Our manufacturing process remains on track for our shipping launch later this year – all parts of the Omni will be in tooling by the end of next week, both metal and plastic! The Omni’s design has evolved a lot over the last few years, so we thought it’d be interesting to place some of the various versions of the Omni side-by-side:

Finally, here are the 3D renderings of the Omni that you will receive:

While there are only a few subtle differences with the prior version, you’ll notice the extra clearance at the strut bases to accommodate our largest users. Over time we have vastly improved the durability, performance and overall quality of the Omni and its individual components, and we are now fully satisfied that the Omni meets our expectations. We still have some work to do before we can ship them to your homes, but we are in the final stretches towards our production launch. We will notify you as soon as we begin manufacture, and again once your individual Omni has been built and is ready for delivery.

VRLA

We made the difficult decision not to exhibit at VRLA this weekend, and instead focus on preparing for the upcoming manufacturing phase. Our events to date have been extremely informative, and we want to thank everyone who has provided us with user feedback and stress testing over the last two years. If you booked tickets to VRLA, we certainly recommend going, as it’s a fantastic show that we are proud to sponsor.

Product Manual

One of the many final tasks we’re occupied with right now is the writing of our product manual. Albeit a seemingly trivial task, we are trying to make our manual fun and engaging. Here’s a look at some of our design concepts!

FUNDRAISER

We’d like to thank everyone who has donated to Lorenzo’s ongoing fundraiser, which we announced in our previous update. Lorenzo is deeply touched by your generosity and well-wishes. We’re happy to report that he is making a good recovery, and he has re-joined us at the office. He was even able to take a few steps unaided on the Omni, illustrating the potential of the Omni for physical therapy. If anyone knows any good, slower-paced exploration games, please leave us your suggestions in the comments.

VR INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS

• VR chatroom Altspace VR raises $10.3MM to develop a digital place in VR where users can hang out.
• HTC spends nearly $10MM on a 15% stake in virtual reality platform WEVR.
• CastAR raised a $15 million Series A round led by Playground Global Ventures.
• VR headset maker Avegant has secured $24 million to increase manufacturing and begin shipping the headsets by the end of 2015.
• Candy Crush creator Tommy Palm’s Resolution Games raised $6MM to develop virtual reality games.
• American Express crafted a VR experience that lets tennis fans play opposite Maria Sharapova at this year’s US Open.
• As a number of football teams have picked up STRIVR Labs to train their athletes with virtual reality software, the company is now venturing into basketball and hockey.
• MTV will produce a live-streaming, 360-degree virtual-reality video experience for the 2015 “MTV Video Music Awards” red-carpet show.
• Discovery Channel goes all-in on VR and taps Mythbusters and Gold Rush stars to launch the Discovery VR platform.

We are aiming to be as responsive as we can in the next few months and keep you closely updated during this final stretch. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to sign up to our forums: http://forum.virtuix.com

Community, we’re approaching ‘crunch-time’, so we really appreciate your continued patience and support more than ever. Thank you again!

Best regards,

Jan and the Virtuix Team