E3 is over for another year and it’s been fun! We’ve had a very marked focus on software not hardware for VR related products and that’s been reflected in our coverage.
Again, Rev. Kyle is joined by Ben Lang to talk about the day’s events. In this final special they discuss Sixense and their newest STEM prototype and were impressed with it’s low latency, Kyle gets his turn with the Virtuix Omni, reactions from the Oculus Booth, new DK2 shipping estimates and some thoughts and info on Elite: Dangerous. Kyle also had his time with Sony’s Project Morpheus and the Street Luge demo. And of course the VRLA mixer.
Virtuix has just announced that it has secured $2.7M of investment as the commercial launch of its omni-directional treadmill, the Omni approaches.
Time was at Road to VR that every other week we’d have a story on the Virtuix Omni, the omnidirectional treadmill that promises to capture your physical actions and use them to control VR applications and games. But the company has had its metaphorical head down as it finalises designs and prepares itself both for shipping units to Kickstarter backers but also release the product commercially.
You could argue that the Virtuix team at one point were near Omnipresent (sorry!) at trade shows and VR meetups after their hugely successful Kickstarter campaign netted over $1.1M back in February 2013. In the time since the Kickstarter closed, the company has been at the forefront of the media as one of the earliest examples that the VR revolution was inbound. Virtuix Founder and CEO Jan Goetgeluk even appeared on national US TV when he pitched the Omni on the reality show Shark Tank.
Now, the company has announced that it has secured $2.7M of funding to help push the Virtuix Omni forward into the commercial realm. “Virtuix’s mission is to take virtual reality beyond the chair,” said Virtuix CEO Jan Goetgeluk. “The Omni transforms VR into an active experience. These funds ensure that we can accelerate development of that mission beyond our upcoming commercial launch.” The company has already received $3M of seed investment, which it secured
To date, the Omni has sold 3,500 units and expects to reveal the finalised product ahead of their Q1 2015 retail push at CES in January. Road to VR will be on the ground at CES next year to see it for ourselves.
Another year, another Internaional CES. But as the rapid growth of the VR industry shows no signs of abating, we look at the signs that mean 2015 will be the year VR heads to people’s homes.
The advent of another trade show in the tech industry stands as a useful opportunity to take a look at what’s happened since the last one. A chance to look back and take stock of how far things have come. VR is moving fast, and as Ferris Bueller once said, “..if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
2013 had already been a spectacular year for virtual reality, arguably the best ever. The technology had created enormous buzz which transcended the usual tech news channels, with Oculus Rift reaction videos going viral and mainstream media willing to take seat on the Oculus Rift bandwagon. VR it seemed was reborn, it was maturing quickly and had given us a hell of a ride in 2013, but this was just the beginning.
We predicted that 2014 would be ‘The Year of VR’, as we prepared to attend our first ever CES on behalf of Road to VR. As predictions go, it was pretty vague. However, as we close in for next months CES 2015, there’s no doubt that 2014 has exceeded all expectations.
However, it was Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus for a cool $2Bn that provided the final kick that VR needed to achieve launch velocity. Freed from financial constraints, Oculus went on to host ‘Connect’, their own developer conference, where they demonstrated just how far they’d come by stunning attendees with the Crescent Bay prototype, bringing the company closer than ever to a consumer ready headset they could unleash on the world. The one thing missing from 2014? Any clue when we could all finally look forward to seeing the consumer Oculus Rift in stores to buy. When would we see CV1?
CES 2015 – Consumer VR Arrives
Gear VR, powered by Oculus and of course the Note 4
It was to be Samsung (admittedly ‘powered by Oculus’) who beat them to the punch for first consumer-ready VR headset. Despite the ‘Innovator Edition’ on the Note 4 powered Gear VR, in contrast to Oculus’ currently obtainable headset, the DK2, it offers the first glimpse at a polished, retail, VR experience.
It would be disingenuous to say then that Oculus and Sony are playing catch-up however. In fact, the old dividing lines of console versus PC gaming can be drawn for Morpheus and CV1, with Gear VR representing mobile. The three headsets, despite being designed to accomplish largely the same thing, are actually aimed at different groups of people.
Sony’s Project Morpheus stormed GDC 2014
Nevertheless, Sony and Oculus are expected to launch their first retail devices in 2015 (‘expected’ of course doesn’t mean ‘confirmed’). Despite Oculus’ apparent head start in the race for retail VR and their latest spectacular ‘Crescent Bay’ prototype, they’ve been reticent to launch before they’re good and ready. With Crescent Bay proving their headset technology is ‘there’, user input in VR remains as a largely unsolved paradigm. Oculus’ recent acquisition of Nimble VR, a company specialising in hand and finger tracking for VR input, may mean they have a solution—one we may hear more about when we catch up with them at CES.
Sony meanwhile have the excellent PlayStation Move controllers out in the world ready to go, having been launched years ago during the previous generation of console hardware. Whether they have the finesse required for truly immersive virtual reality experiences is as yet unknown. It may well be a moot point however if Sony pitch Morpheus as offering an ‘immersion lite’ experience, something that would make a lot of sense given the host platform’s (the Playstation 4) lack of grunt compared with today’s gaming PCs. Given Morpheus’ already high levels of hardware polish evident at showings all year, it feels like the right time for Sony to make a big announcement for a retail launch in 2015.
Sixense’s STEM concept design, circa 2013
Meanwhile, those 2013 Kickstarters are now close or ready to deliver their solutions to the VR input problem. With Sixense shipping its first early ‘STEM’ devices to backers recently and Virtuix primed to unveil their retail-ready ‘Omni’ to the public at CES, there is suddenly no shortage of companies vying for attention in this space. Control VR made quite a splash earlier in the year with their confident pitch and community demos; they’ve been quiet for a while now so hopefully we’ll have a chance to catch up with them at the show.
Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson with their CastAR prototypes at CES 2014
CES 2015, which runs from January 6th to 9th in Las Vegas, promises to be the best ever for VR and there might just be some awesome surprises in store. Road to VR will be on the ground all week to make sure you’re in the know.
If you’d like to arrange a meeting with us, please reach out to info@roadtovr.com.
From the get-go, the Virtuix Omni VR treadmill was designed to be both adjustable and collapsible, allowing it to work for users of different heights and be stowed away out of sight. For the first time at CES 2015, Virtuix showed off the production version of the Omni and how easy it is for a single user to get up and running.
We’ve been following the Virtuix Omni since its highly successful Kickstarter raised more than seven times its goal back in July, 2013. Since then we’d seen the prototype on numerous occasions. The prototype, however, was set to a single height, so we were never able to see the height-adjustment function for ourselves. At CES 2015, the company revealed their production unit and showed us how easy it is to step into the VR treadmill and get ready to run.
Starting by connecting the foot tracking pods to the shoes, users step into the Omni, close the ring opening, and fit the harness with a single waist buckle and two straps around the legs. With your feet, you can easily unhook two levers that lock the Omni’s waist ring into place. From there, some sturdy metal handles on the ring allow you to raise or lower the apparatus. Once you’re happy, line up the holes and press the foot levers to lock it into place. The height settings are numbered, making it easy to remember which one suits you best.
I got to test the production Omni for myself at CES 2015; being able to select a suitable height made for a more comfortable experience than when I’d tried the fixed-height prototype in the past. The new harness is also more padded and comfortable. A full hands-on article from my time sprinting around in VR with the Virtuix Omni is coming soon.
I’ve been fortunate to try the Virtuix Omni VR treadmill several times over the course of its development. At every point though, I was testing some variation of the original prototype seen in the company’s highly successful Kickstarter campaign. That is until now—at CES 2015, Virtuix revealed the production version of the Omni, and I got to take it for a stroll (and sprint).
Listen to this story (experimental):
The concept of the omnidirectional treadmill (let’s call it a VR treadmill for short) has been around for a long time. Most prototypes of such devices were huge, heavy, expensive, and complicated. However, with the recent push toward consumer virtual reality, demand rose for affordable and practical in-home VR treadmills. So devices like the Virtuix Omni, Cyberith Virtualizer, and the Wizdish floated to the top. All three devices make use of a passive walking component which serves to make them cheaper, more reliable, and more practically sized than their active brethren.
At CES 2015, Virtuix revealed the production-ready version of the Omni treadmill. Upgrades from the prior prototype include a safety ring with adjustable height, a more comfortable and ergonomic harness, and IMU-based tracking pods which affix to the user’s shoes (previously the Omni employed capacitive tracking)—and the VR treadmill is now more easily collapsible for stowing away.
The adjustable height of the Omni is probably the biggest improvement over the prototype. Fitting the device properly makes it much more comfortable to use and in my testing felt like it resulted in a more natural gait. Virtuix designed the adjustment abilities of the device smartly so that you can do everything from within the VR treadmill itself. After stepping in and buckling up the harness, you can use your feet to unhook the locks that hold the safety ring in place. With the handles on the sides, you can raise or lower the spring-balanced ring to match your height.
Virtuix says that the Omni’s curved surface was designed to simulate a natural stride. I’m not well read in the field of gait analysis by any stretch of the imagination, but in my experience with the production Omni, forward movement feels like a very good analogue to the real deal. Walking and running forward feel very natural, especially once you’ve got the Omni adjusted to the proper height. There’s a bit of a learning curve as you first understand how to ‘run into’ the ring around your waist, but after a few minutes of walking, I would think that most would be ready to don a VR headset and take a virtual stroll
Turning in the Omni works, but it doesn’t feel terribly natural, at least not while running. Broad turns are fine, but cutting sharp corners or quickly turning 180 degrees can be an awkward affair. It’s not that it can’t be done well enough, it just won’t feel like you’re used to in the real world. Turning sharply while running ends up feeling like you’re on rollerblades more than shoes, but thanks to the safety ring, you can just kind of deal with it.
At CES 2015, after I got hooked into the Omni, I donned the Oculus Rift DK2 headset (which had a suspended cable so I didn’t get wrapped up) and was handed a Bluetooth gun. The gun functioned as a simple controller for shooting and reloading, but aiming is still done with your head. It’s expected that down the road there will be experiences that allow independent head movement and weapon aiming (something I’m really looking forward to), but at this point, it’s a BYOMC (bring your own motion controller {and supported game}) deal.
The experience I played using the Omni was a first-party demo title which had me sprinting around and speed shooting targets as I moved from one room to the next. The goal was to hit all the targets and complete the course as fast as possible. One of the things that most excites me about VR treadmills like the Omni is the ability to bring physicality to gaming. By the end of my first run, I was compelled to try again to beat my time. Not only did I pull it off, but I had a lot of fun working up a good sweat.
The speed shooting demo does a decent job of designing for the Omni’s strengths, with long rooms to sprint through and little need to turn completely around on a dime. At first I would run into a room and stop in place to shoot targets, but as I got the hang of it, I begun to run-and-gun, which was really fun when pulled off successfully—after using the Omni people may finally realize the absurdity of an FPS character running at 20 MPH while pulling off headshots with a sniper rifle!
The newly IMU-based foot tracking (achieved with wireless sensor pods that clip onto the Omni’s special shoes) made the virtual walking feel more responsive than at any point in the Omni’s past. At CES the company was demonstrating analogue speed for the first time (the faster you run in real life, the faster you move virtually), which really motivated me to get my move on when I was trying to beat my previous record. The delay between moving in real life and in the game felt ok, but stopping was a more sluggish affair. Occasionally I would overshoot a target that popped up right as I was about to pass. Currently, with no ability to walk backward, that meant I had to turn completely around, walk a few steps, then turn around again to reface the target.
When I brought up that delay between stopping in real life and stopping in the game, Virtuix CEO Jan Goetgeluk pointed out the meaty antennas the company had installed in an effort to best pick up the signal from the IMU pods (indeed, CES is a nightmare scenario for wireless technologies). Interference may have contributed to the delay I felt, so I’m reserving judgement there until I have a chance to test in a more controlled scenario.
Backward walking functionality should come in time, and I can only imagine that Virtuix will continue tweaking the foot tracking software.
Jumping was also not something I tried as the speed shooting demo didn’t have any gaps to leap across, though I am very curious to find out how well it will work.
Undoubtedly, the Omni is going to work best with games that are custom made for it. The speed shooting demo I tried was definitely fun on the surface, but it’ll be interesting to see if developers can dream up games that offer depth and genuine replayability for more than just exercise—though something as simple as a version of Temple Run, where you really have to run (and jump!), would probably be a blast on the Omni.
Virtuix currently offers the Omni for pre-order for $499, but says the price is due to go up to go up. “The final Omni design is meant to be stunning and impressive. The final production cost, however, has increased compared to our initial estimates. As a result, we will increase our selling price on February 1, 2015, to $699,” the company shared in a recent update to their Kickstarter campaign. They expect to ship the first Omni units this quarter.
What do you get when you piece together a Virtuix Omni VR treadmill, a DK2, and (with help from vorpX) a AAA title like GTA V? Madness. Pure madness.
Stealing a car is wrong. Shooting innocent bystanders in the face, now that’s downright egregious. But in the beautifully realistic Grand Theft Auto V, a title that just released for PC last week, you can now get away with all the virtual crimes your evil little heart desires—and with the help of a VR treadmill and vorpX, a suite of 3D drivers for Oculus Rift that lets you play previously unsupported titles, you can do your dastardly deeds running around in VR.
The Virtuix Omni (the VR treadmill in the video) has yet to ship (although will do soon) , the company is giddy to show off the potential of the device for when the market gears up to support VR natively. They’ve also shown their VR treadmill working with Battlefield 4, Minecraft, and with the Gear VR version of Dreadhalls.
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.
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.
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.
In accordance with newly eased investment regulations brought forth by the United States’ JOBS Act, Virtuix is “testing the waters” for crowdfunded equity investment.
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.
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.
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.
Popular VR title ArizonaSunshine 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 President David Allan at the 2017 Vive Ecosystem Conference | Photo courtesy Virtuix
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.
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.
Image courtesy Virtuix
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.
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.
Image courtesy Virtuix
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.
Image courtesy Virtuix
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:
Image courtesy Virtuix
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.
E3 is over for another year and it’s been fun! We’ve had a very marked focus on software not hardware for VR related products and that’s been reflected in our coverage.
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.
