It’s like the Power Glove, but for VR - TechCrunch

Nintendo’s Power Glove was, to punctuation 1 of the 80s’ finest films, “so bad.” The NES peripheral transfixed a procreation of youngsters, lone to aboriginal recognize that the “bad” successful this lawsuit should possibly person been taken a spot much literally. Nintendo yet sold 1 cardinal of the things, but the exertion conscionable wasn’t there, and the imagination controlling gameplay with a robo-glove appeared to person died on with it.

With the newfound (relative) prominence of virtual reality, possibly it’s clip springiness the thought different go. Certainly interacting successful this mode marque a heck of a batch much consciousness successful VR than it does an 8-bit broadside scroller. This is the committedness down ContactGlove, a caller merchandise from the Japanese firm, Diver-X, which debuted this week astatine CES.

In summation to picking up an Innovation Award astatine the show, ContactGlove is besides the taxable of an on-going Kickstarter campaign, which has already passed its $200,000 goal, with 16 days near to go. The merchandise combines manus tracking with haptic feedback to springiness the idiosyncratic a much hands-on attack to interacting with the virtual situation astir them.

After calibrating the system, ContactGlove tracks digit movements for much earthy interaction, arsenic good arsenic button/stick movements made with the manus for a much accepted gaming experience. Battery beingness is astir 2 hours with haptics connected and 8 hours with it turned off. You tin besides blistery swap the artillery to support it up and running.

The merchandise claims to beryllium a cheaper/more accessible attack to VR gloves than what’s presently retired there. Of course, erstwhile dealing with VR hardware, “cheaper” is surely relative. The steadfast puts the last retail terms of the merchandise astatine conscionable nether $500 for the pair.

It’s compatible with HTC Vive headsets, arsenic good arsenic Steam VR hardware. The institution is besides making an SDK disposable for Unity and UnrealEngine developers to marque amended usage of the system. Diver-X expects to commencement shipping successful July, astatine which constituent we’ll find retired which benignant of atrocious ContactGlove genuinely is.