Features

The OmniWear Arc Neckband Gives 360 Haptic Feedback For Video Gamers

OptimusPrime

The video gaming season is upon us as the cold weather starts setting in and more airsoft players would rather play at home with their video games rather than freezing their nuts out in the cold. With big titles releasing starting this month up to the next, the more serious video gamers would be looking for ways to gain advantages especially with online multiplayer FPS games and at the same time get a better gaming experience.

Haptic feedback technology for video games have been with us since the 1990s but not much developments have happened until recently, when Virtual Reality has made a bigger comeback as the technology to develop content for VR has become more viable with more powerful and affordable processors that can be made more compact that they even mobile devices can give a VR experience. Many game companies are now working on titles that can take advantage of the advances in VR and other device developers are making better haptic devices to make the gaming experience more complete.

The latest that we find in haptic feedback technology is now raising funds on Kickstarter and reading through the page, it makes me think that this gives you the power of Spider-Man’s “Spider Sense” when playing video games with it. The OmniWear Arc works just like the “Spider Sense” as it buzzes on your neck when it detects enemies nearby whilst the Spider-Man gets a tingling sense at the base of his skull to warn of dangers.

The OmniWear Arc gives the gamer a 360 degree awareness of enemies through the use of haptic feedback with 8 vibration motors placed around the band to give the buzz. So when it detects enemies behind you, it gives a buzz on the back on your neck, buzz on your left side when it detects enemies at your 9 o’clock… you get the drift.

Simply said, the gamer gets a second pair of eyes whilst playing, which is a big advantage in itself as it minimizes surprises of being outflanked or jumped from behind. But if you want to call it a “Wingman” or a “Guardian Angel” then, so be it.

How does it work in detecting enemies in the video game? Surprisingly, it is not connected to your PC or gamer console and instead it connects to your mobile phone via a mobile app that watches the screen when you are playing the game and that means you will need to clip the phone with its camera facing the game screen. Point the camera to the mini-map which many FPS video games have and the app interprets the data it sees and sends haptic feedback to the user.

This means that gamers do not need to get separate devices to use for the PC or the gaming console so they can shift to whatever gaming platform they want to use. OmniWear Haptics, the group behind the OmniWear Arc will be releasing a Software Development Kit (SDK) for game developers to incorporate the OmniWear arc for their games.

For now the OmniWear Arc can be used for CounterStrike Global Offensive (CS GO) and League of Legends with more titles to be added next year. But the most important thing is that it needs to raise funds first to have the first generation OmniWear Arc become a reality via Kickstarter. As of this writing, it has already raised almost US$3,000 with a funding goal of US$75,000, with about 28 days to go.

Apart from video gaming, the team behind the device is looking into other uses such as for bike and motorbike blind spot monitoring and workplace safety.

But for now, they will need to prove the concept by making it a success in their first target market – video games.

You can support the OmniWear Arc Haptic Neckband on Kickstarter right now.

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