- The Woojer Vest 3 features 360-degree haptic feedback for immersive gameplay
- It’s best for shooters and games that have a dedicated vibration profile
- The vest doesn’t fit snugly on a smaller body frame, and the battery pack on the back doesn’t inspire confidence when it comes to safety
Immersive, engaging, compelling – games that make you feel like you’re right there in the thick of it all always rank high in my book, but is there actually a way to take it even further? Sure, VR might be the way to go if you want to take it up a notch, but we can’t all have clunky gear strapped to our heads to deaden all visual sense – not when life calls you to be aware of someone at the door or of your dinner burning.
Now, I have to admit – when I first got the offer to give the Woojer Vest 3 a go, it felt a tad too gimmicky for me. It claims to make you feel “all the feels”, with its ultra-cool haptic vibrations and complicated tech I won’t be able to explain. But being able to feel things happening inside a game without resorting to a VR headset was simply too intriguing for me – can this nifty new peripheral completely change the way you play, or is it simply sensory overload you don’t really need?
Table of contents:
Woojer Vest 3 Design
Opening the box made me feel like I was uncovering an ancient artifact with the way the packaging was designed. It’s a luxurious way of unearthing what’s supposed to be a game-changer for shooters and battle royales in particular, and I like how the vest nestles nicely into the box so that I won’t have to worry about where to store it away when not in use. They’ve thought it through when it comes to universal compatibility too – there are different adapters for international plugs here, with a USB-C cable, 3.5mm cable and a dongle to make sure you’ve got no excuse. 
Lifting the actual vest out of the box, though, will immediately make you feel its weight. At 1.5kg, it’s a pretty hefty boi, but I suppose you’ll need all that to host all the tech that’s running underneath. It looks and feels pretty much like a life jacket, only you’ve got oscillators instead of floaters and you can’t actually get any of it wet.
The main control panel on the front lets you adjust the volume of your audio and the intensity of the vibrations, as well as tinker around with your audio input and output. You can connect audio input via the 3.5mm cable or via Bluetooth, with output via USB-C or via wired/Bluetooth headphones.
Don’t mistake the USB-C port in the front for charging, though – that goes into the back, where the battery pack is strapped on. This is actually one of my main issues with the vest, but I’ll get to that later.
Woojer Vest 3 Connectivity
While I appreciate all the connectivity options here, getting my Android devices to sync up with the vest was a bit of a nightmare. You’ll have to use the Woojer App to make things work, and while connecting my Honor V2 via Bluetooth was seamless, I can’t really say the same for my Redmagic 9 Pro.
As for audio output on my Honor device, connecting my earbuds to the phone via Bluetooth was a miss as it kept disconnecting every 5 seconds, while my headset somehow only had sound coming out of the left side (both work fine on other devices).
On the flip side, because my Redmagic phone couldn’t connect to it via Bluetooth, I had to resort to the 3.5mm jack. This made it invisible to the Woojer app for some reason, so I needed to resort to having wired input and wired output to play. This led to the whole setup being incredibly clunky, especially with the wires all over the place on a vest that’s already littered with straps.
With my iOS device though, it all worked like a charm. Connection via Bluetooth was painless, and all the audio outputs didn’t give me any kind of grief. Let this be a cautionary tale for you if you’re considering spending a good chunk of your savings on this one – make sure your devices are compatible and don’t rely on the specs alone. You’ll have to somehow be able to test it out yourself because it’s not always accurately indicated on the tin.
Gaming Experience And Performance
Regardless of how you connect, you can mess around with the volume, audio settings, and sensitivity from the Woojer app. With one of the headsets that I tested, for instance, there was a slight delay on the feedback, which you can easily calibrate from the Woojer app to keep it all in sync.
Sure, you can listen to music or watch movies from your phone with the vest on and it’ll essentially convert sounds (bass, in particular) to vibrations, which is all well and good. But for a less passive experience, gaming is where it’s truly at, as the vibrations will rumble throughout your body with every big event.
The oscillators are strategically placed around your torso, so there’s 360-degree feedback in a shooter when unspeakables hit the fan. In NetEase’s Super Mecha Champions, for instance, I could really feel every single gunshot echoing out in the distance – vibrations are softer when the fight is farther away, while everything goes to hell when the shooting is right in front of me.
When a bomb goes off to my right, the right side of my body feels it – and when a stealthy foe suddenly sneaks up behind me for a cheeky ambush, my back feels the brunt of the attack. Calling down my mech, in particular, makes me feel like I’m getting a full-body massage with the way my body vibrates with my giant robot’s every single step – and it’s absolutely exhilarating.
I can’t say my shooting skills improved because of the added immersion – I’m still rubbish at it, to be honest – but it does make you want to go all-in because every gunshot, every explosion, and every kill just feels instantly more satisfying.
That’s not to say it’s the same experience for every app – if you’re not playing a shooter or an action game, it’s basically just going to vibrate with every single bass drop. It’s awesome for Project: Muse (feels like I’m in a club, which is the closest I’ll probably get to going to one in real life), but not so great for Star Wars: Hunters and T3 Arena where it’s all just a smorgasbord of sounds left, right, and centre.
Still, while it’s probably not the first thing anyone would think about when it comes to haptics, the Woojer Vest 3 does surprisingly well with more emotionally charged narrative games like LUNA The Shadow Dust, as the background music turns more ominous when it’s a suspenseful scene and more evocative when it’s meant to bring on the feels. It was also a nice change of pace playing Alto’s Adventure with the vest on, because with no overpowering background music to distract me, I could feel the soft vibrations with every thump, slide, and slope landing.
What’s The Verdict?
Despite all that, my main issue with the Woojer Vest 3 is that it simply doesn’t fit a petite Asian female like me, even though its features say it’s a so-called “one size fits all” deal. The website also says its “slim streamlined design follows your body contours and offers the ultimate fit, whether sitting, standing, or actively playing” – something that I unfortunately have to disagree with.
For one thing, the adjustable straps at their most snug are still too loose for me. For another, I need to sit down and lean back against my chair just to get the oscillators to lay flat on my body – a huge no-no given the battery pack is precariously placed on my back. Not only does the pack get hot even after just 30 minutes of playing, but it’s also never safe to lean on or put any kind of weight on a battery pack. This makes for an uncomfortable experience with the vest on after just half an hour, as there’s also a very real danger of sweating onto the battery pack, especially in a tropical country.
Because it’s not as comfortable as it claims to be, it now becomes harder to justify the price tag of $499. It certainly does what’s advertised when it comes to immersion, but if it’s not conducive to longer hours of gaming, it might not be a priority, especially when it’s not an entirely plug-and-play affair.
It’s also not the best way to kick back and relax at the end of a long day when you want to have a more passive experience, as it’s only best used when you’re locked in and firing on all cylinders.