Sit on the ride of your life in your living room

Edvarcl Heng | Nov 19, 2007

Take on motion sickness with a dose of mechanized upholstery.

If you've always envied those simulation rides at the fun fair, here's your chance to own a lifetime's worth of rides. D-Box's X3me and Quest chairs are leather recliners with built-in actuators that pull you into the onscreen action by rocking you around in sync with the movie's movement and sound.

A D-Box ride works with a D-Box decoder box or a PC that sits between your media player and D-Box chair. First, D-Box engineers code the motions in a particular movie into a series of motion controls that can be read by the decoder box and subsequently translated to the chair's hydraulics (actuators). These motion codes are constantly updated on the D-Box site as new movies are released. What this means is that only movies which have been coded by D-Box will work with the chair.

Capable of up to 2Gs of acceleration and 100 movements per second, it might be a good idea to keep some bags around you lest all that throwing around induces your gag reflex.

But at S$19,000 for the X3me (comes with three actuators), there may be some who would be reluctant to fork out the dough. However, if the price is too stiff for you, D-Box has alternative (and less pricey) options. The Quest is the same chair, but minus one actuator and S$6,000 off the price. And if S$13,000 still proves a little too heavy, D-Box also has the Universal Motion Platform which lets you plunk your existing recliner onto a moving stage (with a choice of either of four or two motors).

For apartment dwellers, size will not be a constraint as all that fancy motion technology is cleverly hidden within the chair itself. As a rough gauge, a single-seat recliner measures 990 x 889mm and the dual-seat configuration measures 1,435 x 990mm. According to a D-Box distributor, a single seater X3me is capable of bearing almost 300kg, so oversized movie junkies can sit easy.

As far as motion technology-enabled seats go, these guys rock.

Price: S$19,000 for X3me (three actuators) and S$13,000 for the Quest (two actuators). S$7,000 for the UMP 100 and S$14,000 for the UMP-200.

Filed under: Games and Gear, Home AV
Leave a comment | Bookmark | Share