Smart gloves: Virtual touch that feels real

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  Quantumrun Foresight
• September 26, 2022

Insight summary

Smart gloves are transforming how we interact in virtual environments, offering tactile experiences that go beyond seeing and hearing. These gloves are not just for gaming; they can also transform healthcare, remote work, and military training by providing realistic simulations. While there are challenges like comfort and cost, the potential of smart gloves in enhancing virtual experiences across various sectors is significant.

Smart gloves context

As virtual, augmented, and mixed reality systems (extended reality or XR) become more prevalent, there is a growing demand for haptic feedback and other forms of interaction beyond the visual and auditory senses. Smart gloves provide additional interactivity in XR, allowing users to feel the environment around them and control their actions within it. This enhanced tactile feedback transforms the user experience, creating a more immersive and realistic interaction within virtual environments.

Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) has increased in popularity, driven by affordable head-mounted displays (HMDs), like the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. These devices have enabled users to immerse themselves in virtual environments. However, to achieve a more realistic experience, companies need to improve the sense of touch (haptic feedback) in XR.

Many people experience haptic feedback as vibrating video game controllers, but the technology can go beyond this. Haptic feedback can simulate moving and manipulating objects. Smart gloves provide sensory stimuli that can be perceived by the human hands, which makes them a promising concept for improving the degree of engagement and presence in XR. 

Disruptive impact

Some of the benefits of smart gloves go beyond realistic gaming. For example, smart gloves can support patients in rehabilitation (e.g., people whose sense of touch has been damaged due to severe burns or nervous system impairments) and enable remote worksite activities for construction/manufacturing, teleoperation, and virtual surgery. Using smart gloves also allows for more natural interaction with virtual objects, making it possible to work within a virtual scenario better. 

In 2021, haptic feedback developer SenseGlove launched new smart gloves for VR training. The SenseGlove Nova allows wearers to feel shapes, textures, stiffness, impact, and resistance. Four fingertip-specific brakes enable this exchange from the thumb to the ring finger. Each brake can produce up to 20N of force, equivalent to the weight of a 2-kilogram brick on each finger, providing exceptional force feedback. Gloves that can sense and respond to the user’s touch will help elevate different types of VR training programs, including hazardous materials handling, complex operations with tools and objects, and learning how to prototype physical things. 

Meanwhile, in 2022, VR glove manufacturer Manus revealed its Quantum Metagloves, providing more accurate finger tracking for VR motion capture. The device’s magnetic base is located on the back of the palm, while each finger has a module on the tip detected within the magnetic field. According to Manus, the gloves can measure absolute finger length and breadth (once calibrated), allowing for more precise hand tracking when combined with an underlying skeletal model of the user’s hand. 

In the near term, there may be challenges to developing and using smart gloves. Because of haptic technology, smart gloves may not be comfortable or adjustable to all sizes and shapes of human hands. Not all smart gloves are lightweight or easy to carry and connect with other devices. And until the late 2020s, smart gloves may remain expensive because of their novelty and complex manufacturing processes. 

Implications of smart gloves

Wider implications of smart gloves may include: 

• Universities and colleges using smart gloves for surgeons to practice, experience, and conduct remote surgeries. Similar applications can be expanded to most professions taught at trade schools.
• Treating people with mobility challenges through simulated hand exercises.
• Creating more accurate motion capture devices for the film industry. Expanding smart gloves into full-body suits.
• Developing VR training devices for cars, trucks, and construction equipment drivers.
• Using smart devices for virtual entertainment in the metaverse at concerts, zoos, museums, and cinemas. 
• Enhancing remote work capabilities, particularly in engineering and design, where precise hand movements are essential.
• Retail companies adopting virtual fitting rooms, enabling customers to try on clothes virtually with realistic touch feedback.
• Governments integrating smart gloves into military training, offering safer and more cost-effective ways to simulate field operations.

Questions to consider

• How else can smart gloves integrate with mixed reality (XR)? 
• What are the other potential use cases of smart gloves?