Virtual Environment Treadmill Is Our Next Gen Gaming Accessory

Now that virtual reality is once again on an incline, we are starting to see a whole lot of accessories that will help gamers and virtual realists emerge themselves into the virtual world in a more realistic way. There have no doubt been plenty of innovations that have tried to become an all-family gaming accessory, but so far none have been adopted by the average gamer. Why is that? The reasons could be many, but the virtual environment treadmill is shooting for success nonetheless.

I know some of you are scratching your heads wondering why a virtual environment treadmill would ever become a successful product. Well, when it comes to first person shooters, the aim has always been to immerse the player as much as possible. A virtual reality helmet is of course going to put you in a virtual world in a believable way, but it’s the moving around that has long been the one thing that has never really been cracked.

The aim of the virtual environment treadmill, dubbed the Omni, is to enable real limitless walking, running, strafing and moving without risking injury in the real world. It’s a super clever creation and one that could possibly become a huge success. This treadmill is so far just a project, but the prototype shown in this video demonstration is quite impressive.

The Omni was created by Virtuix, and it has a whole lot of applicable areas. Not only could it help gamers immerse themselves more into their games, but this virtual environmental treadmill could also work as a rehabilitation system for people who are looking to regain their ability to move and walk again. However, the primary goal is to immerse the user as much as possible into a virtual world. It’s best described by the inventor himself.

“The Omni is the first locomotion device that is affordable for household consumers, fits in a living room, and above all, enables the user to walk freely and naturally in virtual environments.“

Imagine being able to move and look in whatever direction you want in the photorealistic virtual worlds presented to us today. That would by all means be the ultimate way of gaming, don’t you agree?