Enjoy my X-Super Home Head Strap With Battery Mount Review. You can buy this head strap for $39.99 or £32.99 from Amazon US here → https://amzn.to/2TpuL6X or from Amazon UK here → https://amzn.to/3yKcNMI.
I always like seeing makers come up with new innovative head straps for the Quest 2, and this particular head strap caught my eye when browsing head straps on Amazon.
This X-Super Home Head Strap for the Oculus Quest 2 does one thing that most head straps do not offer, and that’s a way to easily attach any battery pack to it so you can not only extend your playtime in VR but also the battery weight at the back also counter balances the front of the Quest 2 headset. So with the right battery pack attached, you get a well-balanced headset.
In the box you get the strap itself, all the arms and attachments are already assembled and the strap itself comes well-packaged, along with a small guide on how to install the strap onto your Quest 2.
The way in which this head strap attaches to your Quest 2 is also pretty unique. Most straps require you to snap the arms of the strap onto the side rails of your Quest 2, but with this strap, you simply slide the arms onto the side rails instead. It’s just as secure and it makes the head strap much easier to install without putting too much pressure on the plastic side rails of the Quest 2.
Once the Head Strap is installed on each side rail of the Quest, you then need to attach the top strap onto your Quest and reattach the facial interface. I was a little disappointed with the quality of the top strap. It is made with a cheap fabric material, so it’s going to absorb sweat and products in your hair, and it can’t be wiped down. The velcro part that goes through your Quest headset isn’t that well made and it made it much more difficult to pass it through the Quest than other straps do.
At the back, there are two attachment holes for the expandable battery mount to slide into. This part was also pretty hard to attach to the head strap, as it requires a lot of force to slide it through the holes of the head strap. The good thing is that you’ll only need to do this once.
Because the battery mount is at the very back of the strap, the tightening dial is located further to the right-hand side of the strap. Like the Elite Strap, the strap can also be pushed inwards to tighten the head strap much quicker, but you will still likely need to turn the tightening dial at the end for a tighter fit.
I found the back padding was a little disappointing. The foam doesn’t fully cover the edges of the plastic back piece, but you don’t feel these edges with the head strap on. The padding is also a soft fabric material, so it will need to be removed and washed instead of being easily wiped down when it gets sweaty. The Headstrap does feel good though. The high and low pieces at the back do a good job at cradling the back of my head, but I would have preferred more of a curve to it, or thicker padding to suit my head shape a little better.
When you attach a battery into the battery mount at the back of the head strap though, this Head Strap really comes into its own. At 454g, with the stock interface attached, the Quest 2 is quite front-heavy, so if there is any extra weight you can put at the back, it really helps balance the whole headset and reduce front pressure caused by the weight of the headset.
The battery mount has an expanding arm on each side, and there is a resting platform at the bottom. Each of these play their part in holding your battery pack firmly in place. The arms can expand from 50-80mm, which is enough to accommodate a large selection of battery sizes, and I am pretty confident that the mount arms are strong enough to keep the battery held whilst you move about in VR.
The battery mount itself doesn’t rotate like a phone car mount does, so the battery is forced to mount vertically on the strap. Depending on what battery you use, this might limit the options of what battery you can use, but the vertical nature of the mount does help to keep the weight more central and well distributed at the back of the Head Strap.
I tried a few battery power banks with this strap ranging between 190g up to 368g and I found the smaller batteries weighing between 190 and 240g to be the best weight for the battery, as it helps to offset the weight of the headset itself. With the head strap weighing 222g on its own you just need a battery weighing around 240g to offset the front of the headset completely. Anything over this weight for the battery and you will start to feel the weight pull at the back which feels like the headset is lifting upwards, which means you will start to tighten the strap again to keep it more firmly in place.
The PowerCore Redux Battery Pack from Anker fits really well. It’s small enough to keep its profile low on the headset. It weighs just 194g, whilst its 10,000 mAh battery offers a great level of additional battery power for your Quest 2.
The Headstrap comes with a cheap white rubber band on the left arm of the Head Strap to help with cable management of the battery’s USB cable. If your charging cable is too long I found you can just loop it around the mount before plugging the cable into the battery pack at the back.
With the right battery attached to the mount, the Headstrap becomes really well balanced and super comfortable to wear. Once you have a perfect balance, I found that if you turn on the Quest 2 and play with the top strap to raise and lower the headset so that its visuals are clear and sharp, then tighten it to the front and back of your face. After doing this top strap adjustment I found that I had to make fewer adjustments when putting it on afterwards and also I didn’t feel the need to have it as tight on my face to counter the front weight drop of the headset.
It’s a good head strap for the Quest 2 that, if you can look past the quality of its top strap and rear padding, it has the ability of being a well balanced and comfortable head strap, once you insert a suitable weighted battery into its mount at the back.
If you don’t have a battery pack already, you will need to factor in this additional cost on top of this strap, as this head strap doesn’t come with one. But like I said earlier. Look for a battery that weighs around 190g to 250g, it has a small form factor, and it outputs 3A and at least 18W via USB-C. Some batteries come with a charging cable, but some do not and you might have to buy that separately or use the charging cable that came with the Quest 2. Using a weighted battery like this will help really counterbalance the headset at the front, and you will greatly improve the overall comfort of this head strap.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Intro
0:19 – Brief overview
0:57 – Unboxing & Installation
1:42 – Overall impressions
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