Patent Application
20240260692
This disclosure relates to the field of protective handwear. In particular, to handwear (gloves) that are designed to inhibit injury from hand and hand controller motion while utilizing a virtual reality (VR) headset.
Technological advancements have made virtual reality a part of every day life for many individuals. Virtual reality (“VR”) has grown from a concept of mere science fiction to being used daily for both personal uses and professional use. The most prominent use of VR for personal use is playing video games. Although, there are other applications for using VR in a personal or individual setting as well.
The applications for VR in a professional setting are much more vast. For example, an industry that works with toxic chemicals or other hazardous materials can use VR to train the maintenance staff on how to properly handle the chemicals or hazardous materials without actually exposing the individuals to such materials. Likewise, because VR can be used to simulate essentially any environment, VR can be used to train individuals to perform tasks in high stress, dangerous, or life threatening situations, such as training a soldier by using a simulated battlefield.
Whether an individual is using VR to play a video game or learn how to diffuse an explosive on the battlefield, the main components of the VR system are the same. Most VR systems generally include some computer system, software that is compatible with VR, a specific VR headset, and some form of controller or control system which is held in the hands. In other systems, the hands themselves are sensed and used as a controller without them needing to hold anything. These VR systems have been in existence for some time and many are unique from one another. However, regardless of the specific VR system being used, generally one using a VR system with a VR headset encounters the same problem: the headset obstructs the view of the individual's surroundings and the individual may hit their hands on walls or other obstacles in the vicinity while using the VR system.
When an individual is using VR and hits their hands on a wall or surrounding object, the individual may break the object, damage the wall, or injure their hand. This may result in mere annoyance, if the injury is not severe or if nothing is broken. However, hitting a wall or surrounding object may result in a significant event that results in the individual breaking bones, damaging expensive objects, damaging specialized equipment, or even injuring another person. Thus, an improvement that prevents or limits the injury or damage potentially caused while using a VR system would be vastly beneficial to both the general consumer of VR products as well as companies and industries that use VR for professional applications.
The following is a summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The sole purpose of this section is to present some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
Because of these and other problems in the art, described herein, among other things is a protective glove for preventing or inhibiting injury to the hands of the wearer while utilizing a VR headset. The protective glove comprises a glove body, a plurality of polyurethane foam padding, a material covering the padding, and gripping elements.
In an embodiment of the glove, the padding is located on the dorsal side of the glove body and is configured in positions corresponding to a hand's joints, knuckles, fingertips, metacarpals, and carpals.
In an embodiment of the glove, the gripping elements are located on the palmer side of the glove body and are in positions corresponding to the palm of a hand and on each fingertip.
In an embodiment of the glove, the material covering the padding is faux leather, leather, synthetic leather, vinyl, spandex, or any combination thereof.
The following detailed description and disclosure illustrates by way of example and not by way of limitation. This description will clearly enable one skilled in the art to make and use the disclosed systems and methods, and describes several embodiments, adaptations, variations, alternatives and uses of the disclosed systems and methods. As various changes could be made in the above constructions without departing from the scope of the disclosures, it is intended that all matter contained in the description or shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.
There is described herein protective gloves designed to inhibit injury from hand and hand controller motion while utilizing a virtual reality (VR) headset. While operating a VR system, the user operating typically wears a VR headset, which in turn obstructs the individual's view of their surroundings. Additionally, many of these VR systems include a controller that the user must grasp ahold of to properly operate the VR system. While grasping the controller, the user's back of the hand is exposed, while the palm of the hand is in contact with the controller. Because of this, and because of the VR headset obstructing the user's perception of their surroundings, an opportune environment for the user to forcefully contact an object or a wall in their surroundings is created.
A protective glove (100) of this disclosure includes, at a high level, a glove body (200), various pads (101), (103), (105), (107), (109), and (111) secured to the top of the glove, which corresponds with the back of the user's hand, gripping elements (303) secured to the palm of the glove, and fingertip shields (301) secured to the tip of each finger on the glove. In some embodiments, the protective glove (100) may also include an interface with a VR system. In yet other embodiments, a protective glove (100) may include a conductive material that is known to one skilled in the art, which is embedded in each fingertip (301) of the glove to permit the glove to interact with a touchscreen device.
The padding (101), (103), (105), (107), (109), and (111), described in detail further later, provides protection to the user's hand in the event the user contacts an object, wall, or other obstruction, while using the VR system. If included, gripping elements (303) may assist the user in grasping the controller to prevent the controller from slipping out of the user's hand. If included, fingertip shields (301) may protect the user's fingertips in the event the user contacts an object, wall, or other obstruction while using the VR system.
In an embodiment, the pads (101), (103), (105), (107), (109), and (111) are constructed from polyurethane foam and provide cushioning and protection against impact by absorbing a portion of the force that results from impact. The pads may vary in thickness, depending on placement and desired level of protection, with the fingertip pads (101) generally being the thinnest, followed by the middle joint pads (103) and proximal joint pads (105) generally being the second thinnest, and the knuckle pads (107), metacarpal pads (109), and carpal pad (111) generally being the thickest. However, this is by no means required, and in some embodiments, the thickness of the pads (101), (103), (105), (107), (109), and (111) may all be the same. In yet other embodiments, the proximal joint pads (105) and knuckle pads (107) may be the thickest.
In the depicted embodiment, faux leather may be sewn or attached around the pads (101), (103), (105), (107), (109), and (111) to provide a coating that protects the padding as well for aesthetic purposes. Alternatively, other materials, such as leather, synthetic leather, spandex, vinyl or other materials may be used to provide the coating around the padding (101), (103), (105), (107), (109), and (111).
In the embodiment depicted in
Protective gloves (100) of this disclosure may be manufactured in any size or cosmetic design as desired. The glove (100), regardless of the size or cosmetic features, may be configured in the same manner and include and or all the features described above.
The glove's (100) intention is to solve the problem of hand pain and injury while playing VR games or using VR for professional applications while still being capable and comfortable to use with VR controllers. The cushioning of potential impacts that is provided by the padding (101), (103), (105), (107), (109), and (111) also has the potential to mitigate damage to surrounding objects, walls, or people. This is achieved through the polyurethane cushioning absorbing a portion of the shock or force caused by or resulting from an impact with an object, a wall, or a person. By structuring the polyurethane padding (101), (103), (105), (107), (109), and (111) in segments, as described above, the glove (100) will still allow the user's fingers to be mobile and able to press buttons on the controller.
The qualifier “generally” and similar qualifiers, as used in the present case, would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to accommodate recognizable attempts to conform a device to the qualified term, which may nevertheless fall short of doing so. This is because terms such as “cylinder” are purely geometric constructs and no real-world component is a true “cylinder” in the geometric sense. Variations from geometric and mathematical descriptions are unavoidable due to, among other things, manufacturing tolerances resulting in shape variations, defects and imperfections, non-uniform thermal expansion, and natural wear. Moreover, there exists for every object a level of magnification at which geometric and mathematical descriptors fail due to the nature of matter. One of ordinary skill would thus understand the term “generally,” and relationships contemplated herein regardless of the inclusion of such qualifiers, to include a range of variations from the literal geometric meaning of the term in view of these and other considerations.
While the invention has been disclosed in conjunction with a description of certain embodiments, including those that are currently believed to be the preferred embodiments, the detailed description is intended to be illustrative and should not be understood to limit the scope of the present disclosure. As would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, embodiments other than those described in detail herein are encompassed by the present invention. Modifications and variations of the described embodiments may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
It will further be understood that any of the ranges, values, properties, or characteristics given for any single component of the present disclosure can be used interchangeably with any ranges, values, properties, or characteristics given for any of the other components of the disclosure, where compatible, to form an embodiment having defined values for each of the components, as given herein throughout. Further, ranges provided for a genus or a category can also be applied to species within the genus or members of the category unless otherwise noted.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 63/444,144, filed on Feb. 8, 2023, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63444144 | Feb 2023 | US |
