Massless is accepting applications for the first wave of its VR stylus which is aimed at making it easier and more precise for professionals to create and design in VR. The company expects to ship the Massless Pen starting in Q4.

We first got a look at a prototype of the Massless Pen VR stylus last year and found it promising as an input device that could bring greater and more natural precision to professionals using VR to create 3D artwork, models, and designs. Since then the company has refined the prototype and is readying an initial run for an ‘early access’ launch in Q4 2019.

Massless is accepting pre-order applications with a $50 deposit as part of a total $500 price which includes one year of the Massless Studio software. The box includes the stylus and a dedicated tracking camera with a stand.

Following the initial release, the company plans to charge $1,000 for the Massless Pen and $20 per month or $200 per year for Massless Studio.

Massless says that the stylus works Rift and Vive (presumably other SteamVR headsets too), and in addition to Massless Studio, the stylus supports Gravity Sketch, Medium, Quill, Tilt Brush, Maya & Blender (via plugin), and soon, Vector Suite. It isn’t entirely clear how Medium and Quill are supported considering Oculus doesn’t have a framework for using third-party controllers with its software; we’ve reached out to Massless for more information.

The company’s own VR software, Massless Studio, will likely offer the most seamless integration with the Massless Pen. It’s said to include real-time collaboration features so that multiple users can work together virtually.

Massless Studio is built for concept sketching, with editable 3D splines. Our simple mesh generation and intuitive 3D modelling tools are perfect for automotive concept design, virtual production and architectural pre-visualisation.

Generate fly through videos and images for presentation (MP4, PNG); mark up and annotate in our Design Review Mode. Export and import in industry standard file types. (FBX, OBJ, STL, STEP)

A ‘Massless Live’ feature also enables mixed reality views from within the software so that creatives can stream or share their work with a composited view that shows the user inside the software.

The pen also supports a non-VR ‘Tablet Mode’ which allows it to function like a graphics tablet and stylus for use with apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier Pro, Solidworks, and Fusion 360. It isn’t clear how accurate it will be compared to typical non-VR tablets like those from Wacom, but it would surely make the stylus a greater value if it could double as both a VR input device and a traditional graphics tablet.

The Massless Pen now includes surface sensing so that the tip explicitly knows when it’s touching a surface. This can allow the stylus to be used against a desk or other hard surface as a physical drawing plane to work in 2D, but of course the stylus can be used in free-form in the air as well.

The company says the stylus also includes a whopping 12 hours of battery life, USB-C for charging, a capacitive sensor near the index finger for application control, and haptic feedback. The Massless Pen is tracked with its own dedicated camera which is separate from the headset’s tracking; the company says the sensor offers a 90° × 70° tracking volume.

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Massless isn’t the only company working on a VR stylus for professionals. Earlier this year Logitech introduced its own prototype, the ‘VR Ink’ stylus, which is based on SteamVR Tracking. While Logitech has been soliciting interest from partners on a case-by-case basis, the company hasn’t yet announced plans for public sale of its stylus.

With a development journey starting way back in 2014, Dexta’s Dexmo haptic force-feedback VR gloves have come a very long way. I recently went hands-on with the latest version of the company’s gloves, which are now production ready, and came away impressed with their compact size and freedom of mobility.

Dexta Robotics originally envisioned building a consumer force-feedback glove for VR but has in recent years pivoted the Dexmo gloves toward the enterprise market. While CEO Aler Gu says the company is still very intent on delivering a more refined and affordable consumer product in the future, for now it’s opened sales for enterprise customers. Dexta is selling the gloves on a case-by-case basis and hasn’t publicly disclosed the price.

The latest version of the gloves are production ready and surprisingly sleek and sharply designed compared to other force-feedback gloves I’ve tried. Dexta’s nearest competitor is very likely HaptX, which offers some really compelling haptic and force-feedback, though its latest prototypes are bulky and require a huge tether connected to each glove which largely limits HaptX to ‘stand in place’ use-cases.

The Dexmo gloves, on the other hand, are compact and battery powered, thereby supporting the same kind of room-scale VR experiences that most of today’s headsets are capable of.

Quick primer on ‘haptic’ and ‘force-feedback’ for this article: ‘haptics’ here means some sensation that replicates a feeling of touching something, while ‘force-feedback’ means the ability to actually push back against your fingers to make it feel like you’re grabbing virtual objects that aren’t actually there.

Dexmo offers both. Haptics come in the form of vibrators (LRAs); there’s one in each finger and two in the palm section in the glove. Force-feedback comes from the glove’s ‘fingers’ which are connected to each of your own. Motors in each of the glove’s fingers can stop your fingers in place to give a sensation of grabbing objects of varying shapes.

Additionally, Dexmo’s force-feedback is ‘active’ which means the motors not only can stop your fingers in place, they can also push and pull against them, as well as offer variable force control to emulate squishy objects or add additional haptic sensations (like a button which has some initial resistance and then ‘clicks’ after enough force is applied).

Fitting the glove involves strapping a section of the glove around you palm and then sliding your fingertips into little sleeves. The right fit for the sleeves is important; you want them tight enough to stay in place and to transmit the vibrations from the haptics while not being too tight that they squeeze the blood out of your fingertips.

Comfort is a huge challenge for any kind of force-feedback gloves because your hands and fingers need to be secure enough that the glove can impart force against them, but if you go too tight on any of the adjustments then your hands will become uncomfortable quickly. Luckily Dexta provides various sizes of the fingertip sleeves and makes them easy to swap in and out, so I was able to find a size that hit that Goldilocks zone.

Once the gloves are on you can feel some added physical resistance from the motors. That is to say that even when they aren’t actively providing feedback, there’s enough friction in the system that you can feel some drag on the movements of your fingers, though not enough to impact normal hand use. The company told me that this could be fixed in the future but would require a more specialized motor design, something that would be more feasible to explore once they are doing larger scale production.

In addition to haptics and force-feedback, the Dexmo gloves also track your finger positions by reading sensors in the gloves. After a calibration step which had me hold my fingers in a few different poses, I could see my fingers in VR articulating mostly realistically, save for the thumb on both hands that didn’t seem to want to cooperate (when I did a ‘thumbs up’ it wouldn’t extend upward). Dexta indicated this was a bug of some sort. Otherwise my other fingers seemed to track fine; the glove uses the finger tracking information against an API to determine when and how it should engage force-feedback.

Considering how (relatively) small the gloves are, and how much leverage there is from each motor (at the knuckle) all the way to each finger, I was surprised to find that the gloves offered ample stopping power for my fingers. When I reached out to pick up virtual objects I got a convincing ‘grip’ sensation that relayed to my brain that I was holding something. Because each of the fingertips of the glove can pivot at their attachment point, there’s definitely a ‘best’ way to grab objects for the most realistic sensation (fingers curved in just a bit). Once I got the feel for this, I really enjoyed the grabbing sensation the gloves offered, and it definitely made interactions of grabbing and holding things feel more real, especially because I could tell I was still holding something even when it was outside of my field of view (without force-feedback you have only your eyes to tell you whether or not you’re holding a virtual object).

Dexta also showed me how the ‘active’ nature of the force-feedback could be used by giving me a squishy object to play with—which pushed back against my fingers light at first and then harder as I squeezed more, until they stopped altogether—and also put a virtual beating heart in my hand which pushed my fingers back a bit with each pulse.

The haptics in the glove certainly seem like they have potential, but Dexta admits they are still at the very beginning of figuring out how to best use them. LRAs are capable of lots of interesting sensations which can convey things like clicks, rumble, and even complex surface texture, but doing so requires a lot of expertise in figuring out how to dynamically drive the frequencies to create these sensations. Indeed, in the demos I tried, the haptics felt coarsely implemented. The company plans to spend more time honing their library of haptic effects.

Between the Dexmo gloves and others that I’ve tried, I was really surprised how minimally they limited my natural finger dexterity. Outwardly, the design of the glove looks somewhat intrusive as it gives your hand an exoskeletal profile, but the way that all of the mechanical elements stay on the back of the hand means that the freedom of movement of my fingers was nearly untouched. Even the fingercaps are pretty unobtrusive; I was surprised to find that I could easily open a water bottle with a slim-profile cap while wearing the gloves with no problem. I was also able to put on and easily adjust my own headset, something which I needed help doing when I tried the bulky HaptX gloves.

I’m most impressed with Dexmo’s mechanical functionality and hardware design, but where the company now really needs to focus its efforts is on the software side. Any kind of gloves like these need a mature SDK that developers can use to make the gloves work with their applications; this is an area where HaptX is far ahead.

Running the simulations and determining the logic which drives the mechanics of the gloves for consistent and realistic feedback is no small feat. While Dexmo’s force-feedback worked well for what I would call ‘whole hand’ actions, more nuanced interactions with individual fingers seemed to confuse the system at times. As did passing objects between hands, which was an awkward affair that required very deliberate motions to get the system to understand what I was trying to do. In the demo I tried, the gloves also had very little idea what to do when I reached out to touch immovable objects like walls (the fingers would move spontaneously and unrealistically).

Force-feedback (and haptics) is all about conveying useful information to the user through the sense of touch. If the feedback being offered isn’t consistent and clear, it reduces the reliability and therefore usefulness of the information.

Making Dexmo’s force-feedback more consistent by better tuning the software is something the company needs to work on (and I relayed as much), but I left my demo otherwise very impressed with the hardware foundation that the company has built. There’s a lot of potential in the capabilities of the Dexmo glove that I would love to see shine once the software driving it is better tuned. Considering the company’s persistence in getting their hardware to this point over the last five years, I have reason to believe they’ll be up to the software challenge too.

Logitech’s enterprise-focused VR stylus is now available for pre-order. The $750 ‘VR Ink Pilot Edition’ uses SteamVR Tracking and offers up a more natural and precise input modality for a handful of art & design focused VR tools.

Logitech revealed the VR Ink Pilot Edition back at the end of May. At the time the company was only working with select partners to gather feedback on the VR stylus; now Logitech has opened up pre-orders for the device for $750, though they’re still calling it a “beta product” (and ask those pre-ordering to explicitly confirm their understanding of its beta status). The stylus is expected to ship in February 2020 and supports SteamVR Tracking base stations 1.0 and 2.0 (though these are not included in the price).

In addition to the stylus, Logitech is offering an optional ‘VR Ink Drawing Mat’ for $70. The company describes this as a “low friction surface texture designed for optimal tracking performance,” though it isn’t clear if the mat actively contributes to tracking or if it’s just the ideal friction to take advantage of the pressure-sensitive tip of the VR stylus. The drawing mat is A1 sized, which means 23.4″ × 33.1″ (594mm × 841mm).

The Logitech VR Ink Pilot Edition stylus weighs 68 grams and includes a pressure sensitive button, a clickable 2D touch-strip, menu & system buttons, side ‘grab’ buttons, and integrated haptics. Logitech is promising “2.5+ hours” of battery life.

While the stylus integrates with SteamVR and is recognized as a regular input device, its unique buttons and inputs mean it isn’t suitable for typical SteamVR games. Instead, the stylus has custom integrations with a handful of art and design focused VR tools. Logitech currently lists VR Ink Pilot Edition support for Flyingshapes, Vector Suite, VRED, Mindesk, Gravity Sketch, MARUI (Maya plugin), IrisVR, and Tilt Brush, with integrations for Unreal Engine and Unity so that developers can adapt more applications to the stylus.

Logitech says they’ve continued to improve their VR stylus since our prototype hands-on back in May:

To make a stylus really work for surface drawing in VR, you need a lot of precision, and so far the VR Ink has impressed on that front. Largely driven by SteamVR Tracking, but undoubtedly assisted by the stylus’ pressure-sensitive tip, drawing against a table feels really natural. I’m by no means a digital artist who spends every day with a Wacom tablet, but I’ve used my fair share of tablet PCs with active digitizers (including the Surface Book as my primary laptop), and VR Ink’s drawing and pressure sensitivity felt very comparable.

[…]

Granted, there was some occasional stuttering of the stylus, though for the most part it seemed occlusion related, which could be fixed with better base station placement. The demo room was using four 2.0 base stations mounted above head height (which is typically what you want), but mounting them just above table height might actually allow for better view of the stylus, especially when the user is leaning over the stylus as they draw or write.

Beyond Logitech, the VR Ink stylus is also a win for Valve, as it shows not only how versatile their SteamVR Tracking tech can be, but also how their commitment to an open VR platform is enabling for others. VR Ink couldn’t work with Oculus headsets (unless through SteamVR) because Oculus doesn’t allow third-parties to make use of its tracking systems.

London-based hardware startup TG0 has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Etee dev kit, a VR controller with integrated SteamVR Tracking. TG0 positions the controller’s button-less design and finger tracking as its main attractions.

TG0 has launched the Etee Kickstarter campaign with the hopes of raising £45,900 (~$56,000) for its VR controller dev kit. The Etee dev kit will come in two versions, one with 3DOF tracking starting at £200 (~$265) for a pair and another with 6DOF SteamVR Tracking starting at £240 (~$315) for a pair. There’s a range of higher tiers available with more unique rewards, including a version with advanced haptics and another with a cool transparent shell.

Based on a thesis that sounds… downright wrong to the ears of any VR gamer, TG0 says that “buttons are way out of date,” and touts the Etee controller’s button-less, trigger-less, and joystick-less design as its major selling point, alongside finger-sensing, which the company says detects proximity, touch, and pressure.

This is in contrast to the rest of the VR industry which has steadily coalesced around VR controllers and games which make use of use of buttons, triggers, and joysticks for key gaming interactions. TG0 says that Etee supports gestures which can be used in place of buttons.

While removing the reliance on binary controls sounds great on paper, in practice it has proven difficult in the VR gaming space because of the need for precise and highly reliable inputs.

But VR gaming isn’t the only use-case the company is touting for the Etee controllers. As a dev kit, they could of course be used for any application where motion input is useful. Indeed, VR content that doesn’t demand the binary precision of hardcore game experiences—like training, art, therapy, social, remote control, and more—could definitely leverage Etee as a more intuitive means of input than a VR controller covered in unfamiliar buttons, triggers, and sticks. We’ve made a similar point about Oculus Quest’s experimental hand-tracking feature (which of course also lacks buttons, triggers, and sticks).

Though the controllers are a dev kit at this stage, thanks to integration with the SteamVR Input system, the Etee controllers should be technically compatible with SteamVR games out of the box, though we’d expect the need to experiment with custom bindings for many games to reach a point where things are truly playable with the controllers given the need to remap buttons and other controls to Etee’s unique inputs.

TG0 says developers can expect battery life up to 6 hours of continuous use and 14 hours of standby, and that the 3DOF version of the controller weighs 75 grams and the SteamVR Tracking version weighs 120 grams.

The Etee Kickstarter campaign runs until May 11th and the company expects the first ‘Early Bird’ controllers will begin shipping in December 2020.

Etee, the finger-tracking VR controller with SteamVR Tracking, has nearly reached its Kickstarter goal with plenty of time to spare. Though the controller is designed to be free of buttons, sticks, and triggers (relying instead on finger tracking), its creators say it can adapt to existing VR games. TG0, the company behind Etee, has shared Half-Life: Alyx gameplay with the controllers and a Q&A which speaks to the decisions underlying the controller’s design.

The Etee Kickstarter launched on April 1st, 2020, setting out to raise £45,900 (~$56,000) for Etee controller dev kits. The campaign appears to be just days away from reaching its goal with nearly four weeks to spare.

And while the controllers aren’t designed strictly for VR gaming, TG0 has marketed for that use-case (among others) and claims that they are perfectly adaptable for the input needs of existing SteamVR games.

To demonstrate that the Etee controllers are up to the task, the company has published two videos showing Half-Life: Alyx played with the controllers (note: that the company is using Vive Trackers for now but the final controller will include a bespoke SteamVR Tracking module built into the controller).

The good news is that Half-Life: Alyx and many other games can adapt to the controller without any special modifications to the game (thanks to Valve’s forward-looking SteamVR Input system).

At a minimum the game looks entirely playable with the Etee controllers, though without trying it ourselves, it’s hard to say how consistently gestures like grabbing, throwing, and shooting will perform without any buttons or triggers. If TG0 creates a fully compatible driver for the SteamVR Input system, it should be possible to tweak many of these parameters and dial in something that feels decent (assuming the underlying hardware that tracks fingers is doing its job well). At a minimum, we’re glad to see the company not shying away from showing the gaming use-case of the Etee controllers in greater detail.

In addition to the Alyx footage, TG0 has also shared a self-Q&A with Road to VR (below) which expounds on the design decisions underlying the controller. TG0 has also committed to answering more questions here in the comments, so feel free to drop a line below if you have additional questions.

Mick Lin, our super-creative interface product design specialist, originally hails from Taiwan. He began developing etee after co-founding TG0 back in 2016.

What sort of response have you seen so far to etee?

People are really impressed, which feels great after spending so much time developing it. Most people are fascinated by how this tiny controller works – it’s something completely new that people haven’t seen before. We are having a lot of debate about the buttonless aspect. Some people like the idea. Some don’t. But we really believe we are doing the right thing.

etee is your baby. How did the idea first come about?

Initially, we didn’t set out to make a controller at all. It was during a brainstorming session on the uses of TG0’s technology that we realised how well our tech would work when combined with a VR controller. The more we discussed the idea, the more we knew it was something we just had to make.

What were your key goals as you set out designing etee?

We wanted the lightest and simplest design possible, something that was intuitive to use with an impressive finger sensing level. Because we wanted the controller to be quick and easy to put on and take off, we steered clear of fiddly glove designs. What we’ve ended up with is a controller that can be slipped on and off in seconds, and because it’s so small and light, you can even stop to answer the phone while wearing it.

Why did you decide not to use buttons?

When you think about it, buttons are pretty archaic and clunky technology. Without button layouts to memorise, movement becomes intuitive and a lot closer to how it is in real life. Instead of cumbersome buttons, we made a controller that harnesses finger-sensing technology. This leads to a totally different, superior experience.

Shooting games are growing in popularity in the VR/AR sphere. Can etee mimic a gun with no trigger button?

It certainly can – you just move your index finger as you normally would to pull a trigger. etee is actually a game-changer in this area: thanks to advanced pressure sensing, you can have guns with various trigger sensitivities and step triggers, something that no other controller offers. Rather than building the controller around a trigger function, we went for a human-centric design. If you focus heavily on buttons, layout and hand position for shooting, then suddenly everything is a shooting game. As the old saying goes, if you only have a hammer every problem is a nail.

How many versions of the design did you go through?

There were actually more than 40 iterations, each version honing different elements of the design. Every stage brought new challenges to work through: we improved everything from the signal detection and wireless connection to etee’s ability to detect different sizes of hands when it’s picked up. We experimented with different 3D forms and textures, and took notes of different user’s experience. We incorporated all of that feedback to make sure that users experience real freedom with their hand gestures.

How does TG0’s technology set etee apart from other controllers?

We’re tactile control specialists, which means we can bring something to the table that few others can. The conductive material we’ve used is pretty unique and gives etee a powerful sensing system. The structure itself is fairly simple, yet there’s no other controller like it. We wanted the end result to be truly different, hence etee’s ergonomic shape and the cylindrical control surface, which means that people can interact with it intuitively.

Can you see etee being used outside of VR?

Absolutely, I think there is scope for etee to be used in all sorts of ways and we’ve designed it with that fluidity in mind. It works well as a joystick in gaming, for example, as well as for hacking other control devices. I can also see it being used for corporate VR training purposes too, as well as uses in telecommunications and tele-presence. The possibilities for a controller like this are far-reaching.

What is the next step?

We want to take etee to the next level. To do so we need backers for our Kickstarter campaign. We have started well but every backer makes a difference; please support us if you can.

Wacom, a leader in stylus pens and tablets for creative professionals, unveiled a new device late last month which was built specifically for creators looking to leverage the power of VR.

Called Wacom VR Pen, the device is a pressure sensitive stylus controller. This, the company says in its developer-focused webpage, allows users to not only draw in VR, but also with the company’s fleet of professional pen tablets for traditional 2D drawing.

One of the major obstacles in creating a VR stylus is the lack of force feedback, which makes drawing in open spaces difficult and inherently less precise.

Wacom says however its pressure-sensitive button near the pen’s tip lets users naturally alter stroke thickness depending on the amount of force used when gripping the pen, which it says recreates a “similar experience to drawing with a pen on paper.”

Wacom VR Pen also features a few other buttons, including a trigger-style grip, a rotator knob for digital tool selection, and a selector toggle on the knob itself.

There’s still plenty left to learn about Wacom VR Pen, including its standalone tracking solution; it doesn’t rely on standard VR tracking systems such as Valve’s SteamVR base stations or Oculus Insight, the onboard optical tracking solution on Oculus Rift S and Quest/Quest 2. Wacom hasn’t detailed exactly how its tracking system works yet, so we’re hoping to learn more soon.

Going with an independent tracking solution however is undoubtedly beneficial to reaching a greater number of headset users. To that effect, Wacom President and CEO Nobu Ide says in a video (linked below) that VR Pen is designed to work with “major head-mounted displays in the market.”

A strong endorsement of the company’s move towards native VR creation, Ide calls VR Pen “unlike any other pen which Wacom created before, and it will be our transition point into the next creative future.”

Wacom isn’t the first to offer a VR-specific stylus. Logitech, one of the biggest entrants and direct competitor to Wacom, has offered their $750 Logitech VR Ink stylus since early 2020, integrating SteamVR tracking into a fairly standard stylus body.

At the moment, it appears Wacom is still shopping around for partners. Interested professional users are asked to contact Wacom directly via email at wacomvrpen@wacom.com.

Striker VR, maker of high-end haptic VR gun peripherals for the out-of-home market, announced today it has raised a $4 million investment and plans to use the funds to make its first move into the consumer VR space.

Striker VR’s Arena Infinity VR guns packs perhaps the most powerful haptic punch you’ll find in any VR gun peripheral. They’ve been deployed at VR attractions from the likes of Spaces, Nomadic, and more. VR experiences are able to take advantage of versatile haptics which can create sensations that mimic a wide range of virtual objects, all the way from a ‘charge up’ sci-fi gun to a chainsaw. But with prices in the thousands of dollars, the consumer VR segment hasn’t been part of the company’s strategy, until now.

The company exclusively revealed to Road to VR that it has raised a $4 million investment and plans to bring its technology to the consumer VR space. Striker VR described the investment as “strategic funding,” but didn’t disclose additional details on the participants of the investment.

With the cash infusion, the company says it plans to double its staff over the next year as it ramps up to launch a new version of its gun peripheral for the consumer VR market. While details on the device itself haven’t been fully revealed, Striker VR has shared a first look at the unique industrial design the company is aiming for, which appears to include trackpads on either side of the foregrip and possibly two additional capacitive inputs above the trigger.

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Striker VR tells us it plans to support both PC VR and Quest, though it’s unclear exactly how they’ll handle tracking. The company’s prior VR guns have supported tracking via the high-end OptiTrack system or with SteamVR Tracking via and attached Vive Tracker.

On the PC VR side, it’s possible the company will choose to integrate SteamVR Tracking directly into the peripheral, or expect the end-user to supplement the device with a Vive Tracker. As for Quest support… it’s less clear how the company will approach it. Oculus has not opened its tracking system to third-parties, though we’ve seen some other VR peripherals attach the Quest controller itself to function as a tracker.

With full details not yet released, we don’t know exactly what haptic technology the Striker VR consumer product will use. The haptics in company’s high-end products are based on a large linear actuator (and large batteries), though ostensibly some sacrifices will need to be made in the name of price. The company claims that the consumer version will have “more haptics than any controller ever produced,” and says that more details are due in a future announcement.

Speaking of price—Striker VR isn’t ready to reveal pricing, but confirmed it’s targeting a sub-$500 price point, further stating, “depending on the final build, it might be significantly less.”

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Figuring out how to attract developers to support the consumer haptic VR gun is likely to be Striker VR’s biggest challenge in entering the consumer VR segment.

In the PC VR space, no single haptic VR gun peripheral has found significant traction. Over on PSVR, however, the PS Aim accessory is generally well regarded and has seen support for more than 20 games, including some fairly major titles like Arizona Sunshine, Borderlands 2 VR, Farpoint, Firewall Zero Hour, and Doom VFR.

While PS Aim includes a joystick and nearly full input mapping to the PS4 gamepad, Striker VR’s consumer peripheral so far looks like it will rely on large trackpads and a fewer number of other inputs. This could make it more difficult for developers to build consumer games for the device, and perhaps less likely that existing games with PS Aim support could be ported to work with it.

Tundra Labs, the company developing the Tundra Tracker SteamVR Tracking accessory, has revealed pricing for the device starting at $95. Previously planned for earlier in the year, a Kickstarter campaign for the tracker is set to launch on March 29th with the first deliveries expected in July.

Tundra Tracker is an upcoming SteamVR Tracking tracker designed as an alternative to HTC’s Vive Tracker; we previously revealed many details of the tracker here.

Compared to the new Vive Tracker 3.0 revealed this week, Tundra Labs says the Tundra Tracker is still the smaller of the two, though it isn’t clear yet how the improved battery life of the Vive Tracker 3.0 will compare to the Tundra Tracker (Tundra Labs previously said its tracker would have better battery life than the Vive Tracker 2.0).

This week has brought the first look at the official pricing for the Tundra Tracker. Pricing is slightly confusing because the company is actually selling three different dongles, all of which connect via one USB connection, but are capable of connecting a different number of devices. We’ve labeled them A, B, and C for clarity:

Tundra Labs is positioning its multi-device dongles as a unique advantage over the Vive Tracker dongles.

Vive Trackers need one dongle per tracker, so if you want to use 5x Vive Trackers for body tracking, you’d need connect 5x Vive Tracker dongles to your computer (each on their own USB port, or with a third-party USB hub).

All of the Tundra Tracker dongles, on the other hand, use a single USB port but can connect multiple devices. Tundra Labs says its dongles are also capable of connecting Vive Trackers, controllers, and other peripherals which use SteamVR Tracking (including the ability to mix and match), and its dongles are designed to fit inside the ‘frunk’ USB accessory port on the Valve Index. (Vive Tracker dongles can also connect any SteamVR Tracking peripherals, but only one device per dongle.)

Tundra Labs told us at the outset that it was aiming for “slightly cheaper” pricing than the Vive Tracker 2.0; here’s how pricing compares between Tundra Tracker, Vive Tracker 2.0, and the new Vive Tracker 3.0:

Tundra Labs said this week that it’s still on track for a March 29th Kickstarter. Assuming the campaign succeeds, initial delivers are expected to begin in July.

Facebook today revealed some of its latest research and vision for a wrist-worn input device that the company expects to form the basis of AR and VR interactions and haptics in the future. The device, still in a research prototype phase, senses electrical signals in the user’s arm to detect intentional inputs. In addition to functioning as a simple ‘button’ input, the company says the device can even enable accurate, keyboard-less typing, and more.

In a media briefing this week, researchers from Facebook Reality Labs Research shared some of their latest work in developing new input technology which the team believes will form the foundation of interactions for XR devices of the future. The group shared a concept video of what it believes will be possible with the technology.

Beyond the concept video, the researchers also discussed the work happening to bring it to fruition.

Input on the Wrist

The Facebook researchers seem increasingly convinced that a wrist-worn controller is their best bet as an ‘always on’ wearable input device that can enable “ultra low friction” interactions for XR experiences.

Facebook has continued to build atop the wrist-wearable input technology it picked up in an acquisition of CTRL-Labs in 2019.

The heart of the wrist controller is electromyography (EMG) sensors which can detect the electrical signals which control the muscles in your hands. Rather than just course movements, the researchers say that EMG can be used to sense individual finger movements with precision down to one millimeter. In a video shared by the company, Facebook says the movements of the hand shown below are detected entirely with EMG:

While the near-term use-cases of this kind of technology could be to enable an ‘always available button’ which you can use to confirm choices presented to them through contextually relevant AR systems, the researchers say, further out it will be used for manipulating virtual interfaces and objects, and even to type without a keyboard.

“It’s highly likely that ultimately you’ll be able to type at high speed with EMG on a table or your lap — maybe even at higher speed than is possible with a keyboard today. Initial research is promising,” the company writes. “In fact, since joining FRL in 2019, the CTRL-labs team has made important progress on personalized models, reducing the time it takes to train custom keyboard models that adapt to an individual’s typing speed and technique.”

The researchers shared what is purported to be a live demo of this personalized keyboard model in action, using the wearable prototype to enable reasonably fast typing without a keyboard:

Beyond typing, the researchers say that being able to read finger movements from the wrist could also allow users to manipulate objects. Another purportedly real demo shared shows this in action:

Further in the future the team suggests that users may be able to train themselves to do some of these commands without any physical movement at all.

Although the company says it’s wrist-worn device is a “neural” input device, it draws a distinction between neural input and “mind reading.”

“This is not akin to mind reading. Think of it like this: You take many photos and choose to share only some of them. Similarly, you have many thoughts and you choose to act on only some of them. When that happens, your brain sends signals to your hands and fingers telling them to move in specific ways in order to perform actions like typing and swiping,” the company writes. “This is about decoding those signals at the wrist—the actions you’ve already decided to perform—and translating them into digital commands for your device.”

Always-on Haptics

For a device which may be comfortably worn all day, the researchers say, a wrist-wearable is also a great place to deliver haptics.

To that end, the company has been experimenting with different types of haptic technologies for the wrist.

One prototype, called ‘Bellowband’, lines the inside of the device’s wristband with quarter-sized bladders which can lay flat or be inflated to put pressure on the user’s wrist. Different haptic effects can be achieved by using different combinations of the bladders or by pulsing them at different rates.

Another prototype, called ‘Tasbi’ (short for Tactile and Squeeze Bracelet Interface), uses six vibrating actuators around the wrist, along with a sort of tension-based, wrist-squeezing mechanism which can dynamically tighten and put pressure on the user’s wrist.

The researchers say that prototypes like these help the company find out which kinds of haptic feedback technology may be worth pursuing.

Contextual AI

A major part of Facebook’s vision for AR and an “ultra low friction” input approach necessitates AI which can deeply understand the user’s context.

“The underlying AI has some understanding of what you might want to do in the future. Perhaps you head outside for a jog and, based on your past behavior, the system thinks you’re most likely to want to listen to your running playlist. It then presents that option to you on the display: ‘Play running playlist?’ That’s the adaptive interface at work,” writes FRL Research Science Manager Tanya Jonker. “Then you can simply confirm or change that suggestion using a microgesture. The intelligent click gives you the ability to take these highly contextual actions in a very low-friction manner because the interface surfaces something that’s relevant based on your personal history and choices, and it allows you to do that with minimal input gestures.”

That’s largely conceptual for now. While today’s smartphones or smartwatches are able to leverage some clues like, time, location, and connected accessories to infer what actions might be relevant to you, the sort of contextual AI suggestions that Facebook is envisioning will require both an advance in AI as well as the sensor-laden peripherals that can get a real-time understanding of the user’s immediate environment.

More Questions Than Answers on Privacy

Facebook says its goal in building the far future of XR is to build technologies where “the human is the absolute center of the entire experience.”

Achieving the company’s vision will require hardware and software with an intimate understanding of both the user and their environment.

Facebook maintains that it’s committed to transparency throughout the development of these technologies, but admits that it isn’t equipped to asses the broader questions.

“Understanding and solving the full extent of ethical issues [raised by these technologies] requires society-level engagement,” says FRL Research Science Director Sean Keller. “We simply won’t get there by ourselves, so we aren’t attempting to do so. As we invent new technologies, we are committed to sharing our learnings with the community and engaging in open discussion to address concerns.”

Indeed, the company says that a major reason why it’s sharing this information today is to engage the broader tech community on these questions before it moves to take the technology out of the lab and into the market.

“[…] we support and encourage our researchers to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals—and [that’s] why we’re telling this story today. We believe that far before any of this technology ever becomes part of a consumer product, there are many discussions to have openly and transparently about what the future of HCI can and should look like.”

SenseGlove, a Dutch-based producer of VR haptic gloves, has revealed an early prototype of their second glove, the SenseGlove Nova. We recently visited the company to see how it works and feels.

Cas & Chary Present

Cas and Chary VR is a YouTube channel hosted by Netherland-based duo Casandra Vuong and Chary Keijzer who have been documenting their VR journeys since 2016. They share a curated selection of their content with extra insights for the Road to VR audience.

SenseGlove’s first glove was called the DK1 and were tethered haptic gloves that use an exoskeleton attached to each finger for the force-feedback.

The first significant difference you’ll see in the SenseGlove Nova compared to the prior model is that the newer model has a futuristic design that’s much more like a glove and designed to be put on in just five seconds, according to the company. This time it’s designed for ease of use; it’s wireless and is compatible with standalone VR headsets like the Oculus Quest, Pico Neo, and Vive Focus.

The SenseGlove Nova can simulate the feeling of shapes, textures, stiffness, impact, and resistance. This is made possible with the company’s trifecta of touch: force-feedback, vibrotactile feedback, and motion tracking.

Force Feedback

The Nova uses a passive force-feedback system; instead of actively pulling the fingers back, the gloves allow you to feel virtual objects by ‘stopping’ your fingers from moving. The gloves use one magnet per finger that’s attached to pulleys and wires. Once a user grabs a virtual object, the magnets will exert power to ‘stop’ your fingers. By determining how much force it applies, you can feel the difference between hard and soft objects.

Vibrotactile Feedback

The force-feedback is enhanced by vibrotactile feedback. Both the thumb and the index finger have their own vibrotactile actuator, while an advanced voice coil actuator is located at the bottom of the glove. The voice coil actuator allows the Nova to render the feeling of realistic button clicks and impact simulations. Developers can do this by recording sound, converting it to a vibration waveform, and then bringing it inside the virtual environment to be played back by the glove.

Motion Tracking

As for motion tracking, the Nova combines sensor-based finger tracking with computer vision hand tracking algorithms. With this combination, there’s no need for external tracking devices on headsets that offer third-party access to the tracking cameras. On a more closed-off system like the Oculus Quest, the controllers are mounted on the gloves to make motion tracking possible.

During my visit, SenseGlove showed us a demo inside a zero-gravity space station where I had to do a simple repair mission. In front of me was a table with objects of different densities that I could touch and grab.

I have to note here that the Nova gloves didn’t come in the right size for my hands, so the haptic feedback wasn’t optimal. Still, like the first glove, I was able to feel the difference between, for example, a soft, squeezable ball and a battery made of glass. When I touched an object, I felt vibration. When I grabbed something, I could feel a slight resistance on my fingers, which, combined with seeing the object, made me automatically stop my fingers from moving further. It felt natural, real and I thought it was impressive, especially given the wireless freedom of movement without much latency. I did have a greater wow-factor when I demoed the DK1 as it felt more precise since the first glove had twice the strength (40 Newton instead of 20N).

SenseGlove told us that the Nova will be sold alongside the DK1 as both gloves have their pros and cons. If you’re looking for accuracy, the DK1 is a good option. The Nova is here if ease of use is more important.

The SenseGlove Nova primary use case is for commercial purposes and costs €4,500, which is about $5,300. Consumer plans are not in the works, but I think it is interesting to watch this space as it gives us a good idea of what is in store for consumers in the future.

HTC unveiled a new VR tracker device at CES 2022 today, this time targeting its $1,300 enterprise-focused standalone headset, Vive Focus 3. It’s slated to go on sale sometime early this year, starting at $129.

Unlike its SteamVR-compatible Vive Tracker, the new Vive Wrist Tracker is a wrist-worn device which hooks into Vive Focus 3’s inside-out tracking system. It does this essentially the same way the headset’s controllers are tracked in room-scale space, i.e. through infrared LEDs that are tracked optically through the headset’s onboard camera sensors.

HTC says in the announcement that the tracker allows users to either strap it to their wrist for what the company calls “advanced hand tracking” in addition to using controllers, or to objects like gun controllers, Ping-Pong paddles, or tools.

Below you can see a Nerf gun has been rigged up with Vive Wrist Tracker, making for a 6DOF-tracked virtual weapon:

The company says Vive Wrist Tracker is 85% smaller than Vive Focus 3’s controller, and 50% lighter at 63g. It boasts up to four hours of constant use, charged via USB-C. HTC says it includes a simple one-button pairing feature for wireless connection, and also features a removable strap for easy cleaning.

As for its more accurate hand tracking, this is what the company says in Vive Wrist Tracker’s announcement:

“When user wears the tracker on the wrist, we can predict the tracker’s motion trajectories even when the tracker is out of camera’s view in a while by using high-frequency IMU data and an advanced kinematic model. With this technology, we can predict their hand position when the hands leave the tracking camera view.”

Road to VR skipped the physical bit of CES 2022 this year, however we’re very interested to see the wrist tracker in action to see if it makes a material difference in terms of hand tracking.

Likely its biggest appeal is the ability to track objects, giving location-based entertainment venues and enterprise users the ability to avoid the typical mixing and matching of hardware ecosystems, such as OptiTrack or SteamVR base stations. To boot, HTC says its releasing CAD files so prospective owners can build custom docking solutions or harnesses around the tracker.

HTC is initially launching Vive Wrist Tracker in the US starting early 2022, priced at $129/€129/£119. Although they haven’t said as much, that pricing means it will very likely roll out Vive Wrist Tracker to the UK and EU at a later date.

In addition to Vive Wrist Tracker, HTC unveiled a few other Vive Focus 3 accessories, including a new charging travel case and a multi-battery charging dock. It’s not clear when either of those will go on sale, or for what price. We’ll be keeping an eye on the Vive accessories product page in the meantime.

At GDC 2022 this week, VR glove creator Manus revealed its new Quantum Metagloves which the company says delivers significantly more accurate finger tracking than its prior solutions. Though priced for enterprise use, the company says it one day hopes to deliver the tech to consumers.

Manus has been building motion gloves for use in real-time VR and motion capture for years now, with prior offerings being based on IMU and flex-sensor tracking.

The company’s latest product, the Quantum Metagloves, moves to a new magnetic tracking approach which purportedly offers significantly more accurate finger tracking, especially when it comes to self-contact (ie: fingers touching other fingers or the palm of the hand).

Revealed at GDC 2022 for the first time, Manus showed off a demo of the Quantum Metagloves using a realistic real-time hand model that mirrored the wearer’s finger movements. Though the gloves are designed to work in conjunction with 6DOF tracking (via a SteamVR tracker or other motion tracking tech), the GDC demo didn’t employ 6DOF (which is why the visualization of the arm rotates in place). The latency reflected in this setup is also purportedly not representative of the actual tracking latency.

The Quantum Metagloves have a magnetic base positioned on the back of the palm while each finger has a module on the tip that is sensed within the magnetic field. Manus says this means the gloves can detect absolute finger length and width (once calibrated), which enables more accurate hand-tracking when combined with an underlying skeletal model of the hand that is scaled dynamically to the user.

In the video I asked the demonstrator to make a handful of different poses. Indeed, finger-to-finger and finger-to-palm contact looked impressive with no obvious clipping or stuttering. The company told me the demo wasn’t specially programmed to make clipping impossible and that the behavior was purely thanks to the positional data of the sensors which was described as “very clean” compared to alternative approaches to finger tracking.

Manus says the Quantum Metagloves are unique in this way, as other finger tracking technology tends to break down in these sorts of close-contact and self-contact scenarios, especially when both hands are near or touching each other. Even expensive optical tracking systems (with markers on the tips of each finger) can be foiled easily by self-occlusion or one hand occluding the other. Similarly, purely IMU-based finger tracking is prone to drift and requires regular recalibration.

But magnetic tracking is by no means perfect. In other magnetic tracking systems we’ve seen challenges with latency and electromagnetic interference.

Manus admitted that holding metallic or electronic items could throw off the tracking, but says it worked hard to ensure the gloves don’t interfere with each other; up to eight gloves can be active near each other without interference issues, the company says.

While self-contact looked generally quite good with the Quantum Metagloves, other poses didn’t fare quite as well—like a completely clenched first. The demonstrator suggested this would be improved easily with a more robust calibration process that included similar poses; whereas they say the calibration used for the demo at GDC was designed to be quick and easy for purposes of the show.

While the finger tracking did look great in many of the demos I saw, some of the other demo gloves on display showed much less accuracy. This was chalked up to “calibration,” though a big question for such systems is how much said calibration drifts over time and whether the periods between recalibration are practical for a given use-case.

In any case, use-cases will be deeply constrained by price; Manus says a pair of the Quantum Metagloves will cost $9,000, with pre-orders opening in April and shipments expected by the end of Q3. The company says it also plans to launch a haptic version of the Quantum Metagloves which will include per-finger haptics to enhance immersion in VR.

Manus maintains that it would like to bring its gloves to consumers one day, but says the number of custom parts and manufacturing makes it difficult to get the price down to a reasonable level.

Meta’s new Quest Pro headset includes Touch Pro controllers which come with a bevy upgrades, and they’ll work with Quest 2 as well.

Meta says that Quest Pro and Quest 2 will co-exist as high-end and entry-level headset lines, and there’s perhaps no clearer evidence of this than that the company has taken the time to make its new Touch Pro controllers compatible with both headsets.

Key Quest Pro Coverage:

Quest Pro Revealed – Full Specs, Price, & Release Date

Quest Pro Hands-on – The Dawn of the Mixed Reality Headset Era

Quest Pro Technical Analysis – What’s Promising & What’s Not

Touch Pro Controllers Revealed – Also Compatible with Quest 2

Touch Pro controllers do away with the tracking ring that’s been present on every Touch controller to date. This time around they use three on-board cameras to perform their own inside-out tracking.

Not only does this make the controllers more compact, it also means they don’t need to have line-of-sight to the headset in order to maintain tracking. That means they should work great even when your hands are above your head, at your side, or behind you. And I’m sure someone will try attaching them to their feet.

Touch Pro controllers also include two new capabilities not seen in those prior: a pressure sensor for pinching and a pressure sensitive stylus tip.

The pinch sensor is on the controller’s thumb rest, allowing users to squeeze the controller between their index finger and thumb for a natural pinching gesture. Thanks to its pressure sensitivity this makes for a somewhat more nuanced input compared to the controller’s buttons and triggers.

The stylus tip, which is included with the controllers but can be freely detached, allows the controller to be used like a bulbous white-board marker with pressure sensitivity so it can understand how hard you’re pushing as you draw against physical surfaces.

Touch Pro also includes improved haptics with more powerful and precise haptic engines inside, and they’re rechargeable.

But Quest 2 users should fear not… all of the Touch Pro improvements are within reach. Meta says Touch Pro controllers are fully compatible with Quest 2 and the company plans to sell them as a standalone accessory priced at $300 for a pair. A firm release date for Touch Pro controllers hasn’t been set yet, but the company says they’ll be available for standalone purchase “later this year.”

AI SILK is a Japanese wearable-tech startup that’s set to unveil a new haptic glove at CES 2023 next month which approaches both haptic feedback and finger-tracking in a different way altogether.

AI SILK is a Tohoku University spinoff that develops wearable products using their patented technology to produce smooth conductive fiber, turning them into electrodes that can be used for a number of things.

Called Lead Skin, the controller houses these conductive fibers, which not only provides finger-tracking and control buttons on the back of the gauntlet-style controller, but also an electrical haptic pulse that aims to simulate manipulating virtual objects.

Weighing in at 380g (~13.5oz), or about the weight of two Quest 2 controllers with batteries included, Lead Skin is said to measure the current impedance from the expansion and contraction of the fabric within, and then through deep machine learning-developed algorithms “understand the intended actions from glove wearers’ physical finger movements,” AI Silk says in a press statement.

Electrical pulses are sent to both the palm and fingers, which is a decidedly shocking departure from the standard haptic motor buzzes that we’ve seen in other VR gloves.

While specs are still thin on the ground, the flashy promo video is certainly something to behold, if not only for its peek inside the Japanese idol industry, which regularly host handshake events. It’s not clear how resistance training and face-punching fit into Lead Skin’s actual feature set, but the spot certainly looks electrifying, as our protagonist is recognized as the idol’s online training partner.

AI Silk’s Lead Skin haptic gloves will debut at CES 2023 between January 5-8, where we’ll have feet on the ground. Check back soon for more info on Lead Skin and all of the latest AR/VR tech out there at the biggest trade shows of the year.

Meta Quest 3 brings with it new ‘Touch Plus’ controllers that do away with the tracking ring that’s been part of the company’s 6DOF consumer VR controllers ever since the original Rift. But that’s not the only change.

Editor’s Note: for some clarity in this article (and comments), let’s give some names to all the different 6DOF VR controllers the company has shipped over the years.

• Rift CV1 controller: Touch v1
• Rift S controller: Touch v2
• Quest 1 controller: Touch v2
• Quest 2 controller: Touch v3
• Quest Pro controller: Touch Pro
• Quest 3 controller: Touch Plus

6DOF consumer VR controllers from Meta have always had a ‘tracking ring’ as part of their design. The ring houses an array of infrared LEDs that cameras can detect, giving the system the ability to track the controllers in 3D space.

Quest 3 will be the first 6DOF consumer headset from the company to ship with controllers without a tracking ring; the company is calling new controllers ‘Touch Plus’.

Tracking Coverage

In a session at Meta Connect 2023, the company explained it has moved the IR LEDs from the tracking ring into the faceplate of the controller, while also adding a single IR LED at the bottom of the handle. This means the system has less consistently visible markers for tracking, but Meta believes its improved tracking algorithms are up to the challenge of tracking Touch Plus as well as Quest 2’s controllers.

Note that Touch Plus is different than the company’s Touch Pro controllers—which also don’t have a tracking ring—but instead use on-board cameras to track their own position in space. Meta confirmed that Touch Pro controllers are compatible with Quest 3, just like Quest 2.

Meta was clear to point out that the change in camera placements on Quest 3 means the controller tracking volume will be notably different than on Quest 2.

The company said Quest 3 has about the same amount of tracking volume, but it has strategically changed the shape of the tracking volume.

Notably, Quest 3’s cameras don’t capture above the head of the user nearly as well as Quest 2. But the tradeoff is that Quest 3 has more tracking coverage around the user’s torso (especially behind them), and more around the shoulders:

Meta believes this is a worthwhile tradeoff because players don’t often hold their hands above their head for long periods of time, and because the headset can effectively estimate the position of the controllers when outside of the tracking area for short periods.

Haptics

As for haptic feedback, the company said that “haptics on the Touch Plus controller are certainly improved, but not quite to the level of Touch Pro,” and further explained that Touch Plus has a single haptic motor (a voice coil modulator), whereas Touch Pro controllers have additional haptic motors in both the trigger and thumbstick.

The company also reminded developers about its Meta Haptics Studio tool, which aims to make it easy to develop haptic effects that work across all of the company’s controllers, rather than needing to design the effects for the haptic hardware in each controller individually.

Trigger Force

Touch Plus also brings “one more little secret” that no other Touch controller has to date: a two-stage index trigger.

Meta explained that once a user fully pulls the trigger, any additional force can be read as a separate value—essentially a measure of how hard the trigger is being squeezed after being fully depressed.

What’s Missing From Touch Pro

Meta also said that Touch Plus won’t include some of the more niche features of Touch Pro, namely the ‘pinch’ sensor on the thumbpad, and the pressure-sensitive stylus nub that can be attached to the bottom and used to ‘draw’ on real surfaces.