Valve keeps revealing more of its new Knuckles controllers for SteamVR in the most unexpected of ways. Earlier this week we saw a virtual prototype for the kit within SteamVR Home, and now a setup guide has revealed even more information.
A quick start guide for these new controllers has just surfaced online, letting developers know how to (literally) get to grips with them. There’s plenty of useful information for the curious, though, including the detailed look at the system’s various buttons below. As you can see, the device features two face buttons located next to its trackpad, with a system button below. A trigger sits on the bottom and a micro USB charging port is housed below too. You can even see how you’re meant to hold the device.
Following that, Valve has a lot information about how to install the device, but more interesting are the GIFs showing people actually using them. The first demonstrates how the user can let go of the core controller, with the grip then holding it in place. A strap is used to tighten and loosen the grip around your hand.
The post also details the finger tracking for the controller, which needs to be calibrated. Once organized, you can use the controllers inside SteamVR Home. Valve says that the current iteration of the controllers has a battery life of three hours, and they’ll take about an hour to recharge. That could obviously change for the consumer version of the devices, though.
This info dump suggests that some lucky developers may already have their fingers on the Knuckles controllers. What we don’t know is when we’ll be able to try them out for ourselves; Valve hasn’t provided a public demonstration of the controllers just yet. We’ll be eager to learn when they’ll be releasing, though at a guess we’d say the upcoming refreshed base stations expected to launch later this year would be the perfect complement to them. Perhaps we could even see them bundled in with LG’s upcoming SteamVR headset?
