A pill for VR motion sickness

Party New York has developed a pill to combat the motion sickness experienced by VR users.

With the virtual reality industry gaining momentum by the day, we are seeing increasingly fantastical VR products being offered — there are even plans for a VR theme park. But as many who have used virtual reality headsets before know, motion sickness — or VR sickness — can be a huge discomfort. That’s why Party New York is now offering VR developers and fanatics a remedy: the VIRMO (short for Virtual Reality Motion Sickness) pill.

Motion sickness occurs as a result of the imbalance between input from the eye and the inner ear. Often, this can cause vertigo, nausea, headaches, dizziness, and other symptoms. Current VR technology includes many elements that can induce this motion sickness — mismatched motion or field of view, and motion parallax. So when a transition doesn’t match the body’s physical expectation, or when the display doesn’t blur the background when the user is focusing on a single object, they can often end up feeling a bit sick.

The VIRMO capsules are made up of ginger (zingiber officinale)(root), gelatin, cellulose and silica. Users are encouraged to take two pills 30 minutes before venturing into the virtual reality world. The product has yet to gain approval from FDA.

What other aspects of virtual reality are untapped and could do with improvement?