The explosion of the metaverse has made many people who have not touched or linked VR begin to try the experience brought by VR, VR immersive experience is not brought by mobile phones, PCs, tablets and other devices, and VR is currently supported by the government in many provinces. The advent of the metaverse concept will also push the VR industry forward.
For VR, VR headset is the most direct device for experience immersion, VR headset is currently mostly using Qualcomm Snapdragon XR series chips, with high-definition, high refresh rate screen, from the performance and clarity of the aspects to achieve more realistic effects. Although VR headsets can provide an immersive experience, VR headsets can only bring visual sensations.
Many companies are currently working on haptic feedback, including Meta, the developer of quest headsets. Haptic feedback can provide a more realistic VR experience, and haptic feedback has an impact on the development of VR to some extent.
Meta is working on haptic gloves, which claims that VR experiences can trick your brain into experiencing the sensation of lifting weights using multi-sensory integration with precise timing, by "gently pulling the skin of the wearer's finger with an actuator to mimic the pull of gravity" and visual and auditory cues. In the future, the researchers envision tools for creating haptic materials, just as visual and audio content is created for games today.
To simulate the texture of virtual objects, today's gloves use a series of miniature vibration motors. Just like the pixels on the screen, more motors mean a higher fidelity reproduction of the feeling of a virtual object. Meta said traditional mechanical motors are "too big, too expensive, too power-hungry to present a realistic sense of touch," so four years ago, it asked researchers to start working on soft, flexible actuators made of "new materials."
In fact, in addition to Meta, Apple and Microsoft are also developing haptic feedback. Apple applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a patent for a pair of tactile gloves. The patent application covers a device that accurately simulates user touch in an augmented reality, virtual reality, or mixed reality (AR/VR/MR) environment to detect the "roughness and ripple" of an object.
WIPO in Europe has published a Microsoft VR glove patent EP3977239, Microsoft engineers said that the human body's haptic receptors, such as meceptoreceptors and pain receptors, can detect mechanical stimuli and provide pressure, vibration, skin stretching and other tactile sensations.
Vivian Shen, a researcher at carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, showcased her unusual VR accessories at the Expert Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (ACM CHI): a compact array of ultrasonic transducers connected to the bottom of the VR headset and wired directly to them.
The accessories are aimed at the mouth, and they can trigger various effects, such as targeted pulses, strokes or continuous vibrations. Users can feel the effects of ultrasound on their lips, teeth or tongue, which the research team says opens up a "new and interesting" VR experience.
In the released video, the researchers cite virtual spider webs that can be felt on the face, or liquids such as water or coffee that can be felt on the lips.
The team tested the mouth haptic device with a number of test subjects, and they confirmed an immersive facilitation because the mouth haptic solution is not available by default. According to the researchers, ultrasound systems are fully integrated into VR headsets, so there's no need to wear additional accessories — if the haptic product actually hits the market one day.
The device can achieve functions that are not currently available in other devices, and the haptic feedback of the mouth is a completely new experience, and may achieve better results if combined with mouth tracking.
In the future, there may be more parts of the haptic feedback or other feedback, VR experience will achieve a general improvement, for the current VR experience, more feedback can allow users to experience a more real virtual world.
More haptic feedback or other feedback can achieve the scene in Ready Player One, when we can feel the real experience in the virtual world, and with the arrival of the meta-universe, we may be able to feel more content without leaving home.