Bigscreen is partnering with Logitech to bring your keyboard into Virtual Reality
Over the past year, Bigscreen has partnered with Logitech to solve a core problem in virtual reality: text input is really difficult.
Right now, switching between motion controllers and typing when you’re wearing a headset takes a lot of blindly fumbling around to figure out where your keyboard actually is.
Logitech took a Vive tracker and attached it to a G-series gaming keyboard so you can see it in 3D space while inside your VR headset. Just like the HTC Vive’s hand controllers, Logitech’s Bridge keyboard is motion tracked so you can move it around in the real world and it’s reflected in your virtual one.
The Bridge also uses the Vive’s front camera to track the position of your hands so you’re able to see your fingers relative to where they’re resting on the physical keyboard and avoid feeling around for the home row.
Why it matters
Even if you’re good at touch typing in the real world it’s tricky to find the right position once you take your hands off — doing it while wearing a headset is exponentially more difficult.
Being able to see your keyboard and hands in VR makes a big difference. Instead of flailing around trying to find it while wearing your headset and knocking everything on your desk over, you can actually see where it’s physically sitting, allowing you to switch between input methods much easier.
Bringing keyboards into VR doesn’t need to be limited to just traditional typing.
It opens new paradigms for customization that take it beyond just a static input device and can help make other types of input easier:
VR can transform and augment that trusty keyboard — so easy to disregard — into a contextually aware companion for whatever application you use, becoming a palette for your creative workflow, dynamically providing you with any commands and shortcuts you need.
— HTC
Availability: not yet
Logitech is only making a small prototype run of the Bridge keyboard right now to work with VR developers (which anyone can apply for).
Alongside developers like Bigscreen, they’re planning to explore how real-world objects can be brought into virtual reality over the next few months before a wider release.
We’re excited that there’s finally a way to enter text without it feeling frustrating or confusing, and that the line is blurring between the real and virtual world by pulling in physical objects.
Next on the agenda: figuring out how to bring coffee mugs into VR so we can stop spilling stuff all over our desks.
