Hand tracking solutions for VR promise to make the overall VR experience much more immersive than having to use controllers like the PSVR’s Move controllers for example. We have just recently introduced VR startup Finch and their solution for this problem. Today we bring you an interview with Leap Motion, a company that has some exciting technology that does not need any gloves or wires attached to the user’s hand. Check out their “Orion” technology in this video:

Daydream District: “Your technology is perfect for VR. However, when did your company recognize this perfect match? We believe Leap Motion was not started with VR in mind, was it?”

Leap Motion: “We’ve always thought of virtual reality as a strong use case for our technology, but it wasn’t until the past year or two that the overarching VR market made significant strides. We launched formal support for the VR platform in fall of 2014, and in February 2016 we released Orion, a new version of our software built from the ground up for VR. Orion tracks hands faster, with greater range, and on cluttered backgrounds with lower latency. There’s no need for new hardware, either; you can update your Leap Motion Controller with Orion software today. We’re now working with manufacturers to embed the technology directly into VR headsets.”

Daydream District: “Are you officially working together with Vive and Oculus? How about PSVR, any talks with Sony?”

Leap Motion: “We are working with a variety of OEMs but can’t reveal product details at this time.”

Daydream District: “Are there any plans to work on your own VR headset that has Leap Motion already included, instead of hacking it on other VR headsets?”

Leap Motion: “We’re focused on perfecting hand tracking right now. VR and AR is a demanding space. It requires extremely low latency, the ability to track 10 fingers, and letting people do things like grab and push and pull. That involves tracking the fingers even when one can’t actually see them. For example, if someone is grabbing and releasing something and the sensor is mounted on the head, we must be able to determine that their fingers are unclasping and that they’re letting go of the ball even when the human eye wouldn’t be able to see the fingers from that position.”

Daydream District: “What makes your technology better than for example glove based trackers?”

Leap Motion: “There are a lot of challenges associated with a physical product like gloves, such a sizing, cleanliness, durability, charging and syncing with a VR headset. Outside of these points, the majority of the sub-$5,000 systems cannot track the absolute position of the gloves in space. For that, they need to have some type of optical tracker system that is susceptible to occlusion, or have an electromagnetic tracking system.”

Daydream District: “Are there still improvements to be made on your hardware or are you finished with the tracker?”

Leap Motion: “We do not have plans to release another developer kit right now. In the future, users will be able to find our technology embedded into VR headsets. OSVR and Baofeng are examples of this.”

Daydream District: “Do you have any plans whatsoever to allow Leap Motion to work together with Daydream?”

Leap Motion: “We see mobile VR, both integrated all-in-one headsets and phone slot-in products, as being the mass market form of VR. Bringing natural hand tracking input to Daydream and other mobile systems is essential to the success of the platform. In order to develop rich and immersive content, developers need a high fidelity input solution. Without this, the range of experiences will be quite limited.”

Daydream District: “Thanks so much for this interview!”

So high fidelity hand tracking is indeed coming to Google Daydream. The question still remains though how the company can bring it to the mass market and how soon, since the first Daydream headsets for sure won’t have Leap Motion technology included. Anyways, we are still in the very beginning of this exciting technology and only need to be patient. Hand tracking will come to the mass market for sure and this solution looks especially elegant.