At the beginning of the month, TG0 launched a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for its new finger tracking controller, the etee. In less than two weeks the goal of raising £45,900 GBP has been achieved and now the team is eyeing up the first stretch goal. And to show etee’s SteamVR compatibility TG0 has released a couple of videos playing Half-Life: Alyx.
TG0 has two versions of the etee controller available to back, the 3 degrees of freedom (3DoF) edition designed for developers and the SteamVR 6DoF model which was the whole reason for the Kickstarter in the first place. With the campaign now sat at £47,644 the next goal to hit is £60,000 which will see TG0 release the step file, allowing the community to freely modify and build custom handles for the controller. Subsequent stretch goals will be unveiled as each one is achieved.
As for the Half-Life: Alyx videos the company has released two showcasing gameplay using etee. At the moment, because the SteamVR versions haven’t been built yet TG0 is using the 3DoF etee’s with Vive Trackers for a full range of movement. The thumbpad is used to teleport around the environments whilst the full finger capability means you can grab items just as you would with a Valve Index controller.
The controllers themselves feature a buttonless design, with a trackpad for your thumb at the top as well as the ‘menu button’ – more of an illuminating sensor – plus TG0’s tactile interface wrapped around the main body. This provides fully finger tracked input for each digit plus the ability to sense pressure.
The early bird funding tier priced at £239 for the etee SteamVR version has now sold out, so new backers will have to pay the standard Kickstarter price of £259. Or there’s always the etee SteamVR Ghost edition with a translucent body for £349. Now that the campaign has set out what it wanted to achieve delivery of the controllers is expected to take place beginning December 2020.
With 26 days to go on the Kickstarter campaign, there’s plenty of time for etee to reach those stretch goals. As and when those happen, VRFocus will let you know.