Disposable Hygienic Vive Covers For Tradeshows, Group Events, VR Arcades? Yes Please

VR Cover offers a wide range of reusable, washable face cushions and fabric covers for the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PSVR, and Gear VR. Now, the company offers disposable covers for better hygiene in multi-user situations.

VR Cover is one of the longest standing VR accessory companies, and there’s good reason for that. It offers a wide range of products that cater to many different use cases, and it continues to innovate with regular product releases.

Most of VR Cover’s products are designed to be reusable and washable. The company was born out of the need for a better alternative to the bare foam cushion that Oculus shipped with the Oculus Rift DK2 developer kits. The foam on the DK2 would absorb the sweat from your forehead, and there was no option to clean it. VR Cover created cloth covers that you could easily remove to wash with your laundry, which became almost a necessity for DK2 owners.

Following the launch of the retail VR systems from HTC, Oculus, and Samsung, VR Cover created a host of products for those headsets. The company started with cloth covers and later released leather covers. It went on to create replacement cushions for the Vive and a new facial interface that lets you replace the cushions on the Rift.

The Rift and Vive have been on the market for over a year now, so VR Cover has had a chance to think about other use cases that may be underserved in the VR HMD accessory market. The company realized that washable covers are handy in many cases, but there are times when a reusable cover may not be practical. VR arcades are a perfect example of a bad use case for reusable cushion covers. To remain hygienic, you would have to maintain a large inventory of covers so every customer could get a fresh one. Thus, VR Cover is now offering disposable hygiene covers for the HTC Vive HMD.

The VR Cover Disposable Hygiene Covers prevent sweat and grease on your forehead from transferring to the headset’s cushion. One side offers an absorbent, and the other side features a special adhesive that sticks to VR Cover’s new base HTC Vive foam replacement.

VR Cover is offering the Disposable Hygiene Covers in starter kits that include 10, 25, 50, or 100 disposable covers, and they retail for $15 to $39. The starter kits also include the base foam replacement that the disposable covers adhere to. You can purchase additional disposable covers in the same quantities for $10 less than the starter kits.

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

  • blackbit75
    I haven't seen any people trying the VR hardware in any shop yet.
    Reply
  • hdmark
    19795194 said:
    I haven't seen any people trying the VR hardware in any shop yet.

    you would if they had disposable hygienic covers :D
    Reply
  • number1guy
    I've tried the phone setups. Haven't gotten sick or died yet.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Thanks for your continuing coverage of VR hygiene products, Kevin.

    19796102 said:
    I've tried the phone setups. Haven't gotten sick or died yet.
    I once got an acne breakout just from having my eyeglasses fitted by someone who apparently had gotten complacent about hygiene. And that was in spite of me washing my face & glasses after I got home.

    It's not exactly an urgent public health crisis, but the risks are certainly high enough to be worth mitigating. A lot of nasty things can be spread through indirect hair & skin contact: measles & chicken pox, scabies, MRSA, lice, and I'm sure many others. It just makes sense to take precautions.

    I'll probably be giving an internal demo of some VR & possibly AR tech, at my job. I will certainly make the demo as hygienic as possible. Even though I doubt anyone there will have any nasty communicable diseases, some people just wouldn't try it, otherwise.
    Reply