BodyLink is a funded Kickstarter for a standalone body tracking camera for TV games and VR headsets.
The Kickstarter comes from Rebuff Reality, a VR accessory company that today sells straps, grip socks, and USB hubs for HTC's Vive Trackers, a rear battery for Quest 3, and the body tracking VR game Dance Dash.
BodyLink is essentially a modern Kinect in a standalone console with an ARM chipset. It runs Android TV and comes with body tracking games that can be played in your living room, some without controllers and others with the included 6DoF motion controller.
But BodyLink's other purpose is to deliver VR body tracking without worn trackers, by wirelessly streaming its tracking skeleton output to supported VR games on standalone headsets and PCs, including VRChat and Dance Dash.
It's already possible to use your phone as a body tracking camera in VRChat, and in principle BodyLink is just a dedicated device for this. But unlike that app, Rebuff Reality says BodyLink's camera samples at 90FPS for smoother tracking, and has a wide field of view to see your body at a shorter distance with higher fidelity.
Further, BodyLink is a Google Cast target, meaning you can use it to let others see what you're seeing in your Quest headset on your TV, if you don't already have a Google Cast TV or streaming device.
And BodyLink actually has a second camera, a 4K color camera designed for content capture which the Rebuff Reality says will be used for LIV-style mixed reality capture in supported VR titles.
Rebuff Reality says BodyLink will be priced at $300 at retail, and that Kickstarter backers can get it for $170. It intends to start shipping to most backers in August, ahead of general availability later in the year.
However, it's important to note that backing a Kickstarter is not the same as placing a preorder. Kickstarter projects are under no legal obligation to provide you with the eventual product, and many hardware Kickstarters fail before delivery, owing to the incredible complexity of profitably shipping a consumer technology product.
