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.
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
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.