Oculus Rift and Omni, the perfect duo of gamers

You all know the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, but do you know Omni? If not, imagine yourself at home with a gym, a treadmill, to do your morning run when the weather is bad outside. Now translate that into a video game. Imagine yourself on a treadmill that transmits your movements in a video game. Omni does and is set to make a perfect duo with the Oculus Rift headset.

The device had already blown its world by offering an example of what it was capable of with a prototype. The creators of this technological gem have decided to put their project on Kickstarter in order to raise funds to improve their product. We can say that it did not drag on: in just a few hours, the project reached the requested $ 150.000, which is incredible and above all a good thing for the monitoring of this device. There are currently more than $ 590.000 in donations which is enormous, it must be said.

But how does this device really work? Is it enough just to get on the mat to trigger the movement actions? No indeed, there need some sensors in order to detect body movements. If you buy a copy of Omni, you will get a pair of special shoes in the pack. Special insoles to calculate the friction of the shoe and will be attached at the level of the big toe. There will also be spikes in order to be constantly in contact with the mat and allow the passage to more easily calculate the movement of the player. And to stay on the mat, you will have a belt around your waist that will keep you upright during your sessions.

It is interesting to know that Omni will be Kinect compatible, like Oculus Rift. In addition, if you want to increase the immersion in the game, there is also a project on Kickstarter, ARAIG, which allows you to put on a special garment that could simulate a lot of things like bullet holes or the breeze of the wind on the body. This project is much more difficult to achieve its objective but it must be said, is very expensive compared to the Omni project and not necessarily better known. There is only $ 82.000 out of the 900.000 requested, which is very huge compared to the Oculus Rift or Omni. In any case, if you want to help them, feel free to donate to them and advertise them around you. We can't help but think that the future of video games will be very interesting to follow with all these impressive technologies. If the future does not pass through consoles, it will surely pass through this new way of playing.