At AWE this week, leading XR headset vendor Magic Leap and gesture technology innovators Doublepoint Technologies are highlighting a deep product partnership to distribute WowMouse, an input device that leverages Android smartwatches to enable gesture controls such as pinch and gaze for AR applicaitons.
The firm notes that the WowMouse service can assist workers and businesses in leveraging AR applications thanks to its flexibility and accessibility. This is notable because controllers can sometimes prove to be a difficult hurdle in corporate onboarding and understanding of XR.
The service provides an alternative XR input method, allowing Magic Leap 2 users to interact with their pre-existing smartwatches via Bluetooth. WowMouse, therefore, negates the need for additional headset hardware integrations and extra peripherals when a user wants to use an XR application without a controller.
Ohto Pentikäinen, the CEO and Co-Founder of Doublepoint, added:
We are thankful to the Magic Leap team for lending their incredible AR expertise to help us take the human AR experience to the next level with WowMouse micro-gesture controls. The demand for intuitive and powerful interactions with wearable devices is continuing to grow, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of offering new innovations in gesture technology.
The firms will showcase the service on the AWE 2024 expo floor this week. Magic Leap users are able to download the WowMouse applications for smartwatches on Google’s Play Store-transforming the wearable hardware into an AR input device.
Since its debut earlier this year, the product has gained roughly 55,000 downloads, showing a demand for accessible alternative inputs. Magic Leap and Doublepoint enabled the collaboration via the vendor’s developer ecosystem, which aims to accelerate the development of XR services.
Google and Magic Leap Form XR Partnership
In May, Google and Magic Leap announced a partnership to “advance the potential of XR technologies.” While the partnership is light in terms of detail, the Doublepoint partnership notably leverages Android frameworks, so the moves combined may show an extended support for Google’s OS on the Magic Leap headset portfolio.
Magic Leap Chief Technology Officer Julie Larson-Green explained at the time that the Google partnership “accelerates the transformative power of AR by combining our extensive optics capabilities with Google’s technologies to continue to advance immersive experiences to the developer ecosystem and for customers.”
Moreover, Larson-Green said that through this acceleration and expansion of XR’s potential, the firm will aim to blend the “physical world with valuable, contextually relevant solutions.” They also added, “By combining efforts, we can foster the future of the XR ecosystem with unique and innovative product offerings.”
Google and Magic Leap’s partnership could lead to new workplace solutions and innovations via the Android ecosystem, such as WowMouse. As the market expands, the enterprise space may become rich with innovative new XR solutions.
