Our production setup remains on a steady track. The mold for the Omni base, the Omni’s largest injection mold, is being finalized this month together with the step-up deck. We are still working through the remaining components and have been expanding our supply chain team to oversee this process (we now have a staff of seven full-time team members in our office in Zhuhai). We’re getting ever closer and we appreciate your continued patience. We wish we could commit to a launch date, but we absolutely must not rush this process, as we want you to have the best locomotion input device possible. In the meantime, we will keep you posted on every step along the way.

Another look at the cavity mold of the Omni Deck

More shots from the factory

Production is in good hands with our on-site team members

E3

If you are attending E3 next month, be sure to stop by our Booth No. 5604 in the West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center (adjacent to the Oculus booth). We will be handing out daily Omni passes each morning with a time slot to try out the Omni that day. Slots are limited, so those interested should come early if possible. This will be our last major show before we start shipping!

Virtuix is bringing back the successful Dreadhalls Gear VR demo from GDC, and also showing the latest build of TRAVR: Training Ops, with the new leader board fully implemented. Records are made to be broken, and we expect there will be some serious competition between participants as they fight to have their initials at the top!

HD VR Cable and Boom

As we receive many inquiries regarding the Oculus Rift extension cable we use at events, we’re pleased to announce that we will make this cable available as an optional accessory through our web store. This is no ordinary cable; unlike cheaper alternatives, our 15-ft. (5m) cable is thin and flexible, and uses signal boosting to maintain picture quality while allowing for extra length – features that are very useful for standing, active VR. Please note that its advanced specifications mean that the cable is, unfortunately, expensive to produce. The cable will be priced at $79 and is estimated to be available this summer. The cable will fit well with our Omni boom, which we also plan to offer to our community. More details on this to be announced this summer!

A Glimpse of Hands Omni

While Virtuix devotes all effort to completing the Omni, our plan is to also support you with accessories like the aforementioned cable and boom that will make your VR experience more enjoyable. Beyond that, we hope in the future we may contribute to the solution of another big problem – haptic feedback. To this end we sponsored a team of students at Rice University to create a haptic glove for VR. While this has not distracted us in any way from our main goal, we recently had time to try the prototype the team developed – check it out:

While we are not committing any resources to this project or have any plans to commercialise it at this time, our experience made us all very excited to see how developers might use a glove like this to enhance immersion. ‘This is the future’ and ‘Imagine holding a beating heart in your hand’ were some of our immediate reactions. Indeed we were reluctant to take it off!

VR Industry Developments

• Oculus confirmed that its first consumer model of the Rift HMD will ship in Q1 2016.

• GoPro entered the virtual reality space by acquiring Kolor, a French company that specializes in virtual reality software.

• Google is pushing Youtube into virtual reality and is partnering with GoPro to make 360-degree virtual reality videos.

• Oculus announced the acquisition of Surreal Vision, a world leader in real-time 3D scene reconstruction.

• Major game publisher Ubisoft confirmed that it is working on VR versions of its biggest games for release in the near future.

• Google hinted that the next iteration of the company’s VR smartphone adapter may be headed toward a consumer level of fit and finish.

• Thomas Cook is preparing for mainstream virtual reality and will deliver 3D experiences directly to customers at home.

• Patron is using virtual reality to market its tequila.

• The Golden State Warriors are experimenting with VR to deliver courtside seat experiences to the home.

• Virtual reality headsets and content will be “the next mega tech theme” and a market worth more than $60 billion in a decade, according to Piper Jaffray.

As always, please join our Forums for immediate updates and discussions: http://forum.virtuix.com

Best regards,

Jan and the Virtuix Team