Forgotten VR Treadmill: Google Patents: Motorized and Omni-Directional VR Sneakers

If virtual reality is to become the holodeck-style immersive platform we all dream of, someone will have to discover locomotion. Today, you can attach a Vive or Oculus headset and more or less transport you visually into a virtual world, but the reality of reality means that you can usually only take a few steps before banging on your coffee table. .

Until now, we have seen some solutions that address the problem of "limited space" of VR. On the simplest side of the spectrum, one option is to stick a motion follower in your pants and jog up. At the most complicated end, there is the "VR Treadmill" solution, which requires you to attach yourself to a large plastic platform and keeps you in place with slippery shoes and a harness. None of these options are quite the same as natural walking, but a new patent from Google puts forward an interesting idea: what about motorized RV shoes?

Google's patent describes what are essentially motorized VR roller skates that allow the user to walk normally while motors and wheels work to cancel your natural locomotion and keep you inside the VR security zone. As the patent says, the new kicks from Google will allow you to walk "seemingly endless in the virtual environment" while keeping you in the same place in real life. Google 's shoe solution would follow the user' s feet, just like today 's VR controller monitoring. Monitoring would help you know if you are too close to the virtual walls of your virtual reality zone and the system would put you back in place.

Patents are always written to give the widest possible coverage to an idea, but Google's patent shows that normal wheels, tracks and even omni-directional wheels are possible wheels for the bottom of VR shoes. The omnidirectional wheels would be great because they would allow you to do things like stepping aside while having your position corrected by the shoes.

This is just a patent and not a product, but we are still curious if Google can do it without the user falling. Walking in virtual reality, where you are blind to the real world, is already a strange sensation that can upset your balance. All VR treadmills feature a rigid-sized stand in part to allow users to stay upright if they stumble. Adding a set of wheels to the bottom of your shoes, which could start and stop unpredictably, can make it difficult to stay upright. That said, if Google manages to put everything in place, tying a pair of compact VR shoes seems much easier than having to put away a giant treadmill somewhere.