There are a lot of fitness VR apps available like BitGym and Runtastic that are doing a great job in providing people with a new way to get a light workout. Even though these apps are great for using VR to get a little fitness boost, they all fall short of providing a truly genuine interpretation of the physicality of an actual exercise or a true workout.
Could Exoskeleton VR gloves change that? Dexta Robotics is working on a new type of VR input device that can actually help create force feedback in the gloves and felt on the hands of the users! With these gloves, you’ll actually interact with the objects inside your VR experience. Sure, you were interacting before, but it was one sided. You’d grab something, but not feel it. With these gloves, that changes.
This goes way beyond the HTC Vive motion controller and while Oculus is said to launch its Oculus Touch motion controllers by the end of this year, these gloves can really be considered a big leap in the current tech. Not convinced this is part of the next wave of evolution for VR? Even PlayStation VR set to launch new touch controllers in October this year alongside Sony’s VR headset. While these are all motion sensitive and great strides in improvement, they’re not providing haptic feedback response while playing games like these new gloves.
How Exoskeleton Gloves work
According to Dexmo, with the help of their exoskeleton glove, users can feel the size, shape and stiffness of any object they encounter in virtual reality. When a user touches an object, the Dexmo’s dynamic grasping-handling software renders the physical properties of the virtual object, computes the variable force feedback and then transfers it to gloves that applies the same amount of force on user’s fingers allowing users the sense of actually holding an object with their fingers.
Currently, Dexmo exoskeleton gloves require motion controllers to track the hand movement of the user, however the company said that their next target is to incorporate a tracking feature in the glove so that users don’t need to use the motion controllers at all.
How Exoskeleton Gloves can change the way users play VR games
There are many VR fitness games already available that these gloves could positively impact, but just imagine how these could work with The Climb! There’s no better combination here. The synergy is perfect because The Climb is a simulation game from Crytek which is currently exclusive to Oculus Rift. In the game, users have to climb the mountains just like a mountaineer would—reaching for new grip points, traveling left and right to find the right gripping points and even jumping in between different gripping points throughout the climb.
What do you think?
Would you use an exoskeleton glove if it truly lets you get feedback for anything you touch, grab, throw or push in a game environment? We’re definitely interested and see this as another step forward in the totally immersive aspect of VR, but beyond that, how awesome will it be to be able to exert pressure on things in a game setting and actually be able to feel it? This is going to be something that makes the next generation of V-sports for millions of users. Ultimately, this whole VR experience is destined to bring breakthrough improvements in VR fitness world where users will start to feel exactly like they do in real life scenarios.
-Emily Pratt
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