As developers continue to experiment with a range of VR navigation techniques, Virtuix’s Omni treadmill gives gamers a way to physically walk and run around virtual worlds in an otherwise limited space. The company’s latest developments bring compatibility with the HTC Vive and its Lighthouse tracking tech, enabling ‘decoupled’ manipulation of walking, looking, and aiming.

I’ve been lucky enough to try the Virtuix Omni treadmill at several stages along its development, but I’ve yet to be able to experience the holy grail of a fully decoupled experience that’s now enabled with the HTC Vive.

In my prior engagements with Omni prototypes, the direction you looked was also the direction you ran. That means you couldn’t run forward while looking to the left or right, for instance. The gun prop was also just a glorified controller, as the weapon was untracked and your reticle was attached to the center of your view.

See Also: Preview – Virtuix Omni VR Treadmill Production Model (video)

Now as the company readies the first shipments of the Omni, they’re showing off what’s been their ultimate vision for the VR treadmill all along: fully decoupled motion. Utilizing the HTC Vive with its 360 degree Lighthouse tracking, that means independent control over walking, looking, and aiming. Now if you wanted to, say, run backwards while looking to the side with your arms outstretched in either direction, you totally can. And that means it’s time for me to start begging people to make an Equilibrium (2002) game so that I can pretend I’m doing this.

Virtuix is also showing off a new version of their in-house title TRAVR Training Ops, which is built from the ground up for the Omni’s fully decoupled locomotion. The game is set up like a time trials arena, leader board and all. As you dash through each room, targets pop up all around you which you can shoot with either of your dual pistols, and there’s even some threats to dodge.

When you run faster in the Omni, you actually move faster in the game, which means that topping the leaderboards is going to be as much about fitness as it is about aiming. Speedrunning is about to take on a whole new meaning.

See Also: Billionaire ‘Shark Tank’ Investor Mark Cuban Flip-flops on Virtuix Omni, Joins $3 Million Investment

And therein lies something that’s had me excited about VR from the very beginning: aligning the emotional action of gaming with corresponding psychical action. Virtuix calls this sort of full body gameplay ‘Active VR’.

I always go back to an example that I know well, the last moments of an epic game of Capture the Flag (for me, that would be in Halo, but pick your favorite game and imagine along with me). It’s 2-2 in a match to three. Each team has the opposing team’s flag and now it’s a race to see who can capture it first for the win. The adrenaline is pumping and everyone is on the edge of their seat, playing their best to try to secure victory.

But in contemporary gaming, all of this intense action is happening in your head and on the screen, but physically speaking, you’re twiddling your thumbs. How much more amazing would it be to be physically running that flag, knowing that the harder you run the faster you’ll get that flag back to base. Giving every last ounce of your effort—emotional and physical—for the sake of your team.

People who play sports at a competitive level know this duality of emotion and physicality well—for many, it’s what drives them to play sports in the first place. Soon the doors will be open for it to be part of gaming too. Not only is having your whole body involved in the action more natural, it’s also more immersive and could very well reverse the cliché of the unfit gamer.

For Virtuix’s part, the Omni is finally approaching the light at the end of a tunnel which started way back during the company’s 2013 Kickstarter which raised more than $1 million to get the VR treadmill into production. Now the very first units are set to ship starting in December, with a wider rollout in 2016. In the mean time the Omni is available for pre-order for $699.

In accordance with newly eased investment regulations brought forth by the United States’ JOBS Act, Virtuix is “testing the waters” for crowdfunded equity investment.

The Virtuix Omni VR treadmill began as a Kickstarter success after raising more than $1 million through the crowdfunding platform back in July. Kickstarter allows companies to gather funds from supporters in exchange for products or services, but actually buying equity through the platform has been restricted due to financial regulations.

In total, Virtuix has raised more than $9 million through additional investment rounds, but only a select few could legally participate in those follow-on equity investments due to investing regulations in the U.S. which have just recently been eased thanks to the ‘JOBS Act’.

“Historically, the general public was required to be accredited with the Securities and Exchange Commission in order to invest in private companies. These conditions were based on income and net worth and denied all but the wealthiest 2% of Americans an opportunity to invest. With the new regulation under Title IV of the JOBS Act, the opportunity to invest in private tech startups is now extended to everyone,” Virtuix writes in a press release.

“Each week we receive requests from supporters who want to participate in the financial future of our company and, because of regulation, we’ve had to turn them away. It felt counter to our company’s culture,” says Jan Goetgeluk, Founder and CEO of Virtuix. “Now, with Regulation A [of the JOBS Act], our customers and supporters may have a chance to buy shares in Virtuix alongside Silicon Valley venture capitalists and global institutional investors.”

Virtuix is taking to SeedInvest, an equity crowdfunding platform taking advantage of the newly eased investment regulations. Virtuix is in what SeedInvest calls a “testing-the-waters” phase, which allows potential investors to indicate non-binding interest in investing in the company. Should that prove fruitful, the VR treadmill company will open the doors to raising a ‘Mini IPO’ through the platform.

See Also: Billionaire ‘Shark Tank’ Investor Mark Cuban Flip-flops on Virtuix Omni, Joins $3 Million Investment

Virtuix says they have 31 employees and have sold 4,000 Omnis to date, with the unit currently retailing at $699. The first Omni was delivered at the end of 2015 and more units will ship from the Kickstarter and beyond in 2016.

Virtuix are back at CES once again, and this time they’re getting all competitive as they prepare to hold they’re first multiplayer VR eSports tournament using the Omni VR treadmill, in their new made-for-Omni title, Omni Arena.

Virtuix have spent 2015 ramping up production and shipping of their ‘Pathfinder’ edition Kickstarter backer and pre-order financed Omnidirectional treadmills.

This year, as well as bringing four Omni treadmills with them for us at the show, they’re planning to hold what the company is calling the first VR eSports tournament, to take place on the show floor inside their latest made-for-VR-and-Omni title Omni Arena.

1 of 4

The title is a brightly coloured, VR-enabled first person shooter sporting two game modes at CES. Co-Op mode, two players work together to defend a central core that is attacked by a series of enemies. Whilst in “Hard Point”, players compete to achieve the highest score by defending a hard point in the Arena while trying to shoot each other.

Virtuix are official HTC partners at CES 2016 and will be demonstrating the latest Vive developer kit ‘Pre’ on the show floor. Although it’s not clear if the eSports tournament will use Vive’s exclusively.

See Also: HTC Reveals ‘Vive Pre’ Development Kit at CES

Road to VR will be going hands-on with the new Omni Arena on the CES show floor soon. Check back for our impressions.

Virtuix, the company specialising in omni-directional locomotion solutions for VR, was back at CES 2016 and they brought with them 4 Omnis, 4 HTC Vive Pre headsets all hooked up to their new, multiplayer ‘built for Omni’ eSports game, ‘Omni Arena’.

Virtuix’s presence at CES has grown impressively over the years and this year was no exception. Their sizable stand this year sported no less than four Virtuix Omni’s in each corner, each with a brand new HTC Vive Pre headset for players to try. Why? To demonstrate virtual reality, multiplayer eSports using their locomotion solution. To this end, Virtuix had the above gear wired up to their new, multiplayer online shooter Omni Arena.

1 of 4

It was an opportunity for Road to VR‘s Executive Editor Ben Lang to once again get his feet on with the Kickstarted VR input device – this time, with the added bonus of also donning the new HTC Vive Pre headset – impressions of which you can find here.

Of the various passive VR treadmills I’ve tried, the Virtuix Omni has the most natural gait. I feel very comfortable walking, running, and even sprinting forward in the unit. Turning also works, but it’s quite a bit less natural, equally so, I suspect, on all passive (low-friction) VR treadmills.

Imagine you are making a slow, wide turn to the left while walking on normal ground. You achieve this by placing one foot in front of the next, and with each step you plant, your foot is slightly turned to the left. When you lift up your back foot, your body pivots ever so slightly around your planted foot until the planted foot is once again facing forward instead of left. As you bring your next foot down, it is planted slightly to the left, and the cycle repeats. You are making a small pivot at each step, which adds up to your wide turn.

This all requires friction such that your planted foot stays where it is (and in the direction it is facing) while your body makes that slight pivot. In a passive VR treadmill like the Omni, there’s very little friction under foot, and thus this action of turning feels more like walking on ice than on ground. That’s not to say it can’t be done — nor to say that you can’t get used to it or good at it — only that isn’t not as intuitive or natural as walking or running forward in the Omni.

Otherwise, the Omni works quite well, especially adjusted to the right height. The bowl shape lends itself to a natural walking or running gait. The belt is now very easy to put on, with one strap around the waist and two buckles that go under your legs like a climbing harness. Not counting slipping on the shoes, it probably doesn’t take more than a minute or two to get ready to play with the Omni. The belt and the safety ring feel extremely sturdy and there’s no doubt that the Omni is going to keep you held upright, which is really important because you want to lose yourself in VR and you need to feel safe for that to happen.

Virtuix are hard at work shipping their initial batches of ‘Pathfinder’ Omni treadmills as I write this. The company also recently embarked on an equity crowdfunding round, thanks to recent legislation changed to the US JOBS act which now allows to invest in tech startups.

One of the defining features of Minecraft is its procedurally-generated landscape which creates unique and effectively infinite maps for players to explore. Now, with Minecraft on Gear VR and the Virtuix Omni VR treadmill, you can walk that infinite landscape on foot.

While Minecraft has been available in VR through a third-party mod for some time now, the only way to get the official (and latest version) running in virtual reality is through the newly released Minecraft on Gear VR. With the game running on Gear VR, players can have a completely mobile experience, not needing to tether the headset to a PC.

That’s particularly useful for the Virtuix Omni because it means no wires to deal with while using the VR treadmill. The Omni supports Minecraft ‘automatically’ through a pretty neat function: Bluetooth gamepad emulation. Yes indeed, the large VR treadmill presents itself to Gear VR as a humble bluetooth gamepad, allowing it to feed the same inputs that a controller would into the headset.

The result of course is the ability to physically stroll through Minecraft’s effectively endless—and often, surprisingly beautiful—virtual worlds.

Virtuix, the creators of the Virtuix Omni treadmill, posted an update to customers yesterday stating that they won’t be fulfilling pre-orders to customers outside the United States. According to the company, trying to ship the 80kg (175 lbs) square meter box the Omni comes in to non-U.S. customers “has proven naive and unfeasible.”

Originally launched in 2013, the Omni Kickstarter raised an impressive $1.1M, becoming the most successful non-headset VR peripheral on the crowdfunding platform to date. Allowing you to walk in any direction while staying physically stationary thanks to a special pair of shoes and a low-friction, concave platform, the Omni gives users the ability to explore VR with their own two feet.

Selling for an early bird price of $349 on Kickstarter and later a pre-order price of $699, the Omni promised to “ship anywhere in the world” at a variable price depending on where you lived. At the time of the Kickstarter, a $60-$90 range for was cited for doorstep delivery of the standard Omni for U.S.-based customers, while shipping fees topped out at $250 to ship to Western Europe and up to $600 for the Middle East and South Africa.

The company will be automatically issuing full refunds to anyone outside the United States plus an extra 3% per year compounded monthly. Virtuix says they hope to ship to international customers at some point in the future, however in the meantime they’ll be focusing on the domestic consumer market and the international commercial market such as VR arcades and family entertainment centers.

“The Omni’s production cost grew to more than three times our initial estimate,” the company explains in the update. “Logistics became equally complicated. The Omni ships in a large 48” x 43” box (123cm x 110cm) on a wooden pallet and comes with additional packages for Omni shoes and other accessories.”

“The hardest part of fulfillment is not the initial delivery of the Omni and various accessories (albeit costly and complicated), but complying with international regulations and the global shipping and storing of replacement parts necessary to effectively support a range of geographically diverse customers.”

We’ve included the full update posted to pre-order customers below:

Hello,

When we launched our Omni Kickstarter campaign in June 2013, our dream was to ship Omnis to our passionate VR community all over the world. At that time, the Omni was still in the form of a wooden prototype made in our garage. Over the last three years and with your support, we converted the Omni to a final product that can be produced and shipped in large quantities. The Omni has become a beautiful and robust device that has all the functionality we deemed essential: accommodating players safely and comfortably up to 285lbs (130kg) and with a variable height of up to 6’ 5” (195cm), easy assembly of the product with an updated one-piece base, and fully de-coupled locomotion tracking thanks to integrated sensors in the Omni shoes and ring.

As we focused on product quality and user-friendliness, the Omni transformed from a simple prototype to a complex machine with more than 200 custom parts, several printed circuit boards, an intricate height adjustment mechanism, and a durable form factor that increased the weight of the Omni to 175 pounds (80kg). The Omni’s production cost grew to more than three times our initial estimate. Logistics became equally complicated. The Omni ships in a large 48” x 43” box (123cm x 110cm) on a wooden pallet and comes with additional packages for Omni shoes and other accessories. The hardest part of fulfilment is not the initial delivery of the Omni and various accessories (albeit costly and complicated), but complying with international regulations and the global shipping and storing of replacement parts necessary to effectively support a range of geographically diverse customers.

In the last few months we have explored cost effective options to get the Omni distributed and serviced worldwide, which has become increasingly difficult and expensive given the Omni’s transformation to a high-end entertainment device. After much internal debate and soul-searching, we have concluded that as a small U.S. based startup, we unfortunately do not have the resources to deliver and service units in every country. Our dream of shipping the Omni to customers all over the world has proven naive and unfeasible. Therefore, we have made the difficult decision to only deliver units to our U.S. home market and issue refunds to our customers outside of the U.S. Internationally, our goal is to work with distributors for commercial markets such as VR arcades and family entertainment centers where logistics and customer support channels are more established.

We regret to inform you that we will not be able to deliver your Omni unit to you at this time, and that we will offer you a full refund of your pre-order plus an interest amount of 3% per year, compounded monthly. We realize this offers little consolation after you committed financially and emotionally to the Omni for several years. No words can adequately express our appreciation for your generous and long-standing support, without which we would not be here today. We assure you that we have not given up on our dream. We will continue our efforts to expand our distribution markets, and we hope one day to be able to deliver an Omni to you. However, we do not deem it appropriate to hold on to your funds until that time. Along with our refund, please accept our sincere apologies.

To process your refund including interest, we require the email address that is linked to your PayPal account (PayPal is currently the only way we can refund). Please reply to this message with your PayPal account’s email address. We will then process your refund right away. Because we have a long list to work through, the refund process will take several weeks to complete. Please keep in mind that we may not be able to get back to you for a while should you have any questions.

Our process from Kickstarter campaign to delivering a hardware product has been very humbling. At the start of any journey it’s not always exactly clear where you might end up. We’d like to thank you for embarking on this journey with us and for all your support along the way. We are working hard to bring the Omni to your country, and we hope to see you again in the future.

Best regards,
The Virtuix Team

Popular VR title Arizona Sunshine and two others are soon to get native support for the Virtuix Omni VR treadmill. Virtuix has also announced that the company has become a “formal hardware partner of HTC.”

Arizona Sunshine [our review] is one of SteamVR’s top rated games, and soon it’ll be compatible with the Virtuix Omni, a VR treadmill which got its start after a successful 2013 Kickstarter. In addition to Arizona Sunshine two other SteamVR titles—horror game The Bellows and cartoon-FPS Quell 4D—have also committed to native integration with the device. The games add to several first-party titles that Virtuix has created for the Omni.

Virtuix also announced at the Vive Ecosystem Conference in China last week that it has become a “formal hardware partner of HTC.” Details on precisely what this means are limited, but Virtuix says it will “enable us to work more closely together with HTC on hardware and Omni content.” With the company’s shift toward the out-of-home VR sector, it’s likely that the move will help expose the Omni to businesses creating VR arcades and similar offerings where the VR treadmill could add to the VR experience.

Virtuix got its start in 2013 with a Kickstarter campaign that raised $1.1 million. Following the campaign, the company raised several rounds of investment, including participation by Mark Cuban following Omni’s appearance on the popular US reality investment show Shark Tank and was one of the first companies to offer a crowdfunding investment opportunity following eased investment restrictions in the U.S.

Though the company got an early start (well before Facebook bought Oculus even), traction in the in-home VR space (where the product was initially positioned) was slim, no doubt due to the high price point ($700), significant production delays, and lack of native game integrations.

At the end of 2016 Virtuix announced they were canceling international pre-orders after finding out that shipping the large 175 pound box overseas was “proven naive and unfeasible.” Though they couldn’t deliver the product to their international backers, the company fortunately refunded all canceled orders, with interest.

The Omni is no longer available for consumer purchase; with the cancellation of international pre-orders Virtuix has pivoted the Omni treadmill toward the out-of-home VR market, positioning it as a product to enhance the experience of commercial VR arcade spaces. There, the VR treadmill’s cost and size is perhaps more sensible, though supported content remains a challenge. The addition of a well-liked game like Arizona Sunshine is certainly a win in that regard, and perhaps a sign of more to come.

Virtuix, the company behind the Omni VR treadmill, has partnered with HP to offer a prize pool of $100,000 for its upcoming 2020 Omni Arena series, the company’s annual VR esports competition.

First introduced by Virtuix back in 2016, Omni Arena is a VR esports attraction featuring four Omni VR treadmills. Offering weekly and monthly contests, four-player teams are pitted against each other to top the global leaderboard playing Omni Arena exclusive VR shooters such as Elite, Core Defense, Hardpoint, and VRZ Tournament.

Now the new prize pool amount is double that of the 2019 Omni Arena series, which included a cash prize pool of $50,000.

As a part of the partnership, winning teams will also receive an HP Reverb VR headset in addition to cash prizes in 2020.

In 2019, more than 1,000 players in over a dozen countries participated, founder and CEO of Virtuix Jan Goetgeluk says in a press statement.

One of the guiding ideas behind the company’s esports tournament is to provide users a reason to come back to location-based entertainment facilities, and thus drive higher repeat play.

“A $100,000 prize pool attracts gamers who play again and again. Our core players come back to compete every week,” Goetgeluk says.

If you’re interested in participating, check out are the official participating locations across North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

Virtuix has been around for just about as long as Oculus itself, with a 2013 Kickstarter for its landmark VR treadmill Virtuix Omni bringing in over $1 million from backers. Now the Texas-based company is back at it again with a new at-home VR treadmill it hopes to jumpstart with the help of a community-sourced investment, the Virtuix Omni One.

Omni One is a consumer version of the Omni that Virtuix says is optimized for home use, including a light frame, foldable body for easy storage, and a freedom of movement that boasts walking, running, crouching and jumping. All of this is done by moving your feet on a low-friction parabolic surface that requires special low-friction shoes.

In contrast to the company’s commercial Omni, which it sells to location-based entertainment facilities, the consumer version has done away with the support ring, but there’s a few other things that have changed too.

With the Omni One package, Virtuix says it will include a standalone VR headset, which in the promo material is a Pico Neo 2. Granted, users can also connect Omni One to a PC and play PC-based VR games using their own headsets, however the company is putting forward a complete package that “just works out-of-the-box,” Omni CEO and co-founder Jan Goetgeluk says.

Although it’s uncertain precisely which standalone headset will ship with Omni One, the company will be pitching their own app store with games guaranteed to support the VR treadmill. This comes part and parcel with an obligatory monthly subscription called ‘Omni Online’ for online play, similar to Xbox Live and PS Plus.

Unlike most crowdfunding campaigns, which typically work as pre-orders, Virtuix is accepting reservations from interested parties via a Regulation A funding campaign. The company has been testing the waters for such a crowdfunded equity investment ever since the US government eased investment rules via the JOBS act, which allows the general public to invest in private companies.

That said, the lowest possible investment is $1,000, which incentivizes people with a 20% discount when buying an Omni One system ($400 discount) or Omni One dev kit ($200 discount). Investing in the first week will double that discount, coming to a total of $800 off the Omni One or $400 off the Omni One dev kit.

Virtuix says Omni One is slated to release sometime in Q2 of 2021 priced at $1,995. According to The Verge, the developer kit will sell for $995, however it will lack access to the Omni game store and the included VR headset.

Having tried the original commercial Omni several times myself over the years, and also its main China-based competitor Kat Walk VR, it’s safe to say that using these type of low friction VR locomotion devices can definitely be awkward at first. It’s not exactly comparable to walking naturally, as you slide your feet forward and forcefully turn against the weight of a constrictor bar (or in Omni Pro’s case a support ring) to turn in-game. I’ll admit that I don’t own any such VR treadmill though, both for the associated price tag and space requirements, however it’s clear Virtuix is trying to change that here with its new, slimmed-down Omni One.

And it seems the early bird investment strategy has worked fairly well so far. At the time of this writing the company has already made it halfway to its overall minimum goal of $1 million. You can check out more funding tiers and specifics around the investment crowdfunding campaign here.

Check out the company’s SeedInvest campaign pitch below:

Virtuix, the company behind the Omni VR treadmill, launched a crowd-based investment campaign in 2020 to fund Virtuix Omni One, an at-home VR locomotion device targeted at consumers. Now the studio has revealed the final version, pricing, and the news that it’s  now shipping out to early investors.

Omni One units are now headed out to early investors (re: not backers) prior to the device’s planned consumer launch, which is said to arrive at some point later this year.

The company says its currently has a waitlist for Omni One of “more than 35,000 subscribers.”

Here’s a look at what Virtuix says is the final version of the hardware:

Virtuix says 900 of its equity crowdfunding investors have applied to buy Omni One beta units, which will be extended to late 2023, however unit quantities will “start small and gradually increase as the program proceeds.”

Similar to other parabolic VR ‘treadmills’, Omni One requires you to wear special low-friction shoes and strap into a harness system which keeps you in the center of the base’s parabola.

And although marketed as a consumer-targeted device, Omni One’s introductory price will be $2,595 plus shipping, which also includes the Pico Neo 3 Pro standalone headset. The company is however also offering a financing plan that could bring it to as low as $65 per month.

Over its lifetime, Virtuix has raised $35 million. The company says it’s now shipped over $16 million worth of products, which includes over 4,000 Omni Pro systems across 45 countries, and than 70 Omni Arena systems to US venues such as Dave & Buster’s.

Virtuix, the company behind the Omni VR treadmill, announced it’s raised $4.7 million through its latest crowd investment round. The Austin, Texas-based company also says it plans to ship 1,000 of its Omni One VR treadmills by the end of this year.

Earlier this year, Virtuix launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to further support the production of its Omni One VR treadmill, which, when paired with a VR headset, allows you to physically run around in a VR game instead of relying on artificial locomotion schemes, like stick movement or teleportation.

Similar to other parabolic VR treadmills like KAT VR, Omni One requires you to wear special low-friction shoes and strap into a harness system which keeps you in the center of the base’s parabola. Read about our latest hands-on to see Omni One in action.

Since launch in early 2023, the campaign has already raised over $4.7 million. Although just short of its initial $5 million target, Virtuix has decided to conclude the crowdfunding campaign earlier than planned on August 10th.

In addition to individual investors, the funding round received significant support from JC Team Capital, a prior investor, with its founder and CEO, Parth Jani, joining Virtuix’s Board of Directors as a lead investor. Virtuix intends to use the funds to increase Omni One’s production and aims to achieve profitability by 2024.

Virtuix has already started shipping beta units of Omni One to 8,000 of its equity investors. More than 1,000 units are said to ship out by the end of this year, with plans to deliver to all remaining investors in the first quarter of 2024. Pre-orders for the general public are expected to open in late 2023, with deliveries scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2024.

While more accessible to consumers than similar enterprise devices, Omni One’s introductory is $2,595, which includes the Pico VR headset—a sharp reminder that the accessory largely appeals to prosumers and businesses. The company has however devised a payment plan that offers the device as low as $65 per month.

Virtuix’s CEO, Jan Goetgeluk, expressed excitement about Omni One’s success and its potential for rapid revenue growth, saying the company already has a waitlist of 35,000 interested customers.

Founded in 2013, the latest campaign puts Virtuix’s lifetime funding to more than $35 million which was sourced from both individual and institutional investors.