{"id":194713,"date":"2025-06-18T15:24:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T15:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/194713\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T15:24:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T15:24:19","slug":"these-vr-shoes-let-me-walk-in-place-and-control-game-movement-and-somehow-i-didnt-fall-flat-on-my-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/194713\/","title":{"rendered":"These VR shoes let me walk in place and control game movement \u2014 and somehow I didn\u2019t fall flat on my face"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been on the hunt for ways to make gaming on my Meta Quest 3<\/a> more immersive. The Roto VR Explorer<\/a> is unmatched in terms of having that seated experience, but when it comes to walking in the virtual world, the answer is usually a VR treadmill.<\/p>\n

These are fun and all, but they do come with steep costs and take up a lot of room in any home. That\u2019s where the Freeaim VR shoes<\/a> come in \u2014 yep, those oversized Birkenstock-looking sandals on my feet allow me to walk in place and control my in-game character\u2019s movement.<\/p>\n

So when I saw the Freeaim shoes, I had two questions to answer: will I eat it in embarrassing fashion the second I put them on? And do they really contribute to a different level of VR immersion? Let\u2019s get into them.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Like Bambi on ice at first<\/p>\n

\"Freeaim<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

Freeaim VR shoes were specific to business and enterprise customers for the first couple of years, but at Augmented World Expo (AWE) this week, the company has announced a consumer pair that I got to try.<\/p>\n

Essentially, these are mini treadmills on your feet \u2014 electrified rollers move beneath your feet at a certain speed depending on the pace you walk or run. At first, it\u2019s such a weird experience to get used to. You\u2019re trying to walk forward and feeling the inertia while not actually moving at all.<\/p>\n

In some ways, it first feels like you\u2019re slipping on a wet surface and trying to regain your balance. But my advice would be the same as I gave people trying the Onewheel<\/a> \u2014 put your trust in it to balance you and act normal.<\/p>\n

Once I stopped trying to balance myself against the motors and focus on walking like a normal human being, everything felt normal. So for the sake of the health release form I\u2019d just signed, I strapped myself into the harness for protection and got to playing.<\/p>\n

Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.<\/p>\n

Oh, and the connected smartphone app gives you additional controls to really fine-tune the experience to what you\u2019re comfortable with. And there\u2019s even a machine learning algorithm coming to them that will understand your walking pattern and foot angularity to provide better balance!<\/p>\n

Making moves<\/p>\n

\"Freeaim<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

Before you knew it, I was off to the races in Steam VR games (Meta and PlayStation VR game support is in development). First, I jumped into a hiking VR experience that dropped me into the serene surroundings of a small stream overlooking a mountain.<\/p>\n

Slowly strutting my way through here helped demonstrate the real immersive capabilities of the Freeaim shoes \u2014 a nice gentle cardio that shows VR fitness in its best light. Walking my way through this area really made me feel like I was truly hiking in a new faraway land to the LA streets I currently walk around.<\/p>\n

Turning is a little clunkier than real-life, as it doesn\u2019t necessarily work with the same micro-movements you may make \u2014 rather you need to look and make deliberate steps in another direction for it to work.<\/p>\n

But then it was time to put Freeaim’s shoes through a real challenge of a zombie shooter horde mode. This requires not just fast movement, but movement in multiple directions to dodge the oncoming undead. And I was definitely surprised to see just how easy it was to juke zombies and walk fast around the map to dodge.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t survive long, but that comes down to my terrible aim and not the shoes. Freeaim is onto something special here.<\/p>\n

Outlook<\/p>\n

\"Freeaim<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

Realistically, at \u00a3850-900 for the launch offer (roughly $1,200), these are still quite a costly investment that\u2019s reserved strictly for the VR enthusiasts with deep pockets.<\/p>\n

But with your average decent VR treadmill going for $2,000, this could not only save serious players quite a bit of money, it could save a lot of space, too. No need for some giant surface taking up the living room floor \u2014 you can just wear shoes and move in place instead.<\/p>\n

Freeaim’s VR shoes do take a bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, they\u2019re a lot of fun and really add to the immersion of any game.<\/p>\n

More from Tom’s Guide<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s VR headset deals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve been on the hunt for ways to make gaming on my Meta Quest 3 more immersive. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3162],"tags":[53,16,15,3243,3244],"class_list":{"0":"post-194713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-virtual-reality","12":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114705063342022577","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}