It is evident the virtual reality ecosystem needs some way of protecting users from potential harm. A lot of people have suffered major injuries when dealing with virtual reality. Valve is one of the first companies to introduce a countermeasure for this particular problem. Their solution goes by the name of Chaperone, which is quite an interesting system to take note of.
Chaperone is a Perfect Tool for VR Users
It is of the utmost importance to fully grasp the concept of Chaperone. Valve felt this feature had to be introduced to avoid VR users from getting injured. More specifically, a lot of users suffer from small injuries, as they stumble or hit a wall while being immersed in VR. By using the Chaperone system, these problems can be avoided with relative ease.
More specifically, the technology keeps track of the user in relation to the physical walls and ceiling around them. If needed, the tool will display a blue grid within the HMD to inform users about nearby physical barriers. As a result, Chaperone is designed to avoid most types of common injuries, although it is only available as part of the HTC Vive headset. Using this particular headset requires a lot of room and it means users may come in contact with physical obstacles on a regular basis.
Warning users about potentially hitting objects is an important aspect of VR. Unfortunately, other HMDs do not provide a feature similar to Chaperone right now. It is certainly possible we will see more of these features in other HMDs over the coming years, though. Minimizing accidents and solving the problem of space navigation in VR is of the utmost importance right now.
There is a secondary purpose to Chaperone, though. It allows HTC Vive users to interact with games in a different way. More specifically, the VR app can react to the user’s surroundings, if the code supports it. It is unclear how many games and apps make use of this added feature provided by Chaperone, though. It is good to know such tools exist, as they will be invaluable for the future of virtual reality.
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