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Hands-on with Pinć, a $99 VR headset for iPhone 6 w/ Minority Report-style user interfaces (Video)

Pinc-VR_headset

Last week I met up with the people behind Pinć (Pinch), an under development VR headset that utilizes Minority Report-style user interfaces opposed to the mostly gaming experiences we’ve seen thus far from the competition. There are also a few other big differentiators for Pinc: it doubles as an iPhone case, uses hand gestures tracked by the iPhone’s camera for input, and includes a full SDK for developers built on Unity.

Pinć utilizes a wireless ring (or pinchers) on each hand that allow users to navigate with touchscreen-like hand gestures when tracked by the device’s camera. A proprietary optics system is also used to enhance the iPhone camera’s normal field of view. The experience allows for much more intuitive controls familiar to touchscreen users and seems to make a lot more sense for immersive virtual reality than a controller or buttons used by other headsets.

All the apps currently running on Pinć were built by the company, but it plans on releasing an SDK that will offer devs a toolset for building mobile apps that support Pinć and utilize the company’s 3D user interfaces.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rQvUyojgvM&feature=youtu.be&channel=UChjRM_qQAaOAiLNbOGbYcRA]

While the company is focusing on all casual, mobile app user interfaces rather than gaming like the Oculus Rift or other competitors, a big focus for Pinć is retail. The company plans to build its own virtual reality shopping mall that will allow users to shop at various retailers with a full on virtual reality experience for browsing, customizing and purchasing items. Pinć provided the following screenshots of what the shopping experience might look like when the product ships next year:

So far early prototypes of Pinć leave a little bit to be desired in terms of fit and finish, and the tech demo, which wasn’t yet running on Unity, was a little too early and buggy for me to pass judgement. I was able to wear an early prototype and navigate the UI pictured above, although the product I tried was far from finished (a 3D printed prototype actually) and the software was not up to snuff in terms of what’s promised in the videos as far as fluidity and ease of use. The company does, however, seem to be pretty confident that its latest build of the software running on Unity and tweaks to hardware in the coming months will bring the experience up to speed and ready to launch for devs and early adopters by spring of next year.

While the version I demoed in the video above is still in prototype mode, you can expect a finished product to look closer to renders the company provided below:

When it comes to hardware Pinć is certainly not the first accessory attempting to bring an Oculus Rift-style VR experience to mobile devices— Google recently launched its Cardboard experiment, Samsung has Gear VR for its Note 4, and other companies have similar products that utilize the iPhone’s display— but Pinć’s software, integration into a standard-looking iPhone case, and gesture based input system make it one of the most promising implementations I’ve tried yet.

The company is launching a crowd funding campaign for the project starting today with a Discovery Edition of Pinc available for $99 and shipping by June of next year.

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Comments

  1. Harvey立峰 Chen - 9 years ago

    Looks like a cool idea.
    I think it’s just too heavy for my nose…
    Why not use built-in camera for it, I don’t want to put an iphone on my face, even an iphone6+.
    It’s cooler to use built-in camera + wireless, make it lighter/thinner means more comfortable.

    • Fan Fei - 9 years ago

      If you are listening the guy says it uses the rear facing camera.

      • liquidwolverine1 - 9 years ago

        He heard, he’s just saying, why have the iPhone 6/6+ on his face…make glasses that have a camera on it which will make the classes lighter….

    • And then include all the necessary components, including two screens capable of being watched from so near, all but that cheap price, isn’t it? Sure we all would like to live in a world like that…

      • Holo Leo (@hololeo) - 9 years ago

        In fact yes. The Epson moverio BT 200 does all that you ask today. A full android computer on a controller with the dual projection screen optics on the glasses. The thing only weights 88g. Iphone 6 weighs 129g. And its priced cheaper than iphone ($500). it does vr/ar and is very capable to do what is demonstrated here. source: tech evangelist for Moverio

  2. chrisl84 - 9 years ago

    Cool progress in the field and all, but I aint wearing that. I will however rock the real Minority Report UI once they figure out how to project the hologram into my real environment.

  3. silas681- - 9 years ago

    I would suggest that that is no where NEAR a final product. John Lennon wants his glasses back. Looks like an early stage student prototype in the final year!

  4. Kevin Lin - 9 years ago

    I have glasses, so are there like prescription one?

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.