Exploring the Virtual Reality Market Potential for Adjuvo’s S-Sense

Abstract

The Sense Glove, which was originally called the S-Sense, is an exoskeletal glove from Adjuvo which can very accurately measure the position of the fingers. While this product was initially developed to help medical professionals in the hand and wrist rehabilitation field, the goal of this project was to see whether or not a market diversification towards the VR industry would be suitable for Adjuvo. Four research questions guided this project and related to the question (1) if the VR industry is as promising as it seems for Adjuvo’s Sense Glove, (2) which redesign requirements are necessary for a specific target group in a VR setting, (3) if using the Sense Glove in VR is both technically and economically feasible to do and (4) how this market diversification could be strategically planned. Looking at trends which are relevant for this project in the upcoming years, it is already clear that VR in itself is already a trend. However, combining it with the social acceptance of technology it enables VR to become more than simply a medium to play games. Using it to help, train or educate people are examples of this. Since applications for VR seem to become more diverse in the future the financial growth of the market is also predicted to be enormous. Predictions based on reports from Goldman Sachs and KZero seem to suggest the VR input device market could become as large as a 40 million dollar industry in 2025. Also the release of three high end VR systems in 2016, the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, indicated the market is on the brink of rapid growth. Finally there are multiple competitors in the VR input device segment but they all share one characteristic. All of these devices are still in development. This gives Adjuvo the opportunity to also enter this market without having to compete with an established competitor. The competition to keep an eye on is defined by Manus, Noitom and Dexta Robotics since they provide solutions which are comparable to the Sense Glove. However, the accuracy, force feedback potential and low price make the Sense Glove unique in the value it can offer to consumers. Combining the trends, which show potential big growth for VR and applications for the Sense Glove in all kinds of fields, with a market which is growing with the launch of three major HMDs and a lack of established competition shows that the market has much potential for Adjuvo to enter. This meant the market diversification was further refined during the project. The market analysis already gave some input regarding the improvements deemed necessary for a dedicated VR input device designed by Adjuvo. While lead user research gave insights into the projected needs from people who will invest in VR systems in the near future, consumer research was performed to uncover redesign requirements. During a between groups experiment, in which 26 people participated, the Sense Glove was compared to the HTC Vive controller to see what the perceived added value is by consumers. This uncovered problems, irritations or elements that were unclear when using the latest Sense Glove prototype. However, it also proved the technical feasibility of using the Sense Glove in VR. The most important elements which require attention in the future are: a more sturdy appearance, more comfortable thimbles, force feedback, adjustable sizes, easy to access button on the product, unique branding, washable fabrics, having support for the HTC Vive tracker, connect to a computer wirelessly and finally be more intuitive to put on. While a large amount of improvements were uncovered the findings were sorted depending on their importance. Defining this order was done by focussing on the target group which would first get into contact with the product, which would be the so called “Developing VR Users” as defined in the lead user research. While the participants of this research were not necessarily representative of this user segment, a large amount of the improvements are also relevant to them. These overlapping improvements were presented above but the remaining, more detailed improvements, can be found in the report. Implementing these points for improvement resulted in an initial redesign. This redesign is also based on the branding proposed in the thesis. The focus of this initial redesign is on the usage of specific colours to make the Sense Glove recognisable in landscape of VR input devices. Making it look sturdy, more consumer friendly and in line with the expectations of the “Developing VR Users” was also tackled in the initial redesign to inspire Adjuvo to improve their product in the future. For this redesign a set of more detailed guidelines is provided in the report. Finally, introducing the Sense Glove into the market first focussed on finding developers to work together with, by creating a landing page and promotional video. This way the found improvements can be validated, and if necessary complemented. A focus on the trialability and observability makes a difference between the Sense Glove and its competition with regards to the promotion. Before the Sense Glove can be put in stores it should be redesigned, manufactured and promoted. Finding a partner to produce the hardware would be ideal since Adjuvo does not have experience with producing consumer products. However, if Adjuvo manages to receive a large investment in the near future it is also a viable option to hire an external party. It seems that looking into the B2B industry could be relevant since responses on the Sense Glove landing page, which served as a way of validating the VR industry interest, seemed to do particularly well with simulation or training applications for larger companies. With one of the main competitors, Manus VR, taking a side step into the motion capture industry, it seems this could prove to be an important stepping stone for Adjuvo in the near future before truly entering the market with a consumer product and creating a successful cross industry innovation.