Oculus Quest 2 Meditation With TRIPP
Mindfulness technology is becoming more advanced every year and consumers have several choices when looking to try something new.
Pantheon founder, Erik Pavia, reviews his experience with TRIPP, a VR meditation app, to help you decide if it’s right for you.
TRIPP is a VR meditation app available on Oculus Quest 2, Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, and Oculus Go.
Getting into meditation can be a challenge. Audio only experiences like Calm and Headspace are great, but are limited in what they can do since they’re relying on nothing but your headphones. There’s not a lot to guide you.
TRIPP is a fully immersive VR, audio and visual experience. Rather than have you close your eyes, TRIPP guides you through meditations that involve gorgeous, inspiring, abstract visuals. It’s called TRIPP for a reason. TRIPP also has great music selection. As you float through the surreal landscapes, you’ll be accompanied by beautiful tracks that match the mood of the meditation.
The primary content in TRIPP are two daily meditations, one for calm and one for focus. TRIPP provides a different set of visuals and a audio each day. In each meditation, TRIPP guides you through different mediation techniques with small mini games or breathing exercises. The daily calm practice also includes powerful thought exercises to help you practice things like gratitude or setting intentions.
TRIPP includes a small but endearing personal touch: you can upload pictures that will show up in your meditations. So you can add your favorite pictures of the people you love (or your dog) and the images will show up in your meditation, which is quite powerful because meditating isn’t something you do just for yourself.
Learning to Meditate in Virtual Reality
The visual component in virtual reality make TRIPP meditations feel surreal, which alone can do a lot for your mental state. Floating over stylized mountains feels magical. But the visual component also makes it easier to learn meditative practices. For visual learners, the breathing guides and visual metaphors may be easier to recall throughout the day than the practices taught in audio-only. Being able to center yourself as you go about your day is one of the points of meditation. Meditating is a skill that you can draw on or a mindset you can set yourself in when you’re working, driving, exercising, or doing any routine life activities.
VR Meditation as a Platform
Outside of the 2 daily meditations, TRIPP also serves as a platform for other meditative experiences. They’ve integrated meditation lessons from a meditation teacher, so you can sit in a virtual reality classroom and listen to meditation lectures. They also have relaxing VR scenery like beaches, forests, and lakes.
TRIPP has also integrated cool visual/audio experiences from different artists for you to simply relax, or to try to change your mood.
TRIPP is a subscription service, but they do provide frequent updates, and the experience is continuously improving. There’s also a companion mobile app that allows you to upload pictures and will show you how much time you’ve meditated. Unfortunately, TRIPP is not yet compatible with platforms like Google Fit or Apple Health, so you won’t see your meditations showing up in your other fitness apps.
Meditating with the Oculus Quest 1 vs Oculus Quest 2
TRIPP is only available on Oculus headsets, including the Oculus Go, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, and Oculus Quest 2. We tested TRIPP on the Oculus Quest and the Oculus Quest 2, and there is a noticeable difference, but it comes down to the hardware. The Oculus Quest 2 has a sharper resolution, which improves the fidelity and sharpness of TRIPP’s visuals. The Oculus Quest 2’s lighter body also made it easier to spend more time in meditations before the headset started to become a distraction. The audio design on TRIPP is excellent, and it sounds great coming out of the speakers on both headsets. But it’s easier to use standard headphones on the Oculus Quest 2, and we were able to get a more immersive experience by using our favorite pair of gaming headphones.
VR for Health and Wellness
We’re still in the early days of VR tech and adoption, but the existence of TRIPP is an exciting sign for where things are headed and how this technology can be used to help people’s health and wellness. The graphics in TRIPP are not going to compete with something you see in AAA studio game, but despite that, they still provide an incredible experience. As TRIPP grows and VR hardware becomes more powerful, we should see the experiences get even better.
If you want something for your VR headset that's not all about gaming and can help you do something good for yourself, TRIPP is a great addition to your library.
If you’re interested in other mindfulness resources, read our articles on how to start a home yoga practice and the best truly free meditation apps.