Foc.us tDCS Gaming Headset Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,160 words · ~5 min read
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This video is brought to you by the Corsair Vengeance K70 and K95. These
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fully mechanical keyboards are designed for performance gaming. Visit
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Corsair.com/vvenancegaming to learn more. Welcome to my unboxing of the Folk
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Us or Focus or whatever you want to call it. Their domain is folk. us. And the
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objective of this product is to help you
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focus. I have no idea if it's total snake oil or if it's an actual thing.
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So, I decided to buy one. We did not have this review sample provided to us.
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I just forked over the money. I'm like, "Okay, I got to see this in action." So,
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their tagline is be fast, be focus. And
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the implication of that is that this will make you faster and more focused.
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It uses a technology called TDCS or
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transcranial direct current stimulation. So while there may be evidence that TDCS
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does do something, it's usually in a clinical setting and it's usually with
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uh much different equipment. So this is the first consumer grade device that has
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gotten FCC approval. There's no FDA certification of any sort on it because
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it is not considered a medical device. it is being marketed as a gaming device
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to help you well focus a little bit better. And uh whether or not these
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claims are true, I sort of, you know, definitely open for to debate. But
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anyway, the point is that there is it is not being sold as a medical device. So,
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let's go ahead and open it up, find out what's inside. The first thing we get is
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a couple of focus stickers. Maybe just staring at those will help you focus.
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You never know. Uh, we also get a manual and warranty which shows you how to use
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it. So, the default settings will do 1
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milliamp for 10 minutes. It also shows you on their website how to apply it to
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your head in a sort of similar to this but a little bit different graphic.
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Shows you how to put the sponges on. It really does feel very spacey. Ah, here
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it shows you the available TDCS modes. Now, it should be noted that not much in
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terms of clinical trials has been done on the default mode that the Focus runs
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in. But if you get the accessory pack or extras pack or whatever else it's
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called, you get a few different things including some different modes. So, you
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get sinus pulse, nose, and sham mode.
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Sham mode is exactly what it sounds like. It's actually faking it so that
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you can do blind tests and so you can figure out if it actually has any
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effect. It includes a bunch of extra sponges. So those are dampening sponges.
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Uh includes whatever these are. Some more pads for things. Some more wires
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and doodads. Ah external. Right. These are the external pads and external
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leads. So you can actually hook them up a little bit differently. Right. We got
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more of those. Again, another little
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carrying case as well as evidently a
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stand for the focus. All right. So
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there's the extras pack. At any rate, I was mostly interested in the additional
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modes since some of the modes that it enables have been a little bit uh better
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investigated. Uh there's an app that allows you to control it. So, you can
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use the touch sensitive controls on the device itself or you can use an app in
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order to adjust from anywhere from 0.8 milliamps to 2 milliamps and anywhere
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from 5 to 40 minutes. So, the app is
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coming soon for iOS, coming soon for Android, and there will be Windows, Mac,
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and Linux ones as well. So, let's have a
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look at the Oh, okay. I guess so. Inside here, you get a little bottle for
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dampening your sponges. You also get a charging cable. It uses micro USB
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because everything does these days, even though it's a big piece of crap. And you
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get a set, two sets of sponges. Now, our Focus appears to have arrived damaged,
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which is very disappointing, but I can see what happened here. I may attempt a
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DIY repair, but I would have hoped that that buying something that's a
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commercial product versus a DIY product, I would have been able to uh, you know,
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just use it out of the box. Moving over to the back of the unit, we find the
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touch sensitive buttons. So, these ones are for adjusting things up and down.
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This can be used in any number of different ways, whether it's to start
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Bluetooth pairing. It flashes the logo over here, either blue or red or fading
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or breathing or whatever to uh signify different modes and different settings
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as you as you're adjusting things. Wouldn't have minded a little on screen
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display because I think that would make life a little bit easier. Um down here
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we find the charging port as well as an onoff switch and the port for the
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external electrodes which were included with our extras kit. So you can either
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plug in one of them just like that. So, this is a single single lead or there's
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a there's one that comes with uh with dual leads. So, there you have it. Now,
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it should be noted that um Focus does
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not recommend using this thing for anything other than sedentary gaming.
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So, it's not like, oh, I want to be better at, you know, playing hockey, so
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I should, you know, use this thing for a little bit and uh hope that that's the
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effect that it has. They they're expecting you to just use it for gaming.
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Um, so we'll see how long it takes someone to use it for something other
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than gaming. Uh, they say there's quite a few, you know, various side effects
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that you could experience. Nausea, headaches, fatigue, visual artifacts. If
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you experience any of these side effects, stop your session. You may feel
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tingling, hot or cold sensations. If they become uncomfortable, painful, stop
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your session. So, uh, basically, I mean, from from sort of a pure common sense
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perspective, zapping your brain with, uh, electrical sort of, you know,
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nonsense just seems kind of insane. But I'm definitely going to try it out. And
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we will be following up once we get a working unit with our impressions of the
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Focus once we've had a chance to uh, sit down and try it out a little bit. So,
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very, very exciting, guys. Thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview of
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the Focus TDCS device. Don't forget to
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