With only a few hours remaining in ForceTubeVR’s crowdfunding campaign, the creators behind the VR haptic gun accessory are facing the facts: either their Kickstarter gains the outstanding €16,000 (~$18,00) for their all-or-nothing campaign to succeed, or they head to ‘Plan B’.
ProTubeVR CEO Romain Armand took to Reddit today to address concerns about just what will happen in the eventuality the campaign doesn’t reach its mark. To Armand, the potential lack of full crowdfunding support doesn’t spell the end for ForceTube though; the company is still seeing the project through as outlined in the campaign.
While the project may have a hard time hitting its €80,000 funding goal with so little time left (currently seven hours), Armand maintains that backers will still be able to get the exact package promised through the campaign at both the same price and order priority advantage. This, Armand says, will only be offered to Kickstarter backers though, which ought to put some fears to rest.
“Backers are safe and will get a ForceTubeVR at the kickstarter price by one way or the other,” Armand concludes.
ProTubeVR is a Marseille, France-based startup that’s been active since 2016, creating several versions of its eponymous modular motion controller accessory. ForceTube was new territory for the company though, as all versions of their previous products were essentially ergonomic controller cradles that allowed for more precise and immersive shooting, but didn’t include any form of integrated electronics.
ForceTube’s haptic engine is said to simulate impact with up to 60 newtons of force, rumble at different intensities, and do it all with a battery life that is said to deliver seven hours on intensive arcade use and more than 10 hours of regular at-home use.
At the time of this writing, ForceTube is said to work natively with a number of shooters, including H3VR, Onward, Contractors, Wardust, StandOut, VirtualBattleGround, and more yet to come. An OpenVR-compatible companion app is also said to ‘sniff’ an actual rumble signal and transfer them to the device “with a wide range of possible settings.”
Since the haptic portion connects to both their ProTube accessory, the company is offering versions for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, Windows VR, and Pimax.
Through its Kickstarter the company is still advertising early dev kits for €200 (~$225) with delivery slated for May 2019. The final version (at least for backers) is said to arrive December 2019. It’s uncertain how following through with ‘Plan B’ will effect the delivery times at this point though.
Nintendo’s upcoming Labo VR Kit for Switch includes a trove of creative VR content along with six ‘build it yourself’ cardboard accessories which are paired with VR experiences that work together with them. One of the accessories might look like a goofy ‘elephant’, but a closer look reveals a genius makeshift 6DOF controller made from some cardboard, stickers, and the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers.
You gotta give Nintendo props for their outside of the (cardboard) box thinking. The Labo program itself is already ‘out there’—it aims to deliver family friendly fun and learning by delivering built-it-yourself cardboard accessories, powered by Switch, which make for novel hands-on experiences. It’s part arts and crafts, part technology, and uniquely Nintendo.
Their newest Labo kit, which is entirely based around VR, embodies the Labo spirit with a creative solution for a makeshift 6DOF controller which gives users a way to reach into VR.
The ‘elephant’ accessory, which is part of the complete Labo VR Kit currently available for pre-order, looks silly at first glance, but a closer inspection reveals that it was likely only made to look like an elephant to contextualize what’s actually a clever way to achieve 6DOF input with little more than the Switch, cardboard, stickers, and the Joy-Con controllers.
Image courtesy Nintendo
With the Switch in the holder as the VR viewer, the two Joy-Con controllers are placed in the ‘trunk’ of the elephant which has two joints. Because the Joy-Con controllers each have an IMU inside, and because the positions of the joints are known, inverse kinematics can be used to mathematically determine the position of the entire trunk.
But if that’s all they did, the system would be prone to Drift. which is what the white dots on the ‘face’ of the ‘elephant’ are used for. The right Joy-Con controller is equipped with IR sensors on the bottom, and the controller’s position in the trunk is oriented toward the IR-reflective dots (which are a known distance from the Switch itself, because of the known size of the cardboard pieces) which gives the whole trunk a static reference point for drift correction. Conceptually, it’s the same function that the external tracking sensors for the Rift and Vive are used for.
The result of this inventive cobbling is a positionally tracked controller which offers 6DOF input into the virtual world as seen through the Switch. In the games that ship with the Labo VR Kit, we can see the ‘elephant’ being used for 3D painting and a physics puzzle game which uses 6DOF input to allow players to place platforms to guide balls to a goal.
Granted, we don’t how well this makeshift 6DOF controller really works just yet—the kit doesn’t ship until April 12th—but I’m happy to give credit to this creative approach which embodies what Nintendo is trying to do with Labo in the first place: give kids opportunities to learn and be inventive through play.
ProTubeVR, the Marseilles, France-based makers of the titular VR gunstock accessory, is hoping to make a splash later this month with a Kickstarter campaign for a new haptic devkit that promises to dial-up immersion in VR shooters.
Dubbed ForceTube, the device is designed to replace the butt of the original ProTubeVR stock, providing a haptic kickback to users when they shoot.
The company says ForceTube will first start devkit production after reaching its crowdfunding goal. A second iteration, which the company plans to deliver to backers (devkit V2), is slated to add “power and electronic upgrade.”
A full, consumer-ready product release is slated to launch by the end of 2019. This version is said to include what the company calls “some ‘non-essential’ features,” with the same main features of kick-back and rumble.
ForceTube is said to work natively on “some [PCVR] games” running through OpenVR or Oculus SDK. Currently the company has announced only one title with guaranteed support, the Early Access mil-sim shooter Onward.
A list of other natively supported games will be announced later, although the company holds that their ‘retro-compatibility tool’ will allow ForceTube to work in any SteamVR game by letting the player change and make game profiles.
As for the hardware itself, not much is known at this time. The device is said to connect to PCs via Bluetooth, and will feature a battery life “longer than 8 hours under real intensive use.” Both low and high frequency rumble will be available, the company says, providing up to 60-newton kick force to your shoulder with a maximum of 100w power draw per shot.
“The manufacturing process is painful and complicated, but that’s why it’s a devkit,” ForceTubeVR says.
The company is remaining tight-lipped on further details, although we’re likely to learn more in the coming weeks leading up to launch, slated for sometime later this month.
YouTuber ‘The Irish Guerrilla’ recently published a short advert for ForceTube, showing the device in action while playing Onward.
Cybershoes, the foot-worn VR locomotion accessory, garnered over $245,000 through its Kickstarter campaign before its close last November. The Vienna-based company has reentered the crowdfunding waters recently with an Indiegogo campaign that celebrates success today after reaching its funding goal in under 48 hours.
Update (February 7th, 2019): Cybershoes has officially passed its $30,000 goal with three weeks still remaining before the campaign’s close, scheduled for March 1st. The original article detailing the Indiegogo launch follows below.
Original Article (February 4th, 2019): The Indiegogo campaign is set to launch on February 5th at 7AM PST (local time here), and has a fixed goal of $30,000, meaning if the campaign doesn’t reach that sum before the end of the campaign then backers will be refunded.
The company says the campaign is intended to “continue to build awareness among consumers and potential investors.”
A preview of the campaign (link now live) has already been made public, which shows 99 ‘early bird specials’ priced at $269. This includes a pair of Cybershoes, swivel chair (black or red), a round carpet, wireless dongle, USB charger and cables.
The total MSRP of the setup mentioned above is priced at $550, representing a 51% savings for the first 99 backers. Delivery to all backers is estimated for July 2019.
Cybershoes is a strap-on shoe covering which features a barrel wheel underneath, that when spun, translates to forward and backwards VR movement. This, the creators say, helps eliminate some of the discomfort with artificial VR locomotion by tying your in-game movement to a physical action. It’s a pretty tried-and-true method, something VR treadmill creators have set out to accomplish with much larger, heavier, and more expensive devices.
One of the issues we noticed when we first demoed Cybershoes at Gamescom 2018 was a distinct difficulty in physically rotating in the swivel chair while trying to change directions. To address this, the company has added pronounced ridges to the bottom of the device to give it a bit more grip.
Image courtesy Cybershoes
Demoing a near-final pair of Cybershoes at CES 2019 last month, it was clear the ridges helped somewhat with maneuvering, although general operation still took some getting used to. The same can be said about VR treadmills, although the company is clearly honing in on the at-home user with its small footprint needed to use the device, and significantly lower entry price.
Cybershoes supports HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Pimax VR headsets, and Microsoft VR headsets via the SteamVR platform. The creators claim all VR games supporting free locomotion will work with the device.
Brisbane, Australia-based group #include today released a new app called ViewR that lets you observe a PC VR session in action from an Android mobile device.
ViewR essentially inserts another camera into the VR game, letting a spectator hold up their Android phone or tablet to watch what’s going on, replete with positional tracking for the non-VR observer. Up to four devices can connect into the space at once.
ViewR is available as a Unity SDK that developers can include in the VR games for free, but individual gamers can also run the ViewR PC installer to add the functionality to an existing game too.
To date, the studio has modded ViewR into Superhot VR, Beat Saber, and Budget Cuts to demonstrate just how powerful the concept is.
You can download ViewR for free today, which includes the PC installer and an app that supports Android 4.4 (KitKat) devices or higher; those devices are capable of calculating positional tracking on their own, although older phones will require the use of a Vive Tracker to play.
Support for both OSX and iOS is currently on the studio’s road map, and could arrive sometime next year.
The company says that since ViewR is WiFi intensive, a WiFi access point capable of 802.11n or higher is ideal for optimal performance, with as few devices connected as possible.
HTC and Seagate have partnered to produce an external power & data storage accessory for Vive Focus, ideal for people using the headset for local media consumption.
Dubbed the Seagate ‘VR Power Drive’, the external battery+storage device is said to be “optimized to plug and play with the Vive Focus,” and will bring users “thousands of hours of video or music, while nearly doubling the battery life of the Vive Focus,”HTC said in a press release.
While HTC hasn’t mentioned any definite specs on Seagates’s VR Power Drive, an image taken during the Vive Ecosystem Conference 2018, where the VR Power Drive was announced, suggests the device will contain 1TB of storage with a 5,000 mAh battery.
Image courtesy HTC
HTC claims Vive Focus’ internal battery allows up to 3 hours of active use time. Vive Focus already features on-board storage of 64GB, with the ability to expand up to 2TB via the MicroSD slot.
Seagate’s VR Power Drive is also said to be compatible with HTC’s latest flagship smartphone U12+, and comes with “easy to use backup software, so users won’t have to worry about losing their data again.”
Assuming the VR Power Drive has a standard USB out port (connecting to U12+/Vive Focus’ USB-C port), it’s possible the device will work with other headsets as well, providing they support external mass storage.
HTC says the device is slated for release sometime in Q3 2018. Vive Focus dev kits have already begun shipping westward, although there isn’t an official international launch date yet.
One of the current barriers to immersion for high-end VR headsets is being tethered to a powerful PC. For now, there are two options if you want to eliminate that pesky cable: a special wireless adapter, or a backpack PC to let the rendering happen directly on your person. Here we take a look at a range of VR backpack computers and what they offer.
Intro
Wireless solutions such as TPCast are already available for the Vive and Rift, and the announcement of an official Vive Wireless Adaptor from HTC at CES 2018 indicates further momentum in this area, but the backpack PC still has valid use cases. Crowded networks at events can cause problems for some wireless systems; today’s wireless solutions sometimes mean additional latency, reduction in visual quality, and range restrictions compared to being directly attached to a back-mounted PC.
In an ideal world, VR headsets would be self-contained, comfortable, and unobtrusive. Higher-quality, integrated VR hardware will take important steps this year, with the likes of Oculus’ Santa Cruz project and various other standalone mobile VR headsets on the way, but the most visually-ambitious experiences will continue to demand powerful, ‘desktop-class’ PC hardware in the foreseeable future.
VR backpack PCs feature components typically found in high-end gaming laptops, repackaged into a more practical, wearable chassis. The systems are designed to be lightweight and durable, with specific considerations for VR: such as the positions of ports, optimised airflow away from the body, and hot-swappable batteries for extended or continuous use. Since NVIDIA introduced their near-desktop performance Pascal range of ‘mobile’ GPUs in late 2016, gaming laptops (and by extension, backpack PCs) have become more viable for VR, with even the ‘mobile’ GTX 1060 GPU meeting the ‘VR-ready’ spec. As a result, every PC listed below uses a Pascal-based GPU that meets the minimum bar collectively set by major VR companies like Valve, HTC, and Oculus.
Note: Each backpack PC listed here technically supports all current consumer PC VR headsets, but they were designed primarily for the HTC Vive, as its tracking beacons have no direct connection to the PC. Every backpack PC incorporates a power outlet for the Vive next to the other ports. The Windows “Mixed Reality” headsets are also suitable, as they require no external tracking, but the Oculus Rift is not (unless an alternate tracking system is employed) as its external tracking cameras must be connected to the PC.
HP Omen X Compact Desktop – $2,300
Image courtesy HP
HP’s solution is perhaps the most elegant, with a dock that allows the unit to stand upright and operate as a standard desktop PC. The dock is included, but the backpack holster system is not, and is a $400 option. It is smartly-designed, with a brace that raises the bulk of the PC away from the user’s back to improve airflow, and its hot-swappable batteries are connected separately on the waist strap for better weight distribution. It also comes with an extra pair of batteries and a charging dock.
Unlike the designs from other manufacturers, the Omen X contains its own 55Whr battery so it can operate in desktop or backpack configuration without the two hot-swappable batteries being connected. All the other designs can be used in non-backpack configurations too, but their hot-swappable batteries are part of the main unit, and at least one needs to be connected if you’re not using mains power.
It is the only backpack PC with a mobile GTX 1080 (and overclocked for good measure), and therefore the highest performance option for VR gaming. Here’s a look at the specs on offer:
Appearing as a less gamer-focused version of the Omen X Compact Desktop, the Z VR Backpack G1 Workstation is HP’s business-orientated VR backpack solution. It incorporates essentially the same design of dock and backpack, but its specifications are aimed at the commercial sector.
In particular, it uses the HQ variant of the i7-7820 CPU, which includes Intel vPro features, and is fitted with a Quadro P5200, currently the “most powerful mobile workstation GPU.” At 10lbs, the backpack is heavier than the Omen X version, most likely due to its reinforced, ‘military grade’ construction.
At just 3.6kg, MSI says the VR One is the “thinnest and lightest” VR backpack PC, and manages to pack plenty of aggressive ‘body armour’ styling into its compact chassis. It is less of a dual-purpose design than the HP systems as its two hot-swappable batteries form part of the main body, but it could still be used as a desktop PC if needed. The ‘entry level’ version is the only model in this list using a GTX 1060, but a GTX 1070 version is also available for more graphical power.
The VR One originally launched with a Intel Skylake i7-6820HK CPU, but the latest units ship with the Kaby Lake i7-7820HK CPU, matching the HP Omen X. The Skylake version can still be found on sale, typically reduced by $100.
CPU: 2.9GHz i7-7820HK
GPU: GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5
RAM: 16GB DDR4-2400 (Max 32GB)
Storage: 256GB NVMe SSD
Weight: 7.9lb (3.6kg)
Latest pricing from Amazon:
Full overview and specifications can be found via the VR One webpage.
Zotac VR Go – $1,900
Image courtesy Zotac
Zotac’s VR Go is similar to MSI’s VR One in terms of its dual hot-swappable battery design, but with more conservative styling. It was also recently updated to the newer generation Kaby Lake processor, but it appears many retailers are still stocking the Skylake i7-6700T version at reduced prices. In either case, you’re getting a GTX 1070 GPU, and therefore the VR Go may represent the best ‘bang for buck’ in this expensive niche category. It is, however, notably heavier than the other systems here.
CPU: 2.9GHz i7-7700T
GPU: GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5
RAM: 16GB DDR4-2133 (Max 32GB)
Storage: 240GB M.2 SSD
Weight: 10lb (4.5kg)
Latest pricing from Amazon:
Full overview and specifications can be found via the VR Go webpage.
XMG Walker – €2,500
Image courtesy Schenker Technologies
Only available in Europe, the XMG Walker was the first VR backpack PC to hit the market, and remains an impressively sleek, lightweight system, with a similar chassis design to the MSI and Zotac. A variant of the XMG Walker launched in the Chinese market called Vest PC II (which appears to be even lighter than the MSI at 3kg) had plans to be sold in the US, but that doesn’t appear to have come to fruition.
For EU folk, the XMG Walker’s €2,500 price point is slightly more reasonable, although it has yet to receive a Kaby Lake CPU upgrade like the MSI or Zotac.
CPU: 2.6GHz i7-6700HQ
GPU: GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5
RAM: 16GB DDR4-2400 (Max 32GB)
Storage: 250GB M.2 SSD
Weight: 8.4lb (3.8kg)
Full overview and specifications can be found via the XMG Walker webpage.
Revealed this week at CES 2018, HTC has announced their own Vive Wireless Adapter which promises to break the tether on the Vive and Vive Pro. We went hands-on to see how it handles.
One year after announcing their intent to create a wireless adapter in collaboration with Intel at CES 2017, HTC revealed the Vive Wireless Adapter this week at CES 2018. The T-shaped device is based on Intel’s 802.11ad ‘WiGig’ 60GHz transmission technology and DisplayLink’s XR codec. It’s a later cousin of the various prototypes from Intel and DisplayLink that we saw earlier in 2017, but now with a new antenna design and soon to be packaged up for retail.
Photo by Road to VR
HTC says the Vive Wireless Adapter will support both the original Vive and the Vive Pro. The unit is planned to ship worldwide in Q3, though a price has yet to be announced.
I got a chance to test a pre-release version of the adapter at CES 2018, where HTC was showing it off attached to the original Vive running Doom VFR (2017). The Vive Wireless Adapter hasn’t yet been shown running with the Vive Pro.
Cables, Battery, and Transmitter
Photo by Road to VR
It appears that a set of short cables—that run from the headset’s ports right into the adapter—replace the existing lengthy tether. A single cable dangles from the back of the adapter which connects to a battery pack that you can tuck into your pocket. The battery pack appeared to be generic, and HTC said it wasn’t indicative of what would be included with the final Vive Wireless Adapter. Target battery life wasn’t mentioned, but this will surely depend on the battery capacity that they choose for the finished product.
Photo by Road to VR
As I was putting on the headset I could feel that the unit was warm, but not hot to the touch. The Vive Wireless Adapter sits just behind the top of the head. Since it’s attached to the Deluxe Audio Strap, it’s mostly isolated from touching your head; I couldn’t feel the heat from the unit through my hair, but we’ll have to wait and see how it feels over longer play sessions (and for people with longer hair). So too will we need to wait to find out how comfortable it is when mounted on the default soft Vive headstrap.
In the demo booth, the transmitter, which looked like a little webcam, was mounted above head height on the wall, and aimed down into the center of the room-scale playspace. As this is 60GHz transmission, direct line of site is necessary for proper performance.
Image Quality
Photo by Road to VR
Looking through the headset, the image quality appeared very good when my head was moving slowly or was mostly static. Even things typically difficult to compress (like fog and particle swarms) appeared to be rendered very well. I would say, at least in the content that I was shown, the image quality looks indistinguishable from tethered when my head was static or moving relatively slowly. I did seem to notice that when I rotated my head very quickly, the image appeared to get a bit blockier, but it would very quickly snap back by the time my head slowed back down. It was subtle enough that I don’t think most VR users would notice it.
Of course, the content shown in the demo is likely picked as a best case scenario. I didn’t have a chance to pull up content that would offer a true stress test for the compression, so it remains to be seen how it will handle other potentially more challenging compression scenarios.
Latency
Photo by Road to VR
The flip side of the impressive image quality is noticeable latency. It wasn’t horrendous by any means, but I’m confident that in a blind test between a tethered Vive and one using the Vive Wireless Adapter, I’d be able to pick which is which with 100% accuracy. It may be subtle enough that some users wouldn’t notice it outright, but they may end up feeling it, since higher latency can cause accumulating discomfort.
The fact that there was noticeable latency actually surprised me. When I tested both the Intel WiGig VR and DisplayLink XR prototypes last year (precursors to the Vive Wireless Adapter), I was quite impressed with what I saw, including such minimal latency that I wouldn’t count on being able to pick between a wireless and wired Vive in a blind test.
We’ve reached out to HTC to ask why the latency was apparent when earlier tests with similar components and codecs seemed to have tighter performance. It remains to be seen how the increased resolution of the Vive Pro will impact the latency.
Robustness
One possible explanation for the latency is that the system might have been optimized for greater robustness of the connection. Indeed, the Vive Wireless Adapter didn’t appear to stutter once in my 20 minutes or so playing with it. Testing the limits of the system, it took me cupping my hands over both ends of the antennas and then my colleague covering the transmitter with his hand before the connection finally gave out. I also waved my hands wildly above and around the antenna and didn’t spot any obvious change in quality or latency.
This bodes well for the system’s performance in the less-than-ideal environments that will surely be encountered as the unit rolls out to homes and businesses.
Untethered
Photo by Road to VR
Latency aside, the freedom of room-scale tracking and no tether is wonderful. I’m so used to tethered VR headsets, and subconsciously managing the cable by pushing it out of the way with the back of my arms or stepping over it, that it took some time before I unlearned that behavior and really took advantage of the fact that I could move around easily in all directions unencumbered.
If a flawless wireless experience can indeed be delivered, it’s going to be especially useful for highly active content like cover shooters, boxing, and games where you take big swings, like when using virtual bats, swords, and golf clubs (or even real bats).
– – — – –
With two quarters to go before the planned launch of the Vive Wireless Adapter, I suspect there will be more tuning to come, which will hopefully bring about latency improvements. In the future we also expect to be able to test the Vive Wireless Adapter with the Vive Pro.
Logitech is creating a new system called BRIDGE which aims to make it possible to bring a properly tracked keyboard into VR while showing the user’s hands for accurate typing. Though retail plans haven’t yet been announced, the company is offering a development kit to select developers.
VR promises to one day take computer productivity to the next level by letting us trade physical monitors for an infinite spatial desktop that unlocks our applications from flat windows. But with so much of today’s productivity computing reliant on keyboard input, and with VR headsets blinding users from the outside world, it can be difficult and frustrating to be productive for common tasks in VR, even if you’re an expert touch typist.
Logitech wants to solve that problem, and they’ve introduced what they’re calling Bridge, a system which works with the Vive Tracker to bring a properly scaled, modeled, and tracked keyboard into the virtual world to make typing in VR a breeze.
Bridge will be built into SteamVR, meaning it can potentially work with any VR application on the platform with little work from the developers themselves. However, if developers want, they can customize the keyboard model, possibly to make it better fit the theme of the VR experience or even to change the symbols on the keys to provide app-specific context.
Having a properly tracked model of your keyboard inside the VR environment is a good start, but you really also need to see your hands and fingers. Logitech thought of that too, and it appears that they’re employing the Vive’s front-facing camera to extract the user’s hands and then clip the view to the outline of the keyboard model.
Logitech isn’t ready to sell Bridge, but the company says they’re offering 50 development kits and a beta version of their SDK to select developers for $150. The company is accepting applications for the Bridge development kit through November 16th, and says that if there’s strong interest they’ll consider offering a larger quantity.
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This isn’t the first time someone has tried to make typing easier in VR, but it’s one of the most high-tech we’ve seen so far. Other approaches we’ve seen have involved projecting into the VR space a section of an external camera view that aimed at your keyboard. That works relatively well for visual reference, but the result is a completely flat representation of your keyboard, most likely with a stretched perspective since it relies on a 2D camera. Not to mention, since your keyboard isn’t tracked, if you move it out of the projected view, it will get clipped out of the virtual world.
There’s been a number of attempts at effective text-input methods in VR using motion controllers and virtual keyboards, but nothing that’s come close to matching the speed of real keyboard input. Voice input is effectively employed by both the Oculus and Windows VR platforms, but mostly for voice-command rather than dictated text input.
Launched on November 2nd, the crowdfunding campaign for ZephVR, a VR fan accessory that “adds realistic wind at the right moments” achieved its $30,000 goal on Kickstarter in just a few hours, with 30 days remaining in the campaign. VR hardware startup Weasel Labs aims to deliver the first ZephVR units to customers in May 2018.
As described on the campaign page, ZephVR is designed to work with all VR games and experiences by reacting to audio cues, using machine learning to trigger the two fans at appropriate moments, i.e. traveling at speed, or when a bullet whistles past your ear. If the cue is louder in one audio channel, one fan will spin faster.
Image courtesy Weasel Labs
This audio-based approach—if it works well—means the hardware should function with all VR headsets; the PSVR-compatible version is more expensive, as it requires an additional audio processing box and cable. There is a cheaper version for just Oculus Rift and HTC Vive: the ‘earliest bird’ version going to the first 150 backers for $50. At the time of writing, some ‘early bird’ offers remain, but the full price appears to be $90 for the Vive/Rift version and $120 for the PSVR/Vive/Rift version.
ViveNchill—a simpler dual-fan device meant to keep players cool—also managed a successful crowdfunding project via Indiegogo in July, and recently began shipping to backers. ZephVR’s two fans can also be run at a constant rate for cooling rather than reactive ‘wind’, but hanging below the headsets rather than above might make it less effective as a cooling solution compared to ViveNchill.
According to the campaign page, ZephVR has the potential to improve over time as the software recognises more specific audio cues, and Weasel Labs hopes to “team up with game developers to create customized experiences for their games,” meaning that more precise fan activation could be supported in the future with direct integration into VR experiences.
The video above gives a visual example of how the algorithm detects the sound of wind in the game Windlands. The text scrolling on the left is red when the fan isn’t active and green when it is; the left stream represents the left fan and the right stream represents the right fan.
