HaptX is bringing touch to VR with a pair of scary-looking gloves and a pneumatic suitcase
I haven’t seen a virtual reality glove system that also includes a suitcase-sized pneumatic box accessory, but then again there aren’t too many VR peripherals that have delivered quite the depth of immersion of the HaptX system.
Today, HaptX announced the release of their Gloves development kit that will allow its users to feel pressure and resistance in their virtual reality interactions, all while delivering smooth hand-tracking.
The big highlight of the system is the pressure sensitivity it offers, meaning that you can roughly tell what an object feels like when you grab it because little air bubbles are building out the shape of the object inside the gloves. This is the reason there’s a suitcase-sized box filled with pneumatic actuators, which the company says has been rapidly shrinking and will be much smaller by the time the product exits the dev kit phase. Alongside the pressure offered by the 130 feedback points, there’s also a bit of an exoskeleton around your hands designed to give your fingers some resistance as you try to close them on solid objects.
... the startup is using magnetic planar tracking to track the movement and position of your fingers and joints. It’s the same kind of tracking tech used in the Magic Leap remote, but it’s a bit more of a stress test here, given just how much is being tracked.
Feeling a spider jump on to my hand and all of its legs move across my palm was honestly one of the least pleasant things I’ve experienced in VR and left my spine crawling while I flicked the digital spider off my very disturbed real body.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/03/haptx-is-bringing-touch-to-vr-with-a-pair-of-scary-looking-gloves-and-a-pneumatic-suitcase/?ncid=tcdaily&utm_medium=TCnewsletter