SenseGlove Nova 2 adds palm pressure feedback to the enterprise force feedback VR gloves.
Gloves are considered the eventual ultimate form of virtual reality input. Most "VR gloves" simply feature vibration motors on each finger, but force feedback gloves like the Nova series go further by actually restricting the movement of your fingers in response to a virtual object or surface.
The original Nova shipped in late 2021 at $5000, and the new Nova 2 increases the price to $6000. That may sound like a lot, but that's actually cheaper than most other force feedback gloves.
Nova 2 adds palm pressure feedback.
Like the original, Nova 2 can provide up to 20 newtons resistance to your thumb, index finger, middle finger, and ring finger, equivalent to the weight of a 2kg brick on each finger. The thumb and index fingers also have vibrotactile actuators for traditional haptic feedback, allowing Nova to simulate texture of virtual surfaces.
But while the original only applied feedback and resistance to your fingers, Nova 2 goes a step further by applying pressure across your palm. SenseGlove claims this enables more realistic simulation of drills, saws and grinders, hammers, pliers, and rehabilitation tools, and even lets users feel a handshake in collaborative VR applications.
The original Nova is already used for training.
Nova gloves don't have onboard positional tracking, but include mounts for HTC Vive trackers or Quest Touch controllers. They can be paired to either standalone headsets or a PC via Bluetooth. Developers of bespoke enterprise apps can integrate SenseGlove’s Unity, Unreal or native SDK to support the force feedback and haptic features.
The original Nova is already used by Volkswagen to train manufacturing assembly workers, by MedVR for medical training, and by Extend Robotics to remotely control robots. The Royal Netherlands Army has also been trialing it to train equipment assembly engineers. While force feedback gloves remain a distant dream for the consumer market, companies like SenseGlove, Contact CI, and HatpX have created a real market for them in the enterprise space.
