Immersive experiences are the foundation of VR’s growth and devs or creators continue to find ways to keep the illusion from being broken as long as they can. Controller input is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to this, but the team behind CaptoGlove is utilizing our natural gestures to keep players engaged.
The glove is equipped with many sensors and can track the movement of your wrist and the individual fingers. It also has a customization tool to make a large number of gestures work in many different ways for any experience. We got a chance to try out a demo at E3.
The CaptoGlove was fully funded on its Kickstarter campaign and is already making its way into the homes of those that supported it during the campaign. It also made it onto our list of the best hardware we saw at E3 and I go into detail on my experience with the device. In that piece we noted:
Once I got my bearings with the glove, which I was wearing while mimicking the action of holding a helicopter’s control stick, I flew closer to the ground and between buildings. The accuracy and response time allowed me to maneuver deftly, an impressive feat in DCS World for sure. The creators of the tool have plans to add haptic sensors to the base glove in the future, so we could be witnessing an affordable and functional new step for immersive input in VR.
To clarify further what “got my bearings with the glove” means, I initially was thinking of the CaptoGlove’s input in the wrong way. I moved in wide, sweeping moves as if using a large joystick. I realized that the movements weren’t really met with great degrees of input and realized that the glove itself wasn’t being tracked by anything outside of the glove. So I adjusted my strategy, keeping my arm in the same place but turning and tilting with my wrist in more controlled motions and that got a much better and accurate response in the game.
The glove gets as warm as any glove normally would and was quite comfortable throughout the demo. It wasn’t so comfortable that you forget you’re wearing one, but you won’t find yourself getting tired of it with extended play. Further, the glove is designed practically with individual sensors that can be removed with ease if they have to be replaced. The same functionality that allows for that type of repair also opens up the door for updates to the glove without having to buy a new version altogether, an element explained to me by a rep at the demo. There are plans to add a haptic feedback accessory and, though that is still far off.
