Haptic Vest ‘Ryg’ Launches on Kickstarter, Fully Funded in 3 Hours

Woojer, the company behind the haptic belt Strap, launched a Kickstarter campaign earlier this week for a new haptic vest, dubbed Ryg. Initially targeting a $50,000 funding goal, the campaign has seen overwhelming support so far, not only claiming successful funding in the first three hours, but also nearly tripling the original ask within three days of launching the campaign.

Using Woojer’s patented oscillating frame actuators, called Osci, the company says Ryg is three times more powerful than their earlier haptic products, which include the haptic belt Strap, and a Kickstarter funded haptic unit using the same technology.

Wading past some of the hypetastic bro-speak that permeates the Kickstarter itself, it appears Ryg, presumably like its forebears, can turn in-game sounds into body shaking haptics out-of-the-box, sort of like a ‘buttkicker’ for your entire torso. Unlike the single-actuator units that came before it however, the vest itself packs in eight actuators that are said to provide “silent, harmonic and powerful tactile sensations.” Developers can tune the vest’s actuators with both Unity and Unreal SDKs for greater immersion in VR, as the vest can hypothetically simulate things like gunshots and raindrops, so not only sound-based haptis.

Connecting via Bluetooth, Ryg is said to last up to eight hours of playtime on a single charge, although it can draw current from additional battery packs for longer play sessions. An optional mounting bracket will also allow backpack-style PCs to integrate with the vest, something that location-based facilities tend to use in larger warehouse-scale VR environments.

Early backers of the Kickstarter campaign can receive a Ryg starting at $550, something the company says is around ~35% off the suggested retail price. Ryg is slated to arrive at some Kickstarter backers’ doors as early as November 2018, although the glut of backers will receive their units a month later.

You can check out the Kickstarter campaign here.

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