by Andrew Tarantola | JANUARY 6, 2016
We’ve been watching the development of Virtuix’s Omni VR treadmill since 2013. The company debuted a fully-functional production model at CES 2016 and I was lucky enough to take the $700 device for a test drive — or rather test run.
The treadmill doesn’t work like the one at your gym, mind you. There aren’t actually any moving parts. Instead, the user wears special, $60 super-slippery soled shoes adorned with accelerometers that track their movement as the user slide-steps atop the unit’s floor. The user is also strapped into a lower body harness to keep them centered above the unit, which also allows them to shuffle their feet faster. All this physical movement translates into in game movement — walk forward, to move forward in the game; back pedal to reverse course. Easy, right?