When I purchased my first VR headset, the first thing I noticed about the experience was the motion and simulation sickness I had very early on. I wasn’t even ten minutes into setting it up and downloading the apps I wanted installed before I felt the need to take it off. After a few days of wearing the headset, I learned that no matter what I was doing or for how long, I could only have the headset on for a certain amount of time. Now that time is obviously different for everyone, but not many people can spend hours in a virtual reality with little to no real movement.
Whether I was playing a simple fishing game, or virtually walking around the worlds in Skyrim VR, having no body movement doesn’t go well. Steppingstone has a few great ideas and prototypes, and they are pretty revolutionary in the world of VR.
One of the ideas is to have an electromagnetic platform with a sliding trey like platform on top of it. It is a pretty simple idea, but check out the video below to get more of a view on it.
This is just one of the first steps of the idea until they can get it out into the consumers hands (or feet). The last step of the idea is to have multiple moving platforms inside a room to make it possible for the VR user to walk about in real time with the headset. The tiles or platforms will be moving backwards as you step on them with one replacing the next. Making it realistic to walk about a whole entire world without moving more than three feet all day. In this system they use wheels, rather than the aforementioned product where they use electromagnetic to move the tiles. That will allow for a greater deal of autonomy.
With this product the aim is to have the person wearing the headset to be able to walk about. With the headset essentially acting as a blind fold, there needs to be a great amount of trust to have a platform constantly moving around you. Steppingstone says they are still a while away from the releasing of any of the products to the general public. Obviously in the video the product doesn’t look ready or near ready for any releases, but this product is a literal step in the right direction.
The first product we talked about has pretty cool and some unbeatable features to it. With it you can be moved around on a chair. Now with many people that are not able to walk, VR is a great place to escape. Having a device that is able to get you from point A to point B in VR is pretty great. As seen in the video you can place a chair on the tile that is moving along with the electromagnetic base. With that, the limitations to using a VR headset and having a fully immersive experiences are completely trimmed down.
The Kickstarter to get this all going is obviously going to be pretty hefty. Many people have great ideas, but so many inventions depend on the right funding. The company is there with the right ideas and prototypes, but the company is looking for $150,000. They guarantee it to be a consumer safe 12V Voltage floor required. Most will be able to look past that small risk for a completely immersive and fun virtual reality experience.
