Hi guys,

Does anyone on here have any experience of using the P5 glove for pc gaming or VR applications? Are they worth picking up if i see one going cheap on ebay? Do they have to be used in direct line of sight with the receiver unit or can i turn around facing away and still use it to map hand gestures for example; fire, open, jump, push etc. Do they work ok with XP and how is the device recognised? Does it come up as a gamepad or mouse device?

thanks,

airons1972

I have a pair, I bought it when they first launched. I think the idea of a data-glove is perfect for VR, but the P5 falls short of what you would expect. I mean, they are pretty cheap on ebay so maybe worth the cost, but they have tracking issues.

The bend sensors are actually decent, and the glove is comfortable to wear. The problems come with the orientation and position tracking. Basically how it works is on the glove there are around 3 or 4 IR reflectors. The base station has an IR light and camera. Then the camera tracks the reflectors on the glove and interpolates orientation and position from that.

The problem is that the reflectors are all on the top of the hand. So if you put your palms out facing forward (like a stop signal) then the tracking is lost. Even turning you hand a little to one side can lose the tracking. The line-of-sight is a huge issue. And, even when you are in the correct position, there is jitter and random jumps as it tries to determine your position. Not the best implementation.

I did really want this glove to work, and if you are very careful about moving your hand it can work OK, but its still far from what you want. Maybe it could be a good starting point to mod it with modern sensors and computer vision algorithms. As-is it just doesn't work that great.

Thanks for the info Cyber. Does the glove work independently from the tracking. i mean, can i just use the glove controls and not use it as a tracker? since i already use my air mouse as a tracker and am pretty happy with it to be honest. i am asuming the glove itself is connected by a cable to the reciever unit and doesnt actually need to be in range for the buttons/fingers to function or am i wrong in thinking that?

Peregrine glove looks interesting but is still a bit expensive imo. I did think about using one of those old PS1 glove controllers and a PS to usb controller adaptor maybe. might feel more natural than holding a gamepad with both hands.

airons1972

I think im probably going to try and make my own data glove. Something along the lines of
attaching a usb gamepad circuit to a normal glove and then extending each of the gamepad buttons using wire and small micro switches. one microswitch fitted to the end of each finger so i can configure each finger to do something like... activate panel, fire a gun, change weapon, etc. should be quite easy really. Anyone tried this?

airons1972

If that is all you want (no finger bend sensing), then check out the Peregrine Glove:

http://theperegrine.com/

Thanks for the reply Palmer. I've never actually used one of these, but I did stumble across a demo video on youtube a few weeks back. I agree that does looks a great device and I really like how they used magnets to attach the usb cable to the top of the glove. Its a shame there are not more wireless game gloves available these days.

airons1972