Google Patents Motorized VR Shoes

If you wished for Virtual Reality (VR) to become a part of your daily life, your wait is over. With the ability of VR to take you to places while sitting in your living room, VR has been successful in pleasing many. However, the tech gurus are not satisfied with this and want to expand the use of VR beyond a designated area. Taking a step towards dealing with the challenge of lack of space, Google applied for patent its AR/VR shoes in May 2018. This application was made available on November 15, 2018.

According to the design, the shoes will have tiny wheels that will be motorized on the bottom part that will have the function of getting the users back to the center of the room with subtlety whenever they go to the edges.  If it works out as planned, the user will be able to experience unlimited space in the Virtual Reality arena.

As mentioned in the patent document, the new VR shoes from Google will let you walk “seemingly endlessly in the virtual environment” while ensuring that you do not exit the safe zone demarcated for VR. The tracking in the shoes would be so advanced that it would know when you are close to the edges and will navigate you back to the safe zone. The patent also shows that these shoes would have simple omnidirectional mecanum wheels that would make it easy to sidestep while getting your position rectified by the shoes.

However, it must be noted that this is the patent and not the actual product. We still need to wait for the actual product to see how Google makes it happen in reality by ensuring that the person wearing these shoes do not fall or trip over. We are yet to see it, but the patent looks very promising. If Google succeeds in making it, the whole VR system will take the next step in its advancement.

It is excellent news for people who love to enjoy their VR headsets already. It will only enhance their VR experience.