Thanks to your overwhelming support, the Omni revolution is spreading around the globe. We have delivered priority prototypes to customers on four continents and have demonstrated the Omni in front of excited crowds at events in the US, Europe, and Asia. Our production in China is taking shape, and our tracking solution is nearly complete. We hope you enjoy this update!

Prototype Shipments

Virtuix is happy to announce that all Omni “Priority Prototypes” have been shipped to our prototype Kickstarter backers. Seven prototypes were delivered to locations across the world, including South Korea, Europe, South America, and locally in the US. Backers range from individual VR enthusiasts to companies like BAE Systems that want to use the Omni for fascinating VR applications.

Production

Jan and our COO David have been on a roadshow in China to set up the manufacturing of the Omni and its accessories. We have lined up top-notch manufacturing partners, some of the biggest in the world, who are excited to join the Omni revolution and build a top quality product.

Together with our manufacturing partners we are making continual improvements to the Omni and are rigorously validating its performance. We expect to start delivering Omnis in March/April. Rest assured that we will maximize our time to provide you with the best possible Omni experience. We will keep you up to date with regular production news as we complete each step in the process

Tracking and SDK

In our social media updates, we announced that the Omni will use capacitive sensors in the base to track the movement of your feet. Let us explain how this will work in more detail.

The capacitive sensors are comparable to the sensors in the touch screen of your mobile phone or tablet. They are installed beneath the surface of the Omni (not subject to wear and tear), and accurately track the position of both your feet at any given time. Our firmware processes the sensor signals and sends the coordinates of your feet to the computer via a USB connection. Even height (“z”) coordinates of both feet can be detected. Our API will provide developers with new motion input functions that have never existed before: analog walking speed of the user, absolute walking orientation (independent of the looking orientation), position of both feet, jump and strafe detection, and more. Capacitive sensing is a low-cost, low-latency and highly accurate tracking solution that enables an optimal Omni “Full VR” experience. Our system does not interfere with the Sixense STEM.

Below is a picture of our prototype equipped with the capacitive sensors. Look out for a full demo video in our next update!

Virtuix Around The World

Virtuix has been traveling around the world demonstrating the Omni and working with the VR community.

Jan was a guest speaker at Digital Taipei in Taiwan, where he addressed an enthusiastic audience and showed the Omni for the first time in Asia.

Jan was also invited to speak at TEDx in Houston, where he talked about how virtual reality will disrupt our daily lives.

Colton participated in a panel on the future of storytelling at StoryDrive in Frankfurt. A wonderful experience to interact with some of the visionaries in augmented / virtual reality and digital media production.

With the help of SCAN Computers, the Omni had its first public appearance outside of the US. The Earls Court Exhibition Center in London was sold out for EuroGamer, where we attracted large crowds of visitors excited to see the Omni in action. We were delighted to meet some of our European backers. One of the many interviews from Eurogamer can be found below:

Two weeks later we teamed up with Microsoft for Apps World, again in London. Apps World provided a great opportunity to meet with game developers and strengthen our relationship with Microsoft.

While in the UK, we made a stop at the Gadget Show, the number-one UK source for the latest in gaming tech and news. Jason and Rachel were able to test out the Omni and loved the experience (Jason refused to stop playing).  The episode is scheduled to air on November 11^th.

Finally, Virtuix was at GamesBeat in Redwood City from October 29-30, where we partnered again with our friends at Sixense. Jan participated in a panel about “Emerging Technologies.”

Our next event is Engadget Expand from November 9-10 in New York City. This is our first event on the East Coast, so we look forward to meeting some of our East Coast supporters!

Thank you all for your overwhelming and continuing support! We are moving forward as fast as we can, and we can’t wait to show you our tracking technology in action and unveil screenshots of TRAVR (which is looking awesome). Stay tuned!

Jan and the Virtuix Team