October 19, 2016, San Francisco — Finch, a virtual reality hardware startup, has started accepting pre-orders for the developers kit of their universal wireless controller for VR devices.

Finch combines ‘no-camera’ hand tracking and highly accurate gesture recognition, and is built with the focus on mobile VR users. It allows the users to visualize their hands in virtual reality to play games and interact with objects with intuitive gestures, control apps, browse the internet and type text on a virtual keyboard. Developers will find the Gesture Creation Tool opening doors for immersive gaming opportunities and User Interface with natural gestures.

The sci-fi looking device features five IMU sensors located on the key hand joints, a mini-touchpad placed on the index finger, and it weighs just 2.5 ounces. Finch applies biomechanical algorithms to determine hand positioning and eliminate drift. It doesn’t require a connection to an expensive supercomputer, external cameras, and has no field-of-view limitations. Being mobile ready, it works with all smartphones, which are capable of running VR apps.

The founders hope that Finch will significantly increase the speed of virtual reality adoption by making VR more affordable and immersive.

“Finch brings virtual hands to millions of smartphone owners so they can enjoy a superior VR experience for a fraction of the cost of high-end computer tethered HMDs. And it will happen next year, not in a distant future. We will also release a converter for DayDream, Steam VR, and LeapMotion to stimulate easy adoption of Finch for the existing apps.” Said the company’s CEO Alexey Kartashov.

The virtual reality industry is growing faster than most experts have predicted. The Google Cardboard app was installed 25 million times from January to May of 2016. Samsung Gear VR reports more than a million of monthly users, and there have been 250,000 uploads of 360-degree videos on Facebook. Mobile VR is attracting 73 percent of the sales of virtual reality devices. Deutsche Bank analysts predict that by 2020, there will be 135 million mobile VR users.

This market presents tremendous opportunities for software developers. With Finch, they will be able to attract millions of smartphone owners with exciting virtual reality content, including an adaptation of existing VR games from SteamVR library. To facilitate collaboration with VR developers, Finch has released a library with dozens of standard gestures, and the Gesture Creation Tool based on machine learning algorithms.

The developer kit is now available for pre-order on the company’s website at $238 for a pair of controllers, and Finch DK1 shipments will start in December. The consumer version will be available for sale in 2017, and users will have the choice of buying the controller for one or two hands.

To learn more about Finch, visit the company’s website: www.finch-vr.com

Contact the company by email: [email protected] or by phone: +1 (949) 269-8334

The company’s address: 23031 Tiagua, Mission Viejo, CA 92692