Theres no shortage of people trying to make virtual reality gaminga more immersive experience. There areVR arenaswhere people strap onPC backpacksand play in a pre-programmed area. There areglovesandshoes, andeven VRtreadmills.Nothing seems to have thatfull immersionfactor, though,either because the person playingstill needs to sit down to game, the haptic technology isnt responsive enough, or because the headsetis too large and expensive. But nowsoftware engineerAlexander Evansis making his own 3D-printedVR shoes,and they look like the best VRaccessory todate.

Evans posted his creation, which kind of lookslike an80s moonshoe prototype,toReddita few days ago. Each shoe has one track of horizontally facing wheels and one track of vertically facing wheelsor omnidirectional wheels. Theres also a motor attached to each battery-poweredshoe to help control movement. Users dont need to necessarily lift their feet off the ground, either. The shoes are heavy, but are designed to give users the ability to glide in multiple directions.

Evans noted inhisblogthatthe shoes should be used with a safety harness mounted to the ceiling, which will prevent the user from rolling into any walls and possibly injuring themselves or breaking something while wearing a VR headset. That seems to indicate thatthe garage would bethe best place for this. Apartment dwellers might have to talk with their landlord if they want to install a safety harness in their kitchen or bedroom.

Also, at present the shoes have to be manually controlled with an Android app, but Evans is working with the software to automate movement and integrate it with VR games.

I did not expect them to be very responsive or stable at this point. Still, for the very first tests, they worked well, he wrote.

He also plans to support crouching in the future, as well as jogging speed, but doesnt think the shoes will support a full-out sprint. The issue is adding shocks to the whole design, he said. He has made his design for anyone to use and improve upon, too. The 3D-printing files can bedownloaded from GitHub.

It seems like these shoes could help with motion sickness. Theres only theories at this point as to why VR makes some people sick and not others, but one of those theories issensory conflict: When your brain sees itself moving in the game but doesnt feel itself moving, it can cause confusion. Our bodies naturally dip and sway when we walk, and our eyes detect that slight movement. To see that movement but not physically feel itcan cause some people to feel sick.

When I play VR games in first person, I dont feel sick if Im stationary in the game, but the second I start walking or running, a wave of nausea blasts my entire head. I havent had the opportunity to test any VR mobility setups, butI would try these motorised shoes in a heartbeat.

Excerpt from:

These Motorised Shoes Could Be the Key to Making Virtual Reality Fully Immersive - Gizmodo UK