This article was 1st published on our sister Site, Digital World Native.
Virtual Reality (VR), Enhanced Reality & Mixed Reality headsets & glasses are becoming commonplace, especially amongst gamers. To achieve a completely immersive experience, however, you should be able to feel the digital objects as they’re grasped, instead of having to use controllers with triggers as is currently the case. Dexmo provides this capability by capturing the full range of hand motion & giving timely force feedback, so you can feel the size, shape & stiffness of virtual objects.
Creators of VR devices have been unable to bring natural hand dexterity for software developers to take advantage of in the digital space. While visual & sound immersion is commonplace & increasingly the VR industry provides better & more satisfying experiences, we still can’t feel or interact with virtual objects when we grasp them.
Dexmo’s exoskeleton glove works by capturing your hand motion & sending the data to an avatar in the VR world. The glove’s software reacts as your avatar’s hand touches & grasps a visual object by computing the direction & amplitude of the force applied to the 5 fingertips in each hand. With the variable force feedback provided by Dexmo you can actually experience the virtual object’s properties, texture & motion in real time. You can do things like turn a virtual knob, squeeze a virtual rubber duck or grasp a virtual stone.
Dexmo is unique in that its tech is the only 1 available in the market that will actually stop your hand from passing straight through a virtual object as if it wasn’t there. It applies computed force to your fingertips & actually fits them to the shape of virtual objects.
The closest competitors are the controllers that come with the HTC Vibe headset that also track hand motion & allows you to engage with virtual objects & the Oculus Touch, which will soon ship & complement the FaceBook-owned company’s Oculus Rift VR headset & promises similar capabilities.
Dexta Robotics is a Shenzhen, China-based tech startup led by Cambridge University researcher Xiaochi Gu, who launched a precursor to the Dexmo in 2014, & has since produced 20 iterations to the original prototype, which began life as a Kickstarter project. The company has yet to provide pricing or availability of the product as of the time of the writing of this article.
Check out this video:
Video Credit:YouTube/Dexta Robotics
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