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The point of that article wasn't that touching things in air isn't as good as touching buttons, it was that hands offer a huge range of interaction and sensory

The point of that article wasn't that touching things in air isn't as good as touching buttons, it was that hands offer a huge range of interaction and sensory experiences, and yet we keep focusing on interfaces that totally ignore this. I don't think it applies much less to keyboards, mice, and gamepads than it does to screens, as you still are getting very little feedback/use of your hands beyond knowing where your fingers are positioned relative to what they're over/holding. I agree that the ManusVR gloves don't give you much more feedback by themselves than a standard VR controller, but I think it allows your hand to be used to a fuller extent, and doesn't restrict you to as narrow a set of interactions. The only additional feedback VR controllers give you is in how much you're pressing a button/thumbstick/trackpad and maybe some vibrations. Knowing if you've squeezed a trigger enough to shoot a gun in a game is good, but you could also accomplish that while wearing some VR gloves by holding a toy gun in your hand, which then gives you the added feedback of the shape and weight of a gun. Before we have some sort of setup for providing actual feedback based on the virtual world you're interacting with, it seems like this kind of setup (smart gloves coupled with simple dumb-props) would be a more desirable user experience than controllers with some buttons & sticks. (That's one of my all-time favorite articles btw!)

ipsum2 9y ago
> The only additional feedback VR controllers give you is in how much you're pressing a button/thumbstick/trackpad and maybe some vibrations. Knowing if you've squeezed a trigger enough to shoot a gun in a game is good, but you could also accomplish that while wearing some VR gloves by holding a toy gun in your hand, which then gives you the added feedback of the shape and weight of a gun. Before we have some sort of setup for providing actual feedback based on the virtual world you're interacting with, it seems like this kind of setup (smart gloves coupled with simple dumb-props) would be a more desirable user experience than controllers with some buttons & sticks. I agree with this. In theory, with a smart enough glove you could use any tool in VR. I haven't seen any in practice that allows for such fidelity in object/finger detection (e.g. is your hand on the trigger, or squeezing it? Are you holding the object or did you drop it?). Also, it would mean that toy guns would need to be standardized (3d printing looks good in this area). The current approach, combining SteamVR trackers (https://partner.steamgames.com/vrtracking/ https://partner.steamgames.com/vrtracking/) with physical objects seem like the best bet for the foreseeable future.
marxidad 9y ago
A thousand euros for a pair of VR gloves?
- aphextron 9y ago
  It's a dev kit. Consumer gear is still years away.

ipsum2 9y ago

> The only additional feedback VR controllers give you is in how much you're pressing a button/thumbstick/trackpad and maybe some vibrations. Knowing if you've squeezed a trigger enough to shoot a gun in a game is good, but you could also accomplish that while wearing some VR gloves by holding a toy gun in your hand, which then gives you the added feedback of the shape and weight of a gun. Before we have some sort of setup for providing actual feedback based on the virtual world you're interacting with, it seems like this kind of setup (smart gloves coupled with simple dumb-props) would be a more desirable user experience than controllers with some buttons & sticks. I agree with this. In theory, with a smart enough glove you could use any tool in VR. I haven't seen any in practice that allows for such fidelity in object/finger detection (e.g. is your hand on the trigger, or squeezing it? Are you holding the object or did you drop it?). Also, it would mean that toy guns would need to be standardized (3d printing looks good in this area). The current approach, combining SteamVR trackers (https://partner.steamgames.com/vrtracking/ https://partner.steamgames.com/vrtracking/) with physical objects seem like the best bet for the foreseeable future.

marxidad 9y ago

A thousand euros for a pair of VR gloves?

aphextron 9y ago
It's a dev kit. Consumer gear is still years away.