Hardlight VR is now Open Source
over 5 years ago
– Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 04:41:08 PM
Hello all,
We have made the entire Hardlight project available under the permissive MIT license. This includes:
- Our SDK and Windows service
- Our plugins for Unity, Unreal, and C/C++
- The Hardlight Engine, used for translating game engine data to haptic events
- Standalone applications like the Haptic Explorer (used for haptic sequence design) and the Hardlight Diagnostics tool (used for debugging haptic peripherals)
- Several demo Unity projects, including our motion tracking prototype.
- All plastics, cables, electronics and firmware used in the Hardlight suit.
- Accessories like the Wireless Module and Backpack PC Attachment
You can find it all on Github at https://github.com/HardlightVR. The MIT license is listed for reference below. Copyrights are attributed by repo.
MIT License:
Copyright <YEAR> <COPYRIGHT HOLDER>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Thank you,
Lucian Copeland
An update for our German backers
over 5 years ago
– Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 02:49:39 PM
Hello all,
Unfortunately, during the process of our international shipments, a small collection of backer orders was intercepted by German customs and subjected to a number of regulations we'd never seen before, even for other German orders we'd successfully delivered earlier this year. These import regulations included new German laws concerning the labelling of power supplies, and the requirement to include a German-language manual for the product. This is the only country we've had reject a collection of Hardlights during import.
Unfortunately, German Customs has not given me a lot of options for resolving this. They will not allow the suits to be shipped to any local warehouse for processing, will not remove the power supplies or add manuals themselves, and will not allow the units to be shipped back by air. They only option they are allowing is for the systems to be shipped by sea back to HK, which is estimated to take about 2 months. Once there, we should be able to either replace the power supplies and add manuals locally, or ship them to the US where I can do it manually and send via UPS.
I apologize to all our German backers for this mess. While the issue does look like it will outlive the business, I will continue to manage these orders personally and make sure you still get your Hardlight suits. I will also keep you up to date if a faster opportunity to ship your suits arises.
Thank you,
Lucian
Post mortem report and the conclusion of Hardlight
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 06:27:41 PM
Hello all,
I have some sad news to share with the Hardlight community today: Hardlight VR will be closing down this month. We have been unable to raise additional operating funds, and so, after two years of operation, we have no options left to us but straightforward closure - we are simply out of money. We're disappointed that we can’t do more to make haptics in VR a reality, but we're thankful for the support we've received from those who shared our dream.
As per Kickstarter’s guidelines, I’ll be providing a brief summary of how funds of this campaign were spent.
Kickstarter funds:
As publicly published, our total raise on the Kickstarter was approximately 147k. After Kickstarter’s portion, credit card processing fees, and taxes, our final raise was $122,944 plus $30,761 in Backerkit funds (suit only). At the time of the campaign, we calculated from our original supplier quotes that the total cost of the run would be approximately $119k.
The final costs of the manufacturing were:
-
$8,697 mandatory first-article manufacturing prototype
- $43,250 plastic injection molds
- $50,643 electronic parts and assembly
- $87,945 textiles, plastics and final assembly
- $22,183 shipping (still counting)
-
Total cost: $212,718
For simplicity, we’ve excluded salary and development costs from this total. Miscellaneous costs, such as T shirts, game keys, and other related items are also not included.
As demonstrated, manufacturing the Hardlight took over 138% of our actual raise. We covered the $59,013 additional cost with a combination of traditionally fundraised capital and money from family, friends, and our own savings.
Wireless:
Our wireless module, unfortunately, suffered a more extreme version of this issue. In contrast to the suit, which had already been fully prototyped before the Kickstarter, the wireless was a stretch goal that required additional engineering to create.
Wireless modules were funded by $17,700 raised as an extension of our crowdfunding campaign. Our original design for this system was a simple Bluetooth 5 module that was projected to cost about 10k to to develop and the remainder to manufacture. However, very late in the dev process, we encountered a crippling software issue outside of our control that forced us to completely redo the design. What we’d expected to be a ~10k project turned out to be $18,451 in development costs alone, 104% of the project earnings without any production done. While we ultimately did complete a design for the module, at this time, we no longer have any funds left to manufacture it.
I’m sorry to announce that the wireless add-on of this project has failed, and we will not be able to deliver any physical product for it.
I’m sorry for our silence on this news. We delayed addressing it as we remained hopeful until only a week ago that we would be able to close a small asset sale for the Hardlight technology that would at least allow this module to be completed or refunded. Unfortunately, we have had no offers.
Thank you for your support.
Over the past 9 months, we have been working full time without pay to attempt to find some positive resolution for this project. Sadly, we have had no offers of any kind, either for fundraising or for acquisition, and are now completely out of operating funds. While we still love the idea of haptics in VR, it’s clear that the VR industry is moving far slower than we expected, and we have been unable to make our product or our company sustainable. Thank you all for your help in making the Hardlight a reality, if a short lived one - I’m sorry we could not bring a more successful close to this project.
Thank you,
Lucian
Hardlight SDK is now public
over 5 years ago
– Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 12:37:21 AM
Hello all,
In response to additional requests for access, we have made the Hardlight SDK repo public.
You can access it here: https://github.com/NullSpaceVR/NullSpace-Chimera-SDK
- Lucian
Orders Have Shipped!
over 5 years ago
– Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 09:27:22 AM
Hello everyone,
As you may have noticed, we have some good news to share: the vast majority (>95%) of suits have been shipped out to both our US and international backers! The handful of suits that have not shipped yet are those that have some form of major issue regarding the address, like the lack of a phone number for international orders that must pass customs. Please double check your inboxes and spam folders for emails from us—we want to make sure you get your suit!
We've seen your questions about the wireless module—we've been 100% focused on making sure your suits get to you as quickly as possible, so please hang tight for the moment, and we'll put out an update about them as soon as we can.
Thanks for sticking with us as we've worked out our shipping process, and enjoy your new suits!
