LucidGloves: VR Haptic Gloves on a budget

Hello everyone! 

This update has been long overdue, but with the premiere of my new video on Prototype 4, I thought it would be the perfect time to update you all on the addition of FORCE FEEDBACK to my VR Haptic Gloves!!!

These gloves now allow you to FEEL the shape and resistance of objects in Virtual Reality!

This goes along with the release of firmware V4 and OpenGloves Driver v0.4, which enable the haptics to work in actual VR games!

The hardware itself for the haptics is enabled by the addition of super-cheap 9g RC servo motors, which I am powering off of a cheap USB battery.

The data for the haptics is integrated either via native Unity code or via modding support for haptics into different games.

As of 1/4/2022, we currently have haptic support in the OpenGloves unity demo, as well as mods to add haptic functionality into the following games:

* Half-Life Alyx

* Boneworks (modded by L4rs)

* Jetborne Racing (modded by L4rs)

* Want to help us mod more games? Reach out on our discord server or DM LucidVR#0001 on discord.

Alright, so all of the pieces for using Bluetooth with the VR gloves have come together!

Using Firmware V2 and Driver v0.3, the gloves can now communicate to steam completely wirelessly.

This requires using an ESP32 development board instead of an Arduino nano on the glove side.

Change COMMUNICATION to COMM_BTSERIAL in the firmware, and communication_protocol to 1 in the driver.

Currently, Bluetooth communication is done through Bluetooth Serial, but I will also be writing a BLE implementation later on.

In other related news, the open-source VR glove driver that I have been working on in collaboration with Danwillm is now finally released on the Steam store!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1574050/OpenGloves/

I recommend using the steam release of the driver instead of the GitHub zip, as you will get auto-updates as they roll out.

I'll also be releasing a video tutorial on how to build and set up Prototype 3.1 very soon!

Youtube Channel