Forum Discussion

jobesu's avatar
jobesu
Honored Guest
12 years ago

Gravity Touch glove

Hello everyone,
I've just published an instructable in which I show how to build your own wireless glove that can be used as input device for VR games. The glove communicate through bluetooth with Android phones or computer. The device take as input the fingertips touch events as well as the player's wrist orientation/motion and pass it to the phone/computer. I made a plugin for Unity3D so that the glove can be used as input device in Unity3D games. Here is the link to the instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/Gravity-Touch-bluetooth-glove/
A demo video of the device (I use Dorovis Dive in the video, but it can work out of the box with both Oculus Rift or Samsung gear VR): http://youtu.be/fSEpayrEMdE

VR headsets are great, but I think that it's now time to think at new kind of controllers, more adapted to the VR experience. This prototype is a try in this direction. It works pretty well and it give a nice impression of "natural" control !
Let me know what you think about it and what kind of enhancement/modification you would find useful (besides the design ;)).

Cheers.

3 Replies

  • Rippedgeek's avatar
    Rippedgeek
    Protege
    12 years ago
    It looks great - and congrats on a well implemented idea!
    I am in total agreement that we need better control options for VR. The main issue will be the learning curve. I am quite willing to give new technology a try and to test stuff out, but even with my reasonable attention span I get pulled back to using easier, more familiar tech. I still like the feel of a controller in my hands. If this, however, could be combined with a nice physical controller... mmm.

    Good luck with your idea. :)
  • jobesu's avatar
    jobesu
    Honored Guest
    12 years ago
    Well, the learning curve of VR headset + glove as input device is almost inexistent.
    I mean ask someone that never played video game to play a FPS on TV with a game pad. The person will spend a lot of time to figure out how to move the character properly, how to shoot where he wants and remembering all the button for the different actions.
    Now take the same person, give him a VR headset and a glove as input device. Tell him "press your index to move forward", "press middle finger to shoot" and "wave your hand to reload" (you don't even have to tell him to look where he wants to go). As soon as he will enter the game, he will immediately understand how to play and for sure he will perform better than with the controller.

    I also have the feeling that in most game, the directional joystick is not going to be needed anymore, because we usually want to go in the direction we look at. In fact, in my experience, most people using VR headset get nausea when they are moving in another direction than the one they're looking at. That's why I think the controller is not the device of choice anymore.
  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    12 years ago
    Very cool and nicely implemented.