This VR treadmill gets you out of your seat, and it just hit Kickstarter

Now that virtual reality (VR) is actually a thing, what are you going to do with your headset – just sit there on the sofa grasping into thin air like some kind of lunatic? A Chinese startup wants you to get up and walk around games with its “locomotion device” called Kat Walk.

Made by KatVR, the Kat Walk this week hit Kickstarter where the team is hoping to raise US$100,000 to ship the contraption to early buyers in April next year.

The Kickstarter is already off to a strong start and looks set to reach half its goal in less than three days. The cheapest US$399 early bird deal is sold out, so the lowest price now for the big piece of kit is US$499.

Suspended animation

I got a demo of Kat Walk in action in Shanghai recently. The whole thing looks like a giant baby bouncer. The harness goes around a gamer’s waist and crotch so that you stay central on the base. The top limb goes up and down on the device’s spine so that you can jump or even crouch down. And of course you can turn in any direction.

Kaye Pang, KatVR’s CEO, explains that it’s designed to work well with first-person shooter (FPS) games, and is meant to allow for natural walking and flexible movements. It also works with RPGs and can be used in VR environments for training purposes, such as for the military or police. She says controlling VR by actually moving makes it more immersive and reduces simulator sickness.

I saw it demoed both with Crossfire and Grand Theft Auto 5. While the kit supports any game that uses a keyboard or controller, it will be up to game developers to add in support for the hardware, so specific game support is up in the air at the moment.

Aside from the bulk of the contraption, the only downside I see is that you have to wear a special set of shoes that are designed to work with the base. The company calls the base of the Kat Walk a treadmill, but it doesn’t move – actually it’s more like your laptop’s trackpad, registering the speed and intensity of your movements.

Pang says the final product will be less bulky than the prototype. The startup started work on the first prototype back in September 2013, so the kit I saw was already very polished and fluid.