Made in Denver: Reloptix VR eyewear - RED. Relevant. Essential. Denver

Editor’s note: Throughout fall, RED’s Made successful Denver bid volition highlight Mile High concern owners who graduated from MSU Denver programs.

At a wedding a fewer years ago, William Nalker didn’t spell location with the bride, but helium met the spouse who would alteration his life.

Nalker, a 2019 Metropolitan State University of Denver Industrial Design postgraduate who lives successful Frederick, is friends with a radical of radical helium has been gaming with online for years. One day, 1 of them asked Nalker to officiate his wedding.

“I thought helium was kidding astatine first,” Nalker said. “I said, ‘OK, we’ve known each different online for years, but this is the archetypal clip we’ll ever meet. Are you sure?’

The groom was sure, and it turns retired helium wasn’t the lone gamer astatine the wedding Nalker would conscionable successful idiosyncratic for the archetypal time.

He and Jason Salinas, an optician, struck up a speech that planted the effect for a relationship and concern business that helps radical spot successful the virtual-reality world.

The inserts travel successful 2 parts: an adapter that attaches to the headset and abstracted magnetic frames that drawback connected apical of it. Photo by Alyson McClaran

Nalker and Salinas are co-founders of Reloptix, which makes medicine lens inserts for VR headsets. If you’ve ever tried to acceptable a headset implicit your glasses, you cognize however awkward that tin be.

“It’s conscionable hard trying to acceptable your glasses wrong these headsets, and it’s painful,” Nalker said. “People effort to shove their glasses successful there, and they extremity up scratching their glasses’ lenses and the lenses of the headset, which are irreplaceable. You can’t conscionable popular those out. If they get scratched, you’re screwed.”

The inserts travel successful 2 parts: an adapter that attaches to the headset and abstracted magnetic frames that drawback connected apical of it. The lenses, which see reflective coating, travel with a stylish, durable case. The institution tin adjacent grip prescriptions with precocious astigmatism.

“I wanted to marque eyewear for VR headsets — thing that was aesthetically pleasing and functional,” Nalker said.

The thought for Reloptix came astir conscionable months aft Nalker officiated the wedding wherever helium archetypal met Salinas successful person. Nalker had wanted to plan eyewear, and Salinas was funny successful making medicine lenses for headsets. Nalker started moving connected prototypes during his last semester successful MSU Denver’s Industrial Design program.

“We went done astir apt 60 antithetic iterations, and a batch came from learning however to woody with that successful school, the assorted Industrial Design classes I took,” helium said. “They thatch you that the archetypal solution you travel up with whitethorn not beryllium the cleanable solution. I’m inactive fine-tuning things, adjacent arsenic the merchandise is connected the market.”

“I wanted to marque eyewear for VR headsets — thing that was aesthetically pleasing and functional,” Nalker said. Photo by Alyson McClaran

Nalker described the process aboriginal connected arsenic “trying.” After college, helium was moving 2 jobs, including astatine Make4Covid, a Colorado-based institution that makes idiosyncratic protective instrumentality for aesculapian unit members, which was highly sought successful the aboriginal months of the pandemic. On apical of that, helium was trying to get his concern disconnected the ground. Nalker said it was difficult, “but it helped maine support my caput disconnected what was going connected astatine the time.”

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These days, Nalker says concern is good. And the affirmative reviews connected his website bespeak that.

“It’s changed (customers’) full dynamic, which makes maine consciousness good,” helium said. “There are radical that virtually had to deterioration glasses their full lives. Every facet of their lives is dictated by whether oregon not they person to support their glasses connected due to the fact that their imaginativeness is truthful bad. This gives them the accidental to consciousness similar everyone else.”

So the motivation of the communicative could be: Don’t ever crook down a wedding invitation.

“And don’t ever deliberation your person is kidding with you erstwhile they accidental you’re going to officiate a wedding,” Nalker said with a laugh.

Vic Vela is simply a quality and podcast big for Colorado Public Radio, an affiliate module subordinate successful MSU Denver’s Department of Journalism and Media Production, a 2000 MSU Denver Speech Communications postgraduate and a contributor to NPR’s “Here and Now” and MSU Denver’s RED.