Manus VR are developing what they claim will be the first consumer virtual reality glove and have announced that their first developer kits are to go on sale at $250, developers can grab a pre-order reservation today.

Update: We incorrectly stated earlier that the Manus glove developer kit would ship in Q2, in fact pre-orders start then. The glove won’t ship until Q3.

We’ve been tracking Manus VR (previously Manus Machinae) for a while now, and last went hands on with their Gear VR edition of their virtual reality wireless gloves at EGX in September last year.

Manus_productNow, the company have announced that their first developer kit edition gloves will ship in Q3 2016 and will set you back $250. Developers can put themselves down for a pre-order reservation now and for your money you’ll receive a pair of Manus gloves, plugins for Unity and Unreal Engine and access to the SDK for Android, Windows 7+, Linux, iOS 9, Mac OSX.

The Bluetooth connected gloves integrates per-digit sensors capable of detecting the position and extension of each, with accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer providing sensor data for tracking the movement and rotation of a user’s hands.

However, Manus say they’re working towards integrating Valve’s Lighthouse tracking technology, the same used on the HTC Vive’s controllers and headset, to provide absolute 6DOF positional tracking. True Lighthouse hardware integration isn’t there yet, but the developer kit units have a neat workaround – wrist mounted holders that let you strap a SteamVR controller to your hands thereby piggy backing that positional information.

Manus VR Glove Dev Kit Reservation

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The company have also recently released a video of a new title in development designed to demonstrate the Manus glove’s capabilities in virtual reality. It’s a new title developed in-house at Manus called Willow’s Pillow and follows the fortunes of Willow, a little orphan who woke up in a surreal dream world. Your job – to guide her to safety using your god-like hands to manipulate the world around Willow. Manus teamed up with several industry veterans including former Lead Animator, Peter Kortenhoeven, known from the Overlord series.

Manus VR are at GDC this year demonstrating their latest prototype gloves, Road to VR will be going hands-on with the units later in the week.

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • Steve Biegun

    I wonder how this would compare to Leap Motion for immersion. Has anyone personally gotten hands-on (heh) with a demo?

    • Full_Name

      The advantage with Manus would be that you can have some feedback, plus it will track your hands when you don’t see them.

      • adamwest

        The problem is that there is only tracking and no haptic (touch) feedback

        • Full_Name

          Crap, you are right! I thought I read somewhere it included haptics, but doesn’t appear so. Bummer.

  • Mario Baldi

    My main concern is that this technology adds up on the cost of other potential accessories, and 250$ is quite steep.
    It’s going to be an interesting battle to see what device will win “our hands”.

    • Jim Cherry

      The bleeding edge hasnt been this pricey since the 80s ;}

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Go check what a single commercial dataglove costs, and then come back…

      • Mario Baldi

        Not to say it’s not worth it. It’s just that at that price I can’t see it becoming mainstream any time soon and, as a consumer, I wouldn’t invest in a pricey “peripheral of a peripheral”.
        Peripherals are kind of tricky… It’s a bit like the kinect in a way: if it isn’t included with every xbox, no one is going to develop for it (or buying it).

  • Pistol Pete

    The tacked on Lighthouse sensor, lol.

  • adamwest

    As interesting as this is, the consumer ready version won’t be around for another year or more… By then this tech will obsolete but functional. The step after accurate VR tracking is haptic feedback. Step up your game and you’ll always be ahead.

  • realtrisk

    (Insert obligatory Nintendo Power Glove reference here.)

  • yag

    Not very interested without haptics…