We covered the news today that Samsung will be debuting a new motion controller designed specifically for virtual reality and it’s Gear VR headset at CES next week. Now, some new images have surfaced of the devices which give us a better look.
It’s called ‘rink’, it’s a set of motion controllers designed for Gear VR and it’s the latest project from Samsung’s R&D arm C-Labs. News surfaced today that the new controllers will be on show at CES 2016 next week, albeit with a solitary image to fuel speculation on how exactly it might work.
Now, the VR community (thanks /u/Craftsman_nl) have uncovered more images of the devices. revealing a little more of the new hardware.
It seems the controllers come in pairs, or at any rate can be used as such, are open ended with LEDs, perhaps indicating connectivity which (as speculated in the original article) a dedicated box that affixes to the top of the Gear VR headset. This box looks more and more like a sensor to detect the movement of the peripherals, both of which sport a white LED-like block which looks like it’s designed to face upwards. Whether these are for some sort of positional tracking is, frankly (as with the rest of this article) wild speculation at this point. Positional tracking using just these markers seems somewhat challenging though, it might be that the unit is simply a wireless hub with on board processing for data fed from IMUs on the Rink units.
The rink controllers seem to have some sort of perforated material on the inside, perhaps for comfort, perhaps hiding sensors to detect tension in the hands for tracking of a user’s hands? Again, a big dollop of guesswork here.
The second new image shows hands wearing a rink device on each, typing on a virtual keyboard. This might add credence to the finger tracking theory or it could be that it’s just to keep things extra comfy when you’re doing … whatever it is you’re doing with rink.
So, perhaps no real answers here, but we’re having a fun time speculating here at Road to VR towers. Again, thoughts and theories welcome below, let us know what you think.