Hi5 VR - Haptic glove review

Hi5 VR Glove

VR is exploding right now with accessories to accompany the headsets out there. Noitom has designed the Hi5 VR Glove, which captures both finger action and full hand movement in VR. You can even involve both hands.

Specification

The Hi5 Glove has IMU sensor technology and all the convenience of quick and easy plug-in-and-play to take your hands into the VR world. Noitom has created some real revolutionary pieces of technology for the VR world. The 9-DOF IMU high-performance sensors have a gyroscope, magnetometer, and accelerometer to give precise orientation. It has a replaceable battery (AA size) and does not need charging. There’s a low latency too, as well as high accuracy. The latency measures at <5ms giving the user seamless VR immersion.

The glove offers Haptic Feedback thanks to a vibration rumbler that you can programme for either wrist. This gives enhanced effects when immersed in the virtual world. There’s full tracking of the fingers and whole hand whether you use the single or two-hand mode.

The glove is not only breathable and antibacterial, but is also made from elasticated, environmentally friendly material, and it stays dry and clean.  The glove is designed specifically for the HTC Vive tracker, giving fidelity and finger level for Vive experiences.

Ease of Use

There have been finger-tracking products and VR gloves around for a while and many of them were quite functional. Most of them, however, had flaws with their tracking system - which was simply just not up to it - or used a third-party system, which was difficult to set up or make compatible. The Vive Tracker has eliminated most of these issues.

Noitom’s Hi5 VR glove, therefore, meant a much more immersive experience for us with certain uses. They had just the right amount of motion input and finger tracking.

The best bit about the glove, however, was how easy it was to set up. Some glove systems have chest straps or bicep straps, but the fact that this one is just a glove means it’s pretty straightforward. You simply put it on and sync the strap on your wrist.

We thought the Vive Tracker would wobble when it wasn’t meant to move, but we actually found that it sat closely on the wrist and the strap was adjustable, so there wasn’t any unexpected wobbling.

With both the headset and the gloves on, we could see the responsive tracking of our hands immediately thanks to the tracker, as it tapped into the Steam VR technology in the same way as the VR headset. It wasn’t just the hand; each finger was tracked individually and there was the full vertical range of movement too. Any horizontal finger movement did not seem to be tracked, but the need for this is very small.

We really felt we could articulate our whole hand in VR, even pointing and thumbs up. We even managed a couple of rather rude hand gestures! Pointing was perhaps the most useful function because it meant we could press virtual buttons or tap gently. One thing that needed more work was the “grab” function. Sometimes a ‘pinch’ gesture was used, but this didn’t feel quite right when you would not normally pick up a particular object in that way.

Verdict

Except for grabbing, the glove was very responsive and made for much more compelling interactions with small objects in a virtual world. Real pointing also meant there was that further layer of nuance when playing. All in all, Noitom’s gloves were a great positive, adding another dimensional layer to our game play. 

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