Oculus Touch
$288 (EXCL. SHIPPING) | WWW.OCULUS.COM It feels like we’ve got Oculus Rift 2.0. “Everything that’s wrong with the Rift has nothing to do with the controller and yet, because they’re inseparably tied together, the Touch inherits the headset’s shortcomings.
With the arrival of the Oculus Touch VR controllers, the tides are about to turn on HTC Vive’s dominance in the VR headset arena.
Connect your new sensor to an open USB 3.0 port on your PC and sync the controllers. This setup process isn’t nearly as smooth as it should be. We’ve had problems getting Oculus up and running in the past, and the Touch can be just as finicky as the headset itself.
Like the HTC Vive, you’ll need to use both the motion controllers and the sensors to map the area around your play space. Oculus’s advice is that the sensors should be placed parallel on your desk and be facing forward.
Everything considered, Oculus Touch follows a similar design style to the HTC Vive’s controllers (reviewed in APC 428, page 70). Both end in a plastic ring, which is used by the cameras to track the controllers, and both offer grip and trigger buttons. Where Oculus Touch differs slightly is that it’s a bit smaller than the Vive’s pads — the rest of the controller is around the size of one half of a gamepad — and sports two letter buttons, an analog stick and two triggers. Another difference is that, unlike the Vive, the left and right Touch controllers are actually different. The button layouts are on opposing sides, and while the right controller has ‘A’ and ‘B’ buttons, the left has ‘X’ and ‘Y’.
Oculus also sports extra buttons on the face of the controller, a trigger, menu and start buttons, a set of grip buttons that hang off the inside wing and a small touch sensor for your thumb next to the joystick. What that means is the Touch can tell what almost every finger is doing at a time.
Every wireless controller needs a battery. While HTC has opted for a rechargeable Lithium-ion one inside of every controller, Oculus uses good ol’ AAs, giving you about 30 hours of battery life on a single charge.