VRGluv, currently making the rounds on Kickstarter, is the quintessential VR glove as one may imagine it, but with special considerations made to ensure compatibility with current home VR systems. The movement of the gloves is extremely true to life in VR, and the accessories include specially engineered haptic feedback technology to make using them even more immersive. Full use of the VRGluv requires special integration on the software side, but there are already a few developers on board with the project, using the gloves to create compelling experiences, and the gloves are compatible with the HTC Vive’s controllers and the Oculus Touch controllers, its creators revealed. As of this writing, the project is more than three-quarters of the way toward meeting its $100,000 funding goal, and it has until May 25 to get there.
The main selling point of these gloves is that their haptic feedback is not limited to vibrations; the gloves will physically restrict or stop the movement of your fingers in correlation to what’s happening on the screen. The system is also pressure sensitive and can sense and relay how much pressure you’re exerting and how virtual objects should react to that pressure, if they’re programmed to fully support the VRGluv, that is. Crushing a virtual apple, for example, will require enough pressure to overwhelm the apple in the virtual world, at which point the gloves will let your fingers pinch together quickly, as if you’ve crushed a real apple with a sudden motion. Pulling the trigger of a virtual gun, likewise, will require pressure, and grabbing a virtual object will stop your finger movement in a way that contours around the object, making it feel as if you’re actually grabbing a real object.
For the time being, most of the reward tiers for the project are still open. You can chip in $5, or get your hands into a set of VRGluv gloves for $349. From there, you can get two pairs with a developer pack for $799, five pairs for $1,595, or ten pairs for $2,990. Each pair comes with a special adapter to let them work with HTC and Oculus’ controller solutions, which means that they can be used seamlessly for VR experiences that don’t have full support for them yet.
