Virtual reality is the future. I hear it every day. From companies big and small. Facebook, Sony, Google — every company seems to be investing R&D into VR.

As Mashable's product analyst, I always err on the side of skepticism, when I'm testing out new and unproven technology such as VR.

See also: E3 2015 was all about VR and its weird accessories

Don't get me wrong, VR is a mind-boggling immersive experience. There's no way you can fathom VR's potential until you try it for yourself. But even though Oculus VR has announced the consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset will ship in the first quarter of 2016 — making it more real than just a developer kit — I know VR still has a long ways to go before it becomes an a gadget as transformative as the telephone, TV, PC and smartphone.

For VR to really, well, be a virtual representation of reality, it has to provide a true sense of presence. By that, I mean more than just a visual experience. You should be able to see your body and hands, and move them — naturally in real space and it'll mimic that movement in the virtual world.

When the Rift comes out next year, it will be mostly a seated experience. The VR headset will ship with an Xbox One controller and a camera sensor. The games and VR experiences will not be designed with body-tracking and movement in mind, a decision Oculus VR made in order to make it easier for developers to create VR content and ease new users into VR.

Every Oculus Rift will ship with an Xbox One controller.

At E3 this year, I tried the consumer version of the Oculus Rift. Its black, fabric-clothed exterior and sculpted design is slick and the VR itself is as solid as the previous prototype, but I couldn't shake off the seated experience. In a game called Air Mech, where you control tanks that transform into robots and try to defend your base from incoming enemy tanks and jets, I kept wishing I could get up and walk around the table-top surface to see things from the other side.

On Wednesday, I finally got to try the HTC Vive — a VR headset the company's making in partnership with Valve. I also got to use the Vive's custom wireless controllers that work to mimic your hands to a limited degree.

The Vive is similar to the Rift — it's got elastic bands that hold the headset on your face — but it does something the Rift won't be able to do at launch: Walk around in VR (and without dumb treadmills).

The Vive has a ton of sensors: an accelerometer and gyroscope built into the front of the headset, and two laser sensors placed in the corners of a room that track its position.

In my 20-minute Vive demo, I was in a small hotel room no larger than 15-feet x 15-feet. In the handful of demos I tried, I was able to move freely in the room. All the while, I never bumped into the wall.

But how?

The Vive's answer to VR movement in a room lies with the room sensors. Together, they create virtual barriers based on the room's dimensions and the position of the headset. HTC calls this feature "chaperone." Like a chaperone, the virtual barrier guides keep you safe. When you're within around a few inches of the wall in real life, the digital barriers appear alerting you that you're close to bumping into the wall. Step back and the chaperone guides disappear.

In one demo, I was standing on the deck of a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean. A school of fish and a manta ray swam by. Then, an HTC rep told me turn around. Looming over me was a giant whale that I could stand under, move around and look at from all directions. As I walked towards the edge of the ship's deck, I leaned forward and for a split second my legs trembled thinking I would fall, but then the chaperone guidelines appeared and I remembered I was actually in a hotel room, inches away from a wall.

Another demo placed me in a virtual kitchen where I had to grab ingredients on countertops and in the fridge and dump them into a pot to make soup.

The two other VR demos that blew my mind were a painting experience and an Aperture Science experience. The latter was purely designed for Valve fans and dropped me in a lab straight out of Portal where I was tasked with repairing a robot.

As geeky as the Aperture Science demo was, the 3D painting demo really surprised me. Imagine using sparklers to paint in the air and then you can walk through them. Maybe you can't imagine it, but trust me, it was so cool. I could see myself painting for hours in VR and I was so sad when the demo ended and the next one loaded.

The HTC Vive controllers are like advanced Wii remotes. Image: Paul James/RoadtoVR

All of these VR demos instilled a sense of real depth and physical presence. With a pair of Vive wireless controllers, I was able to grab open drawers, flip switches, rotate machine parts and paint in the air. Presence is something I thought I'd get from HoloLens, but that headset is hampered by a really small field of view.

You can't see your body yet in the Vive, but I imagine HTC and Valve's engineers are already working on solving that.

The controllers don't provide individual finger tracking like the Rift's Oculus Touch hand controller prototypes — though even those only track three fingers per hand, no ring and pinky fingers — and work more like advanced Wii Remote controllers.

Each controller has a rather flat, but clickable, directional pad on the front and a trigger on the back. In the 3D painting app, for example, I could rotate the left controller to select a suite of tools and brushes and then dip the right controller onto it to select a specific color.

They're really easy to operate and there was no learning curve at all — they're that intuitive.

The one thing I thought would annoy me, but didn't, were the thick cables attached to the headset. As I walked around the hotel room, I thought I would trip over them at least once, but I never did. They're inelegant, for sure, but there's no way around it since the Vive needs to connect to a beefy PC. At least the controllers are wireless, though. On a positive note, the wiring actually served as reassurance and a reminder that my mind was in VR, but my physical body was still safe in room. The cable brushing my leg was like a lifeline, if you will.

It's always difficult to describe VR to people who haven't ever experienced it. I was expecting to get a little motion sick with all the head turning and body movement, but I didn't feel nauseous at all in any of the demos.

That's the first impression all VR headsets should give people.

It's not like the Vive uses superior VR technology compared to the Rift. They both have a 1,080 x 1,200 resolution per eye and a 90-hertz (Hz) refresh rate to keep the visuals as smooth as possible. The Vive still has the same "screen door effect" a.k.a. the pixels are big and visible, but it's the same on the Rift as well.

I've been cautious to sing the praises of VR as the next big technological revolution. 3D's failure and 4K's lack of content are constant reminders that the latest and greatest technology is not enough.

VR's success will depend on whether the content and experience is compelling enough. The content can't be lousy. And more than traditional visual media content designed for flat screens, making VR experiences will require a whole lot more work because you're designing for 360-degrees. The cameras to shoot VR won't be cheap either; Google's Jump VR camera uses 16 GoPro Hero 4 cameras (anywhere from $6,400 to $8,000).

Making VR content, presenting VR content to people who have never experienced it, and explaining why it is game-changing are all challenges VR faces if it's to be more than just a fad.

After trying out the Vive, I'm more excited about VR than ever before. The Oculus Rift might have been the first modern VR headset to revive VR, but the Vive is already taking the lead. Its motion detection and immersive sense of presence puts it a mile ahead the Rift.

Your move, Oculus.