoles and supporting TVs require a DAC for extracting 7.1 from their HDMI output (DAC and cables not included).
- Lightweight, Durable, Powerful & Sleek – Lightweight, high-end breathable & wipe-able fabrics.
- Removable Washable Lining – add-on: included in box for limited time only!
Amazon.com
eBay
Mark Strachan –
I like this product. I don’t review a lot of products, but I decided to review this one, and review it good, because I find it exciting. I give it a top score, and I recommend buying it, if you’re reading this message, as you’re obviously interested. This system provides a new style of sound delivery with heaps of potential uses and benefits. It’s good for the music studio. It’s good for game play. It’s good for listening and watching content. Before writing this up, I put the jacket through 4 different use cases that I think are cool, and that I think could give other users ideas about how to use the product. I’m also including comments about my unboxing experience.First ThoughtsWow that’s a big Amazon box – somewhere over 3 feet tall.Unpacking & SetupOpening the amazon box, I find nicely designed packaging inside. I like black. I initially try to open the side, and then realize the whole top lid opens. There is a thin, loose piece of foam in the package. Unclear why. There is also vacuum molded plastic holding the jacket. It looks like there is a cover, a power supply and a connection cable. The jacket itself is softer than I expected. It has no external metal frame, unlike other Woojer units I’d seen at a VR arcade.There is a manual. I read that next. On the first page I see a symbol key which has iconography on it. I see that one of the diagrams on the top right matches the outer structure on the left strap. Operating Vest LED Indicators seem straight forward, except that the last light–which is supposed to be constant green, is described by a yellow symbol, which it seems should actually be green. On closer examination I see that on the bottom of the Vest controls, there is this panel for two 3.5mm connectors which do audio input and headphone output. It would be great if there were a better way to communicate the location of these controls on the diagram–like line iconography that shows that the panel is a blow up of the flat bottom part of the controller.I try the fitting instructions. I find that with my body type, the belt can impinge on the bottom of my rib cage a bit in an uncomfortable way, so I try a more relaxed fit. I really like the elastic bands that reign in the lengths of the straps. I locate the PC audio drivers and install them on my VR rig without incident.Use Case 1 – VR with USB ConnectionI connect the vest to Audica by Harmonix – a VR rhythm shooting game – with a VIVE and a USB connection directly out of the headset. I turn the volume up, switch it on, pick a tune and I am gone. I forget all about where I am and what I’m doing, and I’m just part of the music. When you get the rhythm right, the bass _hits_ in the Audica game play. It’s like standing in a speaker at a rave. Apparently, my rhythm is pretty good, but maybe it is because of what I’m feeling? Time just passes while I’m in the game and I play song after song after song in it, until my arms hurt and I’m bathed in sweat. So that was really cool–but I got into such a trance with the devices that I don’t even know how to describe what I was experiencing.Use Case 2 – Analog Synthesizer with 1/8th” stereo connectionWhat I do next, is use the stereo 1/8th inch input, and connect the Woojer Vest to a Microbrute synthesizer from Arturia. Usually I’m listening to the Microbrute through speakers and a mixer in my home studio, but this time its direct into the Vest, with stereo headphones. The experience is completely different from my usual experience with the synth. It takes me a little while to get it producing bass sounds, but what happens once I do–the waveforms are producing harmonics I can’t normally perceive, but I feel them in my body. My relationship with the synthesizer has become fundamentally different–the feedback loop has shifted channels, and I’m no longer engineering sound with my ears, but instead I’m using my body. I invert the envelopes hitting the filter and give the sound a sawtooth LFO with just a touch of pitch modulation, and I get this beautiful sound. It’s amazing. It’s completely hypnotic, and it’s in my body, not my ears. I find that each of the waveform modulations from the oscillator do things I’d never thought of before. I played with this system for what seemed to be several hours without stopping–but again I lost track of time. I really enjoyed this use case. It made me want to get more synthesizers.Use Case 3 – Listening to Music on Android cellphone via Bluetooth ConnectionMy next activity is listening to a DJ mix. What I want to try is listening to a mix from my cellphone over bluetooth while lying down on a spring mattress, while wearing the Woojer jacket. What the spring mattress does is take the energy from the jacket, and distribute it ALL OVER YOUR BODY. This feels literally like standing in a massive bass speaker. (You should try this—trust me.)I turn on Kniteforce radio for my friend’s DJ set–Dave Skywalker. We’re guaranteed a nice, intense, high BPM set. I turn up the jacket to maximum, and then use the headphone controls to get my Audeze planar magnetic in ear monitors to a comfortable level. Dave is playing oldschool hardcore and this is my sound. Time to find the spring mattress.Now, I’m a haptics enthusiast and I own the whole line of Subpac products—a competitor to Woojer. With a Subpac, I can really get some high amplitude sound out of it, but not in a very clean way—there are a lot of square waves (clipping) happening with the Subpac. The Woojer doesn’t feel like its pushing as much bass energy as the Subpac single driver, but it does sound more accurate. What this tells me is the Woojer vest has an application in the studio, where it can give you a reference bass signal that’s not affected by the acoustics of your room. Flat frequency response is imperative for that application, and Woojer feels like it’s a candidate for that. What becomes clear to me is that I have drivers working everywhere—a different experience than Subpac. There are two on my chest, and two under my ribs, and four drivers distributed around my back. This is cool, and it generates a lot of sensory input into my body.Ok, now for the mattress test. When you lie down in a vest like this, it pushes the backpack into your body, maximizing bass signal transfer. Dave is playing some bass heavy old school, with sweeping, rolling bass frequencies and semi-tone bass interference. Its sounding great. This is of course, using the onboard headphone amplifier in the vest, with the Audeze headphones. There is a nice clear sound to the headphones and a lot of bass amplitude moving through my body. The mattress is resonating so I’m feeling it in my butt, legs, arms and head too. Awesome.Now, when I do this trick with a Subpac, things get really hot. And I don’t mean hot good I mean hot-hot, temperature-wise. Now I’m not a paranoid or anything about cellphone radiation or anything like that, but with a Subpac, I do have to wonder why so much heat? Where is it coming from and what is it doing to me? When you have the backpack sandwiched between you and a mattress there is no place for the heat to go, so it builds up quickly. However, I’m not feeling the same kind of heat buildup with the Woojer vest that I do with the Subpac.Use Case 4 – 8 channel/7.1 USB operation with Fortnite gameplayI happen to know that Fornite supports 7.1 audio. But, before I go to Fortnite, I decide to try a few audio playback files, both from Woojer and Dolby, which claim to have a 7.1 format. I play Woojer’s “Multi-channel demo file” in VLC—an audio playback program. The levels seem more intense and the audio clear, here. The dynamic range seems higher in this mode. This is really good. The demo sounds are, REALLY GOOD. I’m being hit from different sides with different sounds. I can feel the vest stimulating the different areas of my torso. This is the first part of the experience which really excels—beyond what I’ve experienced before in other haptics products. It feels like there is a new world of sensation available here. I start to think about what can be done experientially with this technology. I load ‘Leaf’ Lossless and ‘Amaze’ audio files from Dolby, as recommended by Woojer instructions, and play them in Dolby’s recommended player—MPC. I like the storm feeling in the audio–it makes me want to feel an earthquake.As I’m loading Fortnite, I realize I really like the Woojer cable management. There just aren’t tons of cables. Once Fortnite loads, the introductions play music for me and I get the same rave-like experience of full torso bass. This is great, but what I’m really interested in here are the 7.1 features, and I don’t feel those until I’m actually in the game play. I skydive into the game and deploy my glider. Below me I see a circuit of fans, blowing a column of air around the game space. I aim for that, and dive into it. Now I’m floating in this air column. I take my fingers and place them on the two chest drivers, and I can feel that there is noise pumping in to them, that is not going to each driver equally, or at the same time. There is an ambient rumble that is driving the 7.1 signal and I’m getting the real experience. This is not something I’ve really felt before. It’s like someone turned up the volume on reality.Diving out of the air stream, I enter game play, and whack a few things with my pickaxe to get some building material. Then I find some weapons and head in for the killings. Where I really sense the 7.1 content starting to happen is the gunfire. The vest is able to give me a heading for where the gunfire is coming from, tapped out onto my torso. This gives me an enhanced sense of direction and I’m able to locate other players and get them, because I had that information available to me. Could it be that a haptic solution improves your game play? Could I be a better competitive gamer if I used this technology? Seems, to me, the answer may be yes.ConclusionI really enjoyed this product. I had fun doing this review, and I strongly recommend the Woojer Vest to anyone looking for a haptics experience. It works well for all the use cases I tried, and I think you’ll have a lot of fun with it, if you pick one up.
sjs –
I have to admit, I was genuinely excited to get this. It promises something which in theory sounds great.- Nicely packaged, the vest itself does feel really well made.- Too big for me, I couldnt adjust the straps enough to get the fit they suggest in their instructions. Maybe its my fault for only being 5’7 though. :)- Cranked up, it really can deliver alot of feedback. That is definitely impressive.- What was missing for me is that I never felt like the haptic feedback was an integrated experienced with the sound I was hearing. It always felt muddled somehow. I did manage to improve things a bit by trying different headphones.- The closest I got to understanding the potential of a device like this was the T-Rex scenes in Jurassic Park. The scene is quiet and then you’d get vest reacting to the distant footstep of the T-Rex. I have to admit that was cool but it was fleeting.- The bottom line for me is there is a large disconnect between the price and the experience it offered. And from that point of view I cant recommend it at all.Finally, I have to caveat my negativity. The initial firmware update it asks you to do seemingly bricked my unit in some way as bluetooth refused to work and their app would report the firmware version as unavailable. So maybe there is a better experiencing lurking behind a fully working unit.
YS –
The reason I got this vest was for my Oculus Quest (my first VR set). I wasn’t sure what to expect because of the price, but I wanted something to compliment the VR experience. I think this vest is worth the expense if you play daily, it can be used for music and watching videos as well.What I loved:- makes VR feel even more realistic (you can feel pretty much anything)-quality is amazing-once set up, easy on/off-can be used with anything that has audio involvedWhat I thought needed improvement:-getting the vest updated was tedious. Sending and email, waiting for the firmware, and then following the steps from there. I believe they are working on an app, but that would make life for the user so much better.-I don’t believe the quest supports the wireless and needs a dongle, so it becomes a bit annoying dealing with wires when the quest doesn’t need any.But, I think this is definitely worth the experience.