The Surreal Touch controllers have been available since July. The
was launched with $50,000 as a goal last week and to date has received nearly $90,000. This is from almost 330 back But the lack of tracked controllers makes it unsuitable for many kinds of games and experiences playable on other headsets.
Surreal Touch is a self-tracking controller designed to solve this problem. The startup claims less than 10mm accuracy in positioning. It describes this as “unparalleled tracking”, an odd claim given Meta and Valve targeted less than 1mm for their VR controllers.announcedSurreal Touch is designed to be used either standalone on Apple Vision Pro using the startup’s upcoming SDK or for PC VR via the startup’s visionOS app Surreal Link, a fork of the Kickstarter campaign with additions such as an interface for pairing the controllers. Zhenfei Yang founded Surreal Interactive. He has over a decade of experience in SLAM technology, and told UploadVR that Yang says his team at Surreal includes former Alphabet engineers who worked on Google Glass, Google Maps, and the Waymo self-driving car project.
Alongside launching the campaign, Surreal Interactive also revealed new PC VR streaming gameplay footage. Most notably, while the startup previously only showed Beat Saber on Normal difficulty, it’s now
its founder using Surreal Touch to beat Rum n’ Bass on Expert.
It also showed PC VR footage of Touch Pro controllers,
, and
.open-source ALVRhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=useLQihdR6kOpen BrushSurreal Touch connects to your PC via the startup’s Surreal Link software, which is a fork of
. It says that it is working with “multiple studios” behind VR games such as table tennis, fishing, golf, boxing, and sword fighting It claims it’s working with “multiple studios” behind “sword fighting, table tennis, fishing, golf, boxing” VR games, and specifically confirmed it has seeded hardware to the developers of Contractors and Grimlord.eight yearsAs a teaser of the SDK working, Surreal showed footage of open-source Beat Saber clone Open Saber with Surreal Touch support added, running standalone on Apple Vision Pro.
Surreal is offering backers “early bird” discounted pricing of between $250 and $318 depending on how early they pledge, and plans a regular retail price of around $370 after the campaign ends on October 10.showingThe startup claims the first 300 units of each of the two color options will ship in December, and that all backer orders will have shipped by the end of January.
Surreal claims it has partnered with “a trusted manufacturer” and will keep backers informed of any delays or issues with production. The startup claims it has partnered with “a trusted manufacturer” and will keep backers informed of any delays or issues with production. Surreal could be able to make visionOS an attractive gaming platform, especially for games that are not feasible with hand tracking.