Video games can sometimes cause strange and unfortunate reactions. For all the good things like endorphin releases, those who suffer from photosensitivity can have seizures caused from video games, or those who get motion sick easily can become nauseous while playing. The rise of VR has only increased incidents of motion sickness while gaming, given how immersive some of those games are on Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. There may be some help for VR motion sickness though, and it comes in a simple wristband.
Called the ReliefBand, this device uses electric shocks to ease nausea. Mark Goldstone, the chief marketing officer for ReliefBand, talked to iDigitalTimes to explain how it works.
“It plays on an old idea that’s been known for thousands of years,” Goldstone said. “On your wrist there’s an acupuncture pressure point called P-6. If you massage it or put pressure on it, you can reduce feelings of nausea.”
The ReliefBand has been around for some time now, but has primarily been targeted at different audiences, namely pregnant women and those who suffer from travel-induced motion sickness. With the rise of VR gaming, the time felt right to reach out to gamers.
Goldstone says the nausea some people experience while playing VR games is actually quite similar to what happens when people get sick on a boat, but in reverse. “We saw that the motion sickness you get from virtual reality is the same as the type of motion sickness you get when you’re on a boat or in a car,” Goldstone said. “The balance in your ears is saying one thing and your eyes are saying another.”
“On a boat, your ears are telling you you’re moving, but your eyes are not,” he said. “In virtual reality, it’s the opposite. Your eyes see motion, but your ears know you are sitting still.”
So how does ReliefBand actually work? It’s just like acupuncture, but with electric shocks instead of needles. “What we’ve worked out how to do is if you modulate that [P-6] nerve with a precise current frequency,” Goldstone said, “you can apply that counter-frequency on and off, and you can enhance the acupressure quite dramatically.”
One of the keys for the success of the ReliefBand is to make sure consumers know what the product is, but aren’t turned off from using VR because of it. “It’s like working with the cruise industry,” Goldstone said. “We don’t want people to think they will get sick by going on cruises. We want to be there if someone does get sick. We don’t want to turn people off the idea.”
“Similarly with video game companies, we don’t want people to think they will be getting sick by playing VR games,” he said. “So we’ll need to work more closely with them to say how we can be there to help.”
The ReliefBand can be purchased right now for $89.99, but Goldstone says an upgraded model is in the works. News for this model should be coming over the next few months.
So what do you think? Do you suffer from motion sickness while playing video games? Would you get a ReliefBand to reduce nauseous feelings? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
