Oculus Working on VR Gloves to Make You Feel Like Spider-Man

Oculus and HTC both have wireless controllers to serve as your in-game hands, but there may be something more realistic coming in the future. In a post on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off what's going on in the Oculus research labs. The most interesting part? VR gloves.

Mark Zuckerberg wears VR gloves. Credit: Mark Zuckerberg

(Image credit: Mark Zuckerberg wears VR gloves. Credit: Mark Zuckerberg)

"We're working on new ways to bring your hands in virtual and augmented reality," Zuckerberg wrote in a photo caption. "Wearing these gloves, you can draw, type on a virtual keyboard, and even shoot webs like Spider-Man."

In the photo, the gloves appear to be very slim and covered in markers. Zuckerberg is surrounded by trackers separate from those used to track the Oculus Rift headset, suggesting that it's still very much in the prototype stage (or will require many expensive trackers if and when it hits the market).

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It's possible that these are coming from Pebbles Interfaces, a company that Oculus acquired in 2015 that was working on hand tracking.

Chances are that these gloves are very far from release. At the moment, Oculus may be better off focusing on its current headset rather than more expensive peripherals. The company last week pulled demo stations from 200 out of 500 participating Best Buy stores due to lack of interest.

But for now, the gloves are just prototypes, so Oculus and Facebook have plenty of time to focus on both.

Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew E. Freedman is an editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming as well as keeping up with the latest news. He holds a M.S. in Journalism (Digital Media) from Columbia University. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Kotaku, PCMag, Complex, Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag among others.