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BeBop Sensors, a creator of smart fabric sensor technology, has won Time magazine’s Best Inventions 2018 Award for its Forte Wireless Data Glove, a recent release announced. The wireless data glove incorporates haptics and sensing designed for applications in the industrial, medical, virtual reality (VR), gaming and design markets.
Patrick Lucas Austin, technology columnist for Time, thinks the ability to have digital “hands” in virtual reality could be a game changer for creative professionals, allowing them to bring their designs to life in a three-dimensional VR space, the release says.
“California-based BeBop Sensors is making that possible with its Forte wireless gloves, which allow users to grab and manipulate digital objects as if they actually existed in real life. Thanks to flexible sensors embedded in their fabric design, the Forte gloves can track more of a wearer’s hands than other virtual-reality gloves (most of which are designed for simpler uses in video games). That translates into far better accuracy when replicating a wearer’s movements. Architects, for instance, are already using the Forte gloves to assemble VR models of their buildings that make it easier to see how they will look when constructed in real life,” Austin said.
The gloves translate information via ten smart fabric bend sensors located above each knuckle and actuators located on the fingertips, thumb and palm. The company reports that the one-size-fits-all gloves are comfortable and lightweight and the internal battery can provide more than 15 hours of wireless use.
California-based BeBop Sensors uses smart fabrics to create sensor solutions that comprehend force, location, size, weight, bend, twist and presence across size, resolution and geometry.