BOBOVR have recently released an upgraded version of their F2 Fitness Facial Interface for Meta Quest 2. Designed to give your Quest 2 better air flow and circulation to help with things like lens fogging and remove some of the heat from your face. I have been running this thing through some testing, but, did it help?
What’s in the box?
Inside of the box you get the Air Circulation fan, a flexible facial interface with a PU leather foam pad, a lens cleaning cloth and a USB-C to USB-C cable.
Attaching to the HMD
It’s really simple to attach to the Quest 2, and you will have it in place in minutes. Firstly you need to remove you current facial interface, and replace it with the one provided by BOBOVR. Once this in place, the Air Circulation fan will magnetically snap onto the facial interface – making it easy to remove and connect up.
If you have a preferred face pad, it is only connect via Velcro, meaning you can attach which ever face pad you prefer.
Benefits
Personally I found the main benefit from the F2 system was when playing active games, as the design of the ventilation on the facial interface and the fan circulating the hot air from the headset, it removed any fogging issues from longer sessions of active games. While also removing some of the warm stuffy feeling around the face, but please note this isn’t going to reduce the amount you sweat while playing the active games. The removal of some of the warmth does improve this a little bit, but you will still feel the sweat after sessions working out. But, the product has been designed to help remove some of the heat from your face and fogging – so it is doing what it was designed to do.
Testing the product
There was a number of areas I need to test on the device, from does it stay attached, battery life of the fan, does it offer any benefit outside of fitness and active games, and of course the effectiveness in those active sessions.
When first attaching the F2 upgrade to my Quest 2, and connecting the air circulation fan via the magnets, I was left thinking this is going to go flying off easily – as it didn’t have the snap you get with the battery pack from the M2 Pro head strap. But, I did some testing by turning the HMD upside down and shaking it and moving it about quickly in my hands and it stayed connected perfectly fine.
Next is the battery life of the fan itself, I was happy to see the fan has an inbuilt battery, and despite this the device is very light and doesn’t add unnecessary weight to the HMD. I found over my testing the battery from full charge lasted around four-hours, which is a decent session. Also, if you forget to charge it and want to continue using it, you can use the cable provided to connect it into the Quest 2 and it will charge – but, of course this will reduce the Quest 2 battery quicker. However, if you have the BOBOVR M2 Pro strap, you can use the output port on the top of the battery pack and charge it using this instead.
The fan does come with two wind speed settings, these are comfort mode and sports mode. I did run some tests on non-active games like After The Fall, ALVO, Startenders and Little Cities. I found the F2 upgrade did help alleviate a little heat from around my face – but these games aren’t really ones that cause lens fogging for me personally. So, really the product has very little use for me for games like these and I will likely not use it for standard games.
Now, to where I found the product a massive benefit, using sports mode on active games – this really is where the product shined. For this testing I wanted to jump into different types of active games and fitness applications – so I ran tests on a number rhythm games, Dance Central, First Person Tennis, FITXR and Les Mills Bodycombat. With the biggest benefit coming in the later two fitness applications, as I find these really do generate a lot of heat on top of the HMD itself.
With these application I usually do suffer some lens fogging in longer sessions, and I pushed myself through decent sessions and physically to test it completely. To my surprise I did not suffer any lens fogging at all and the heat on my face from the HMD felt reduced to a noticeable level. As aforementioned, this will not get rid of the fact you will sweat playing active games and applications.
For the rest of the games I tested, again personally I do not have lens fogging issues when playing these, but unlike the non-active games I did feel a better reduction in the heat around my face – likely cause by the increased wind speed. But, you do feel the benefit of the reduced heat when playing these sort of games, for a more comfortable session.
REVIEWED USING META QUEST 2
For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a sample provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a press sample does not affect my judgement of the product.
Review Overview
The BOBOVR F2 upgrade does exactly what it is designed to, reduce lens fogging and given better air circulation to remove some of the heat from around your face. The facial interface has air vents at the top and bottom to allow for better air flow, and pairing this with the fan really does make a noticeable difference when playing active games with the fan speed on sports mode. However, outside of active games, I personally found very little benefits – and will likely remove it when not in use. With an inbuilt battery that lasts around four-hours from full charge it really does cover you well for those active sessions. If you are looking to bring some extra comfort and eradicate lens fogging while working out in VR, the F2 upgrade from BOBOVR really is worth consideration.
