Disclosed herein are systems and methods for providing VR/MR experiences to users in water through a headset and at least one special-effects device. During a VR/MR experience, a controller may send commands to a special-effects device at particular times to cause the special-effects device to create effects in synchronism with the visual portion of the VR/MR experience. A headset application that provides the visual portion of the VR/MR experience may communicate with the controller before the experience begins to establish the identity of the experience and the start time. The VR/MR experience may be selected by reading a storage medium (e.g., a near-field communication (NFC) card) that identifies the experience and/or the controller. Some information on the storage medium may be included in a metadata file transferred to the application. The application may send information read from the storage medium to the controller via an over-the-air network.