Valve will ship Knuckles dev kits ‘in quantity’

Valve is moving beyond evaluation prototypes of its Knuckles tracked handheld controllers and onto developer kits “with improvements to cap sense, trigger feel, and more.”The new controllers have been in development for some time from privately owned Valve, which is based in Bellevue, Washington. The engineers at Valve are the folks responsible for the key tracking technology used in the HTC Vive. They are also developing their own head-mounted display and, with these controllers, could offer new ways of using your hands in a virtual space. The controllers strap to your hands and allow for realistic grasping and release sensations with capacitive sensors meant to track finger movements.
“While we have Knuckles DV kits available in quantity, we will be unable to fulfill all requests,” a post outlining the new kit explains. “The team will hold on to dev-kit requests and developer information for any future releases.”
Among the improvements listed by Valve with these latest controllers:

Cap Sense

• Capacitive sensors have been rearranged to accommodate more hand sizes
• Firmware has been updated to take advantage of the new sensors

Trigger

• Trigger spring strength increased
• Trigger click feel improved

Strap

• Increased durability of strap adjustment connector
• Strap adjust feel improved

Firmware

• Fast charging improved
• Fixed pairing bugs
• Improved stability

Other

• Thumbstick feel improved
• Force sensor variation reduced
• LED light leakage minimized
• Improved fit and finish
• Improved reliability

We’ll of course bring you the latest as developers start to share their impressions of these new controllers.