controllers – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

February 23, 2023

Meta Says It Reduced Quest Pro Controllers Startup Time

Meta claims update v50 reduces the time Touch Pro controllers take to synchronize their tracking with the headset.

The Touch Pro controllers track themselves via three cameras and a relatively powerful onboard chipset. This means tracking works at any angle regardless of where the headset is facing, but there is a major downside. Since their tracking is completely independent of the headset, when you pick them up it takes a few seconds for their coordinate space to be synchronized to the headset – as we noted in our Quest Pro review. The controllers do move in this time, but are misaligned from the correct position.

With the Quest v50 update, Meta says it “reduced the amount of time it takes for tracking to initialize on the Meta Quest Touch Pro controllers. In other words, your controllers will be quicker to respond when you first put on your headset”.

It’s not actually entirely clear whether this refers to the synchronization time or the actual start-up time. The controllers, like even the Quest 2 controllers, also have a time between pressing a button and actually turning on. We’ll be testing this ourselves when our headsets get version 50.

Touch Pro also works with Quest 2, so this change should also apply to it when v50 actually rolls out.

May 25, 2022

Need a backup controller? Here are the best gaming controller deals

These are the best new and pre-owned controller deals for PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox, and Nintendo consoles at GameStop.

November 17, 2020May 29, 2024

The best PS5 controllers for 2024

Looking for alternative PS5 controller options? While the DualSense is a strong pick, we've found the other top controllers that can work with the PS5 as well.

September 30, 2020

Best Flight Sticks And HOTAS Controllers For VR Space Combat And Flight Games Like Star Wars: Squadrons

Star Wars: Squadrons releases October 2nd (check out our info roundup for more details) and is fully playable not only in VR, but with a flight stick or full HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle And Stick) setup on both PC VR and PSVR. This is our list of the best options!

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One note worth mentioning is that Star Wars: Squadrons is not a space flight sim. This is an arcade-style space combat game. While you will need to manage power systems and fly well during dogfights, it’s relatively pick up and play compared to more complex games. As a result, it’s totally playable on just a controller, keyboard and mouse, or even a single flight stick without a full HOTAS if you wanted.

Since this very well may be the first real game many people have played with a flight stick or HOTAS, we’ve got a list of the best controllers to get for that game — or any compatible VR game.

Best Flight Sticks And HOTAS Controllers For Flight Sims and Star Wars: Squadrons

Thrustmaster T.16000M FCS (PC)

Amazon: $320 for HOTAS, $100 for stick only, or $380 for HOTAS and pedals

This is the HOTAS I have at home that I have continued to use personally after reviewing it back in 2017. while I haven’t too spend much time with it since I don’t play a lot of flight sims, it’s still been a great experience every time I have used it. The stick itself is extremely sturdy and feels fantastic in my hand. There is a throttle as well, but I personally usually just use the stick because it has a built-in slider at the bottom that acts like a throttle. So I rest my left hand on the left side and move the throttle slider with my thumb.

One feature I love is that you can twist the stick (in addition to pushing it forward, back, left, and right obviously) which is great in flight games for yaw control, or rotation of your ship. You can get just the stick for around $100 instead, which is what I prefer on PC as explained.

Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X (PC)

Amazon: $160

I have not personally used this one but it’s recommended often across message boards and Reddit, plus it has great reviews coming in at 4.5 stars after over 5,000 ratings. That’s quite solid. It’s more affordable than the previous option with similar functionality here — although the stick and throttle do seem to be connected. I love the ergonomic design and easily accessible buttons on both sides of the device though.

Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick (PC)

Amazon: $40

I have not used this stick, but plenty of people recommend it (4.5 stars on nearly 4,000 ratings) as an extremely affordable entry-level stick-only device. There’s no throttle included at all, but for this price it’s hard to beat. You get 12 buttons and enough stick movement to play most VR games that function with a stick only.

Thrustmaster T.Flight HOTAS 4 (PC, PS4)

Amazon: $140, GameStop: $80

If you’re planning to play Squadrons on PSVR (or other games like Ace Combat 7 or EVE Valkyrie Warzone) then this is a great HOTAS to get. Jamie played Ace Combat 7 in PSVR with this and loved using it. I haven’t used it recently, but I did use it at an event once and really enjoyed the feel and design. It’s similar to the HOTAS X from above, but a little cheaper, and with PS4 support. There are only 440 reviews on Amazon as of the time of this writing, but it seems to be a good all-around choice if you want a decent HOTAS setup without breaking the bank.

HORI HOTAS Flight Stick For PlayStation 4 (PS4)

Amazon: $330 HORI: $200

This setup is a little pricier, but you get the benefit of a device that is tailor-made for the PS4. This even has a built-in PS4 touchpad so you don’t need to take off the headset or grab a controller at all. Additionally, like the T.16000 for PC and most other premium HOTAS setups, you can separate the throttle and stick for a more comfortable arrangement.

Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog (PC)

Amazon: $999+, eBay: $380+

Good luck finding one, but this is one of the most premium HOTAS setups you can get for PC. As a premium offering, this setup is more than just a game controller — it’s an actual replica from the U.S. Air Force A 10C aircraft. All the buttons, switches, and physical components look just like they do in that aircraft’s cockpit. That’s pretty wild and it features over 19 buttons with fantastic precision.

That’s our list of flight stick and HOTAS recommendations for VR space combat and flight sim games. Are you excited for Star Wars: Squadrons? Do you have other recommendations? Let us know down in the comments below!

July 27, 2020

New VR Haptics Research Could Lead To Thinner Glove Controllers

Promising new VR haptics research may eventually lead to thinner, consumer-ready glove controllers.

The research, carried out by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) uses ‘soft active surfaces’ filled with oil to create a sense of touch when picking up objects and interacting with items in VR. Check it out in the video below.

As you can see, the approach uses electrical impulses to manipulate a small amount of dielectric fluid (in this case, vegetable oil) housed in pockets made up of a stretchable membrane. When activated with a voltage, the oil compresses together to create bumps that will press against the user’s fingers. Imagine picking an object up in VR, for example, and the surface pushing into your fingers as you grasped it. The oil can even be vibrated, which may provide deeper immersion when, say, blocking an attack with a shield.

Right now, EPFL researchers have created bumps between three to 20 millimeters in size with up to 25 devices aligned together. However, the group hopes to take its work further with a design integrated into a haptic glove that covers the entire hand.

Obviously, having not tried the tech for ourselves, we can’t speak to the quality of the haptic sensations this approach might provide. Would bumps be able to cover a wide enough surface area to create a truly convincing, consistent haptic sensation, for example?

That said, the miniaturization of haptic VR gloves is one of the key areas holding them back from consumerization right now. Companies like HaptX have impressive devices for enterprise use, but they cost far too much and are way too bulky to use with headsets like Oculus Quest. EPFL’s work is early, but could provide a path to thinner VR gloves that we could finally take home.

What do you make of this new VR haptics research? Let us know in the comments below!

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April 29, 2020

Wireality Is A Low-Cost VR Haptics System That Turns You Into A Puppet

We’ve seen a lot of different approaches to solving VR haptics over the past few years. It’s safe to say that Wireality is unlike any other, though.

Revealed earlier this month from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Future Interfaces Group, Wireality attaches spring-loaded cables to your fingers a little like a puppet. Connected to a shoulder-mounted device, the kit works with a given VR world to sense when your hand is about to come into contact with a virtual object and stop your fingers in the relevant position.

The aim is to give you the illusion of, say, resting your hand on a wall or wrapping your fingers around a railing. Check it out in the video below. It’s like VR haptics by way of puppetry.

This approach, the researchers say, has a lot of benefits. For starters, the system locks your fingers in place when touching a virtual object, but doesn’t require more power to keep it there. Researchers say it uses 0.024 mWh per actuation.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the entire system was created using less than $35 worth of components, whereas other VR haptics systems currently cost in the thousands.

But, fairly obviously, there’s a lot of hurdles for Wireality to overcome. A lot of what makes consumer VR haptics tough is making it simple and accessible for users. Hooking up an array of cables to your digits and mounting a device to your shoulder before putting on a headset is anything but convenient. It’s also bound to limit how freely you can move your hands in VR, which isn’t something we’d be quick to trade-off.

Plus the system can only apply the illusion of touching a surface to a few parts of the hand; if you were to press your hand flat against a wall, say, you wouldn’t actually feel it on most of your palm with the current setup.

But it’s certainly an interesting avenue for future research.

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April 2, 2020

Etee Is A Lightweight Finger-Sensing VR Controller With No Trigger

During CES in January I tried a pair of controllers called “etee” that were lightweight with finger-sensing features. As I held them in my hands, a laptop screen showed which gestures and movements the controllers recognized.

The lightweight controllers recognized each of my fingers and my grip — even tight squeezing — but I don’t recall them recognizing if I spread my fingers out and moved a couple of them vertically up and down along the base of the controller. That’s not a common movement, so not likely to be a big deal, but what is a big deal is they lack a physical trigger.

They’re seeking nearly $57,000 on Kickstarter to bring the controllers to fruition during the COVID-19 pandemic. An early bird pledge of around $297 promises a pair of the controllers with a “bespoke” SteamVR Tracker included and estimated delivery of December 2020. While that should add 6DoF tracking to the controllers, it is also slightly more than it costs to buy a pair of Index Controllers which have the backing of Valve and either indirect or direct support in most VR games on Steam.

The etee controllers should ship with software tools for developers to use and, according to the group behind the project, they will include “the ability to bind etee finger sensing and other control surface inputs to those of traditional SteamVR controls via the embedded SteamVR UI” and they say etee can “connect to the full range of SteamVR games and applications that are already available.”

That’s a big claim and one we haven’t directly tested to see how it holds up in some popular VR games. As noted above, the hands-on time was just via a 2D screen. The image below from the company’s Kickstarter page shows the way the input from the controllers should be able to be customized.

Every other major controller on the market includes a physical trigger and the vast majority of VR software is built around this fundamental input mechanism. How exactly major games play with the customized input is an open question.

The Kickstarter project raised nearly $10,000 toward its goal at the time of this writing. Hardware Kickstarters, however, are notoriously risky ventures and we should note that even companies like Valve and Facebook have been struck by production problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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March 27, 2020

Manus Polygon Mixes Full VR Body And Hand-Tracking For Multiplayer Use

Manus, the VR company that offers enterprise-level hand-tracking solutions, this week revealed a new full-body tracking solution to complement its existing offerings.

Called Manus Polygon, the system works using Vive Tracker pucks. The original Manus solutions already use two of these sensors attached to the backs of your hands to track their positions in virtual space. The sensors utilize the same SteamVR base-stations that track the HTC Vive and Valve Index headsets.

But Polygon adds another Tracker to your waist and two on your feet. We’ve seen full body tracking of this sort in plenty of other applications before (HTC itself was keen to highlight its use). But it’s in the mix of hand-tracking that makes this solution stand out.

In theory, this could take Manus a step beyond some competing VR body tracking systems. Other body tracking systems do sometimes offer finger-tracking, but we’ve tried Manus’ gloves, which are ready to slip on and calibrate. We haven’t tried Polygon itself, but that ease of use could be key. Crucially, the system comes with what Manus says is an easy calibration system that users themselves can operate. Polygon also comes with multiplayer support.

We took a look at the Manus VR gloves in a recent episode of our VR Culture Show. You can see it in action below.

Polygon will be arriving with enterprise customers this June. A price hasn’t been announced but, considering the Manus gloves themselves start at €2990, we wouldn’t hold our breath for a more consumer-friendly option.

You can find out more about Manus Polygon here.

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March 4, 2020

Table Tennis In VR Gets 3D Printed Paddle For Oculus Touch Controllers

A project developed by mechanical engineers Florian Auté and Alexis Roseillier resulted in a 3D printed paddle, grip and holder for an Oculus Touch controller.

The grip replicates the feel of a real racket for use in the VR table tennis game Eleven.

Eleven was already available on PC VR but just launched on the Oculus Quest last week. The game offers realistic physics and environments that simulate the classic game of ping pong. The extreme light weight of a ping pong ball also makes the sport a good candidate to replicate in VR, as the haptic feedback provided is much less than, say, hitting a baseball or tennis ball.

One area that differs the most, though, is replicating the grip of a real table tennis paddle in VR. An Oculus Touch controller, or any other VR current controller, does not have the same grip, feel, orientation or weight as a real table tennis paddle. So modifications to the controller would be needed to make that happen.

oculus quest touch ping pong paddle

To counter this problem, in January Florian Auté began prototyping a way to integrate an Oculus Touch controller with a standard table tennis paddle grip. Auté worked on the initial prototypes with his girlfriend as they focused on connecting an Oculus Touch controller to an existing paddle grip.

Auté then enrolled the help of friends Alexis Roseillier and his wife for their 3D printing knowledge and skills, and they began work on a 3D printed grip. Roseillier and Auté both studied at the same engineering school in France but they live in different countries, the Netherlands and Germany. Auté is a fan of Eleven but Roseillier was not interested in table tennis at the beginning of the project, according to Auté, but now that Roseillier tried their add-on he’s thinking of getting an Oculus Quest.

3d printed grip oculus touch controllers table tennis

The final result is a 3D printed racket/paddle holder that securely holds an Oculus Touch controller, while also positioning the center of gravity to more closely match a real table tennis paddle.

According to the creators the total weight is around 167 grams and keeps the controller’s buttons accessible while locked into the 3D printed mount. The tracking remains stable while in the grip, according to Auté, and it can also be used with the table tennis shakehand grip, where your index finger is placed on the back of the paddle.

The user will need to adjust the orientation of the paddle in-game — Eleven allows that kind of customization — so that it matches the offset position of the controller when placed in the grip. We contacted the developers of Eleven and they said they are planning to add a custom preset in the game that will easily adjust the orientation of the simulated paddle to work with the grip without the need for manual alignment.

3d printed table tennis grip oculus touch

They posted the 3D model for the grip and it is available free on Thinigverse, an online library where users can upload the files for 3D models they’ve created. This allows others to download the files and print the models with a 3D printer themselves. You can download the grip on the Thingiverse listing now with instructions included on the page. It works with the second generation of Oculus Touch controllers which ship with both the Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift S headsets. An earlier 3D print was made by different creators for the original Oculus Rift Touch controllers.

Here’s a video of the new accessory recorded by the creators and originally posted to Reddit showing how it works:

The print requires a two M4 screws you should be able to get at a hardware store — one with a 10 mm thread length to lock the controller in place — and another with 35 mm thread length for the hinge.

A contact with a 3D printer is sending UploadVR Managing Editor Ian Hamilton two of the prints — one for a right Oculus Touch controller (same as the listing on Thingiverse) and another with a mirrored print for the left Oculus Touch controller. He’s left-handed but his family members are right-handed, so with two of the prints he and his family can use two Quests or a Quest and a Rift S to play table tennis together in their living room. Eleven’s developers say the game should minimize latency when on a shared Wi-Fi network, with a possible delay of only 2-3 milliseconds. In other words, once the prints arrive it should make for an extremely realistic game of table tennis without any physical table or ball.

Are you going to be 3D printing the grip to up your table tennis game in VR? Let us know in the comments below.

All images provided by Florian Auté from Thingiverse and Reddit and posted here with permission. Video rehosted on YouTube with permission from Auté, and the original can be found on Reddit. Managing Editor Ian Hamilton contributed to this post.

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February 11, 2020May 8, 2020

The best controllers for PC gaming

We tested the best ones for players who need budget gamepads or controllers with all the bells and whistles.