Enjoy my KIWI design Facial Interface for Oculus Quest 2 review. You can buy the PRODUCT for $32.99 from KIWI design directly here →
Overview
So I’ve covered a number of products from Kiwi design, from knuckle straps to grips and battery straps, but this Facial Interface and Foam Replacement for Oculus Quest 2 from Kiwi design is their first venture into facial interfaces. It offers the same level of quality we come to expect from them, and there are some additional features and improvements that I’ve not yet seen on other facial interfaces for the Quest 2.
In the box, you get the black coloured facial interface itself, there are two similar-sized PU leather foam pads, also in black, and finally, there is a padded lens cover included in the box too.
Facial Interface
Looking at the facial interface first. The whole design immediately seems slightly bigger and wider than some other branded interfaces. You can tell this by looking at the sides of the cover, which almost reaches the speaker exit hole on the side of the headset. The plastic material they have used is very rigid, and this runs throughout the whole interface, which is different from other interfaces that use a mix of hard and soft plastic materials.
This interface from Kiwi design is the most breathable yet for the Quest 2. It has more grills and holes in it than any interface I’ve reviewed on the Quest, and this will really help with ventilation during high-intensity sessions, such as working out in VR.
There are full-width grills located on the top and bottom of the interface, and there are even grills underneath the lower foam padding area of the interface. And it’s because of these lower grill holes, KIWI design has had to rethink its design for their foam pads because there are no velcro attachment points in this area.
Foam Pads
You get two foam pads in the box. Placing them together I couldn’t tell any difference in the size or thickness between them. Both foam pads are 16mm in-depth, but they are made with a high-density foam that compacts down to 8mm. It rebounds back quite well and its PU leather material makes them easy to clean when they get sweaty. They are more pointy than other foam pads, but they will compact down with pressure and will spread out more evenly around your face.
The one unique feature that you’ll notice on these foam pads is that there is a continuous piece of padding that connects between the cheekbone padded areas. This is due to the ventilation holes on the interface and the lack of velcro to attach the foam pads onto. Kiwi design has added a small bar of velcro onto the recessed nosepiece area that the back of these foam pads attach to, and it works quite well. It didn’t reduce the area for my nose as the padded material in this area is quite thin, and in a way, it helps with the light leakage around your nose.
Anti-light Leakage Nose Flap
This brings me onto the anti-light leakage nose flap. This is a bit smaller than I would have liked. It’s much smaller than both offerings from VR Cover and AMVR, and as a result, you don’t get as much light blocked in this area. If you choose to use a different foam pad with this interface, you increase the gap around this area, because the nose padding from their foam pads does fill in this space a little.
I tried fitting some alternative foam pads onto the interface and because of the lack of velcro at the bottom, where these grills are, they don’t attach at the bottom. But thanks to all the extra velcro at the top they do still attach well enough, but without any velcro, at the bottom, they could move about and cause irritation. A bit of velcro tape would fix this though if you’re thinking of matching this interface with another foam pad.
My Impressions
It might be late in the day for Kiwi design to bring a new facial interface alternative to the Quest 2, but it’s a decent attempt. Thanks to the firm plastic material they have used, I found that it clips very well onto the Quest 2 and it stays more attached much better than some other facial interfaces I have tried. But there are a few minor issues that I found during my test.
The first is due to the material and size of the plastic and how close they reach the built-in speakers of the Quest 2. I found that with some heavy bass sound, such as the rifle fire in Sniper Elite VR, the sound from the speaker drivers would vibrate the facial interface.
This creates a tingling sensation at both temples of my head every time I fire the rifle in Sniper Elite or when there is heavy bass in music such as in Best Saber. This only occurs in the last 2-3 notches of maximum volume on the Quest, and you can rule this out if you wear earbuds or headphones with your Quest. I run the same test on the other interfaces and it was also present but not as severe as the KIWI design interface. I think it’s because, on some other facial interfaces, the plastic in this area is much softer, so they can absorb the sound waves and vibration much better.
The second issue I have is with the nose leak flap. As I mentioned earlier, it’s much smaller and because of this, the blocking effect isn’t as strong as other facial interfaces. But with that said, I like to see some of the outside world, so I can peek through the gap to tell where I am in a room without taking my headset off or use passthrough.
The connecting nose foam padding is a good idea, but at times I did find my nose brushing the edges of the padding in this area. They have made this area wider to compensate for this feature, so if you attach a different foam pad you will get more light coming through and around your nose because the nose flap isn’t big enough to fill this gap – at least for me anyway.
The biggest improvement with this interface, other than it actually clipping in well, is the many breathable holes this interface has. If you suffer from fogging or you work out a lot in VR, then this might be the facial interface for you. It has so many gaps and holes, it’s no wonder why they had to use the firm plastic material everywhere to help keep its shape.
I think I still need some more time with this interface to see if it stays on my Quest 2 or not. There’s a lot to like here, but I feel the padding could have been improved, they are not as comfortable as some pads from VR Cover, and I feel the vents and lack of velcro at the bottom, has steered them into thinking up a solution that wasn’t really needed, and as a result, it has gone more against this product, than improve it.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Intro
0:14 – Brief overview
0:42 – Unboxing
0:56 – Facial Interface
2:09 – Foam Pads
3:27 – Anti-light leakage flaps
3:55 – Fitting alternative foam pads
4:23 – Overall impressions
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