Hello Community,

Virtuix continues to ship out our 50 Pathfinder units, which will all be delivered within the next few weeks. We look forward to sharing with you some initial user data and feedback as soon as available!

Virtuix VR Boom

Virtuix frequently receive inquiries regarding cable management in VR, we have developed a standalone VR Boom accessory that manages your HMD cable during your VR experience (with or without the Omni). You may have seen our Boom in photos or videos from CES earlier this month, where we had four VR Booms on display on stage. Our Boom has the following features:

Features an HMD cable retractor mechanism to ensure you get just the right amount of cable slack as you run, jump, duck, and turn in VR

Includes a hook to hang your HMD before and after VR sessions

Includes cable clips to guide your HMD cable alongside the shaft of the Boom

Includes a mounting plate to attach your VR Cable extension box

Has a sturdy octagonal base that provides stability

Is height adjustable

You can add the VR Boom to your existing order via our website at vr.petroldev.com/products.

Updated VR Rack

We finalized our Virtuix VR Rack design and are excited to announce a few updates since we first introduced the Rack during our Kickstarter campaign.

The VR Rack is now a standalone accessory, separate from the Omni main unit, and has the following features:

Includes a flat section and two deeper trays to hold accessories including a gamepad, keyboard and mouse, your cell phone, wallet or keys, and even a water bottle

Includes versatile weapon holders to store a rifle, pistol, HTC Vive or Oculus Touch hand controllers, or other weapons and game controllers of choice

Includes two hooks to hang your HMD and headphones on after use

Contains an anti-slip surface and surrounding lip to prevent items from falling off during use

Provides several openings for convenient cable management

Turning the Rack into a standalone entity, as opposed to an attachment to the Omni Arms, prevents the Rack from wobbling during use and allows you to place the Rack anywhere you want around the Omni (or even use it without the Omni). We hope you like the additional features!

Omni at the Mall

Before Christmas Virtuix put the Omni in a mall in Austin to test the Omni’s commercial entertainment use case. We had a constant stream of mall visitors lining up to pay $10 for a 5-minute Omni experience. Our experiment illustrates that a commercial Omni operator could have a profitable business offering pop-up or location-based VR experiences to the public. The mall visitors loved their Omni experience. See a video of the experiment here:

The History of the Omni

Our CEO Jan Goetgeluk gave a presentation at Hardwired NYC last week about the history of Virtuix and the Omni, from early inception to delivery of the first unit last month, and his personal journey as an entrepreneur. The presentation contains a few lessons learned and a couple of funny anecdotes. Watch it here:

VRLA and Active VR Panel

Virtuix will be showcasing the Omni at VRLA this Saturday at the LA Convention Center. Additionally, both our CEO, Jan, and our Head of Games, Robert, will be part of a panel about Active VR:

Active VR: Enabling First-Person Shooters and Exploration in VR

Moving around without limits in a virtual world through first-person navigation is currently a challenge for both seated and room-scale VR setups due to space constraints, safety issues, and simulator sickness. This panel will discuss how Active VR, where your movement in the virtual world is controlled by physical walking or running, enables popular VR experiences like first-person shooters or exploration games comfortably and safely without simulator sickness.

The panel will be filmed, so we hope to share the footage with you after the show.

Stay tuned for more updates soon! Thank you for your continued patience and support, and as always please join us on our Forums if you’d like to discuss this update or anything VR related:

http://forum.virtuix.com

Best regards,

Jan and the Virtuix Team