Owo Haptic Gaming Vest Review: Are You Prepared to Shave Your Chest?

It's bizarre to consider shaving your body to play a video game. But after experiencing the Owo skin, an electrotactile haptic feedback vest, I'd probably consider it if I were a gamer looking for his next thrill.

Is that high praise? I'm not sure. I guess so?

This all came about when Owo sent me its haptic gaming skin for review. It's a 500-euro skintight, spandex-like shirt with gel pads connected to electrodes on the inside. It's like one of those instant six-pack ab machines you'd see commercials for at 3 a.m. Except, these pads attach to your abs, lower back, chest and biceps. 

The first skin Owo sent didn't work. When trying to set it up with the Owo app, I couldn't feel any sensation. An Owo PR rep said that some users, those with lots of body hair, might have trouble feeling sensation as the sticky pads can't fully make contact with skin. Before I pulled out my clippers, Owo sent over another one. Thankfully, zaps were able to permeate through my body hair barrier and to my skin.

As I turned on Assassin's Creed Mirage, one of the few games that natively supports the Owo skin, the sudden undulation of my right bicep nearly sent my controller beelining to my face. It was like tiny little pin pricks that were going deep into my muscles and forcing them to contract.

An Owo rep said people react differently to electric stimulation, so turning impulses to your comfort-level is key. I went into the app and began fiddling with how hard I wanted to be zapped.

After adjusting some of the feedback responses in the app, I was ready to play Assassin's Creed Mirage.

In Assassin's Creed Mirage, like previous entries into the series, you play as an assassin who parkours around ancient locales while engaging in hand-to-hand combat with guards and other foes. A title like this is perfectly suited for the Owo system. Jumping between buildings or falling off a wall are all actions that physically affect the body. Playing with a controller alone only amounts to small vibrations. But feeling the Owo target the muscles in my lower back or right pectoral brings me into the game like no controller ever could. As far as controller feedback has gotten in gaming, it's still nothing more than a mild approximation of what your character is supposed to be feeling on-screen. 

Sensation felt while wearing the Owo haptic gaming vest.

Haptic feedback in gaming isn't anything new. The earliest implementation of haptic feedback in gaming goes back to the 1970s with Sega's Moto-Cross, also known as Fonz. Nearly 30 years later, home console gamers got access to vibrotactile haptics with the introduction of the Nintendo 64 Rumble Pak. From then on, all console controllers have had some form of vibrational feedback. The technology further evolved with the PS5's DualSense controller in which vibrations were so subtle that different textures could be communicated through the controller.

While the area of vibrotactile haptics have continued to evolve over the past 50 years, other types of haptic feedback, such as ultrasonic, thermal and electrotactile, haven't received as much mainstream attention. Companies like Owo are hoping to change that.

What's it like to actually use the Owo?

Putting on the Owo skin feels mildly invasive, like when a doctor places the cold metal of a stethoscope on your bare chest. The vest is lined with cold and clammy-feeling sticky gel pads, which relay electrical signals to your muscles. I'm personally not a fan of the sensation of cold and wet-feeling pads touching the back of my skin. The pads do eventually heat up and match your body temperature, however.

Once the skin is fully synced to your phone and a corresponding game, the experience is novel enough to want to tell your friends about it and have them try it as well, but given the price point, it's not enough to demand they purchase it. The Owo skin is definitely geared towards the gamer that seeks new experiences and is willing to shell out the cash and deal with some headaches to get there. 

The best way I can describe the feeling of the Owo vest is tiny little pinches in rapid succession. It's not like the rumble you feel on your Xbox controller. It bites right into your muscles, making them recoil. For example, when jumping off a ledge in Mirage, you'll feel sensations in your lower back. Obviously, this isn't a facsimile of what jumping off a ledge and landing on your feet feels like. But neither would the vibrations you'd feel through your controller. It's good to keep expectations in check when using the Owo and know that being stabbed in a video game won't feel like you're being stabbed in real life, thankfully. Still, electrotactile stimulation alone can only communicate so much information to the player. 

I think it would have been better if Owo included some rumble haptics along with its electrotactile gel pads. For example, when driving a Honda S2000 in The Crew: Motorfest, another title that natively supports Owo, the gel pads along my back zapped in tiny successions to simulate the feeling of a vibrating car. But I actually own a Honda S2000, and driving it doesn't feel like being pricked by 100 tiny sewing needles. It's a lower rumble that reverberates. I had to go into the settings and lower the intensity by half to make the game playable. Otherwise, it'd actually start hurting.

From my overall experience, the Owo felt safe and at no point did I feel I was in danger. 

Headaches of using the Owo skin

The main thing holding back Owo, apart from the weird name, is getting the thing to work. When it does work, it's great. But there are only a handful of games that natively support the accessory. Getting the vest to work with games that don't natively support it requires a few workarounds, which aren't user-friendly and don't always work. It can be an exercise in frustration. 

When I tried to get the Owo synced with Rocket League on PC, a game that doesn't natively support the skin, I couldn't get the game to pair. The process required installing the Overwolf app on my computer, connecting it to the skin to the app and making sure it detected Rocket League. Still, nothing. If it's frustrating for a power user like myself, I can't imagine it being tolerable to a more casual gamer. 

Gel Pads that line the inside of the Owo gaming vest.

Then, there are the gel pads themselves, which have to be treated with care. Often, the pads can get stuck to one another if the shirt is packed too tightly, and trying to peel them apart will lead to tears. Changing the gel pads isn't difficult, but a replacement pack of gel pads costs 40 euros. An Owo rep said she recommends customers hold onto their pieces of plastic that cover the gel pads when it arrives new, and to reapply these plastic pieces after each gaming session to prevent sticking. This level of maintenance is likely too annoying for most people, and it's one of the many reasons Owo may be an experience that's way beyond most people's comfort zones, personally and technologically.

I certainly hope that if there is a second version of the Owo skin, that a different interface material is used, one that's far less cumbersome to maintain.

Final thoughts

As much as I laud the idea of the Owo vest, I wouldn't recommend it to most people. It's for the person that wants the most immersive of experiences, no matter the cost -- and isn't afraid of strange setups, awkward gel pads and invasive electric stimulation. This is the type of gamer who'll shell out thousands of dollars for a simulated racing rig that tilts and bounces around. These types of gamers have the cash and patience to take their experience to the next level. For them, I could imagine a 500-euro skin on top of a bunch of other high-end gaming accessories to not be a deterrence. 

Center shot of Owo haptic gaming vest.

When I sit down to play a video game, I generally do so to relax and unwind. In essence, the Owo skin is anathema to that idea. Still, I can't help but feel like I'm missing out when playing Assassin's Creed Mirage without the Owo skin on. In these situations, it's pure laziness that's winning out. But when I do decide to get up, take off my shirt and grab the Owo skin from my closet, that's when I know the Spain-based company is onto something. It just needs some fine-tuning. 

The price ultimately pigeonholes the Owo skin into a very specific market. Yet, I can't help but admire the team at Owo for what they've put together, even with all these caveats. The setup process needs to be fast and simple with as few steps or hindrances as possible. And it needs a different interface material as the gel pads are too fragile and annoying to deal with.

I want to see how this space evolves and what innovations Owo makes to immerse us in our video games. Yes, even if it means shaving my body.