Today at the company’s ‘Step into the Rift’ pre-E3 event in San Francisco, Oculus revealed what they’re calling ‘Oculus Touch’, the company’s VR-specific input controller.

oculus-touch-half-moon-prototype-vr-input-controller

The prototype revealed at the event was dubbed ‘Half Moon’ by Oculus and uses the same “constellation” IR LED tracking technology as used by the Rift headset. The unit also includes an inward facing “sensor matrix” which can detect common hand gestures like waving or giving the thumbs up.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey took to the stage at today’s event to reveal the prototype controllers which Oculus developers have been eagerly waiting for. Not relying on motion tracking or gesture input alone, the Oculus Touch Half Moon prototype controller has an analogue stick, two buttons, an index trigger finger, and what Luckey called a ‘hand trigger’ that rests near the middle finger.

oculus-touch-vr-input-controller-hand-trigger

Luckey suggested that this hand-trigger would become the common method for grabbing virtual items, leaving the trigger finger free for other actions like shooting or activating whatever was held.

The Oculus Touch controllers are mirrors of each other, Luckey said, as well as wireless. 6DOF motion tracking is achieved with both IR LED’s seen on the ‘crossguard’ style ring that envelops the user’s hand as well as an IMU. The Oculus Touch controllers will presumably be tracked using the same positional tracking camera that senses the headset.

oculus-touch-vr-input-controller-with-rift

Oculus didn’t mention whether or not the controllers would be included with the Oculus Rift consumer device, despite confirming that and Xbox One controller would accompany each headset.

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The company didn’t demonstrate the new controller or show it in use. Neither price nor Oculus Touch release date has been confirmed, but Luckey said that the new controllers will be shown off at next week’s E3 conference.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • MasterElwood

    “Oculus didn’t mention whether or not the controllers would be included with the Oculus Rift consumer device”

    They are not.

    https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/609057819942211585

  • Don Gateley

    This is a concept model, not yet a controller device. If it were real he would have demoed it. The concept is nice, though.

    • kendoka15

      They’re showing it at e3 next week so I doubt that

  • Don Gateley

    When I check “Notify me of follow-up comments by email.” I get an email requiring a confirmation which requires a click to open a _very_ slow WordPress web page telling me I’m confirmed. This is really annoying and I wish you could disable that confirmation requirement or find another comment system provider.