Since the rise of modern VR, the mobile mechanism has become one of the important obstacles to the development of the industry. This is mainly due to the effects of motion sickness, a common side effect of "sensory mismatch". When the user moves in virtual reality but stays still in the real world, what the eye sees will conflict with the vestibular system, which will cause motion sickness.
For virtual reality, another problem is that the physical space does not match the virtual space. VR can provide a vast and huge world, but the real world play space is very limited.
Ekto VR is trying to solve these two problems at the same time, and recently demonstrated the team's solution. Their method can be summarized in two words: machinery + boots.
The mechanical boot named Ekto One allows you to physically walk and realize the corresponding travel in VR. The clever thing is that even if you feel that you have walked forward, left or right hundreds of meters, and turned around and turned countless times in the middle, in fact, you are almost just walking in place.
As shown in this video below. The demonstrator wore a pair of huge mechanical boots on both feet, and was playing "Half-Life: Alex". It can be seen from the game trajectory route map above and the game video screen on the bottom right that the player has walked a considerable distance on the way, including walking up the stairs and climbing up the roof. But in the actual physical space at the bottom left, the player can maintain a small space without deviating too far from the origin.
According to reports, the said mechanical boot adopts a special mechanical design. The front and rear halves are linked by a retractable movable device, and the bottom is slightly slipped through 4 motors, thus producing a kind of actually kept in place but The illusion of being able to walk continuously in VR. In addition, the device is equipped with two Vive trackers to achieve precise movement alignment.
Ekto One uses the same battery as the power tool, which can support 1 hour of battery life after a single charge.
The equipment is about the same weight as ski boots, does not support running (you can see from the video that the player is traveling at turtle speed), and other walking methods other than forward walking are not very natural.
The device has been officially released. The developer stated that Ekto One is mainly for training applications rather than games, but the team is constantly working to optimize the device and hopes to complete the development of the next version in 2-4 years.
Ekto VR has also formulated affordable/flexible pricing for large and medium-sized enterprises, and is negotiating cooperation with about 15 AR/VR companies.
For more information about Ekto One or contact cooperation, please visit the company's official website.
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