we all know the onmi by virtuix that allows for walking / running in the virtual space while remaining on one spot in the real world. i’ve backed this project (i hope they will deliver soon) as it seems that the user experience is conceptually well executed through special shoes that can be tracked by the floor:

but just today i came across a “chair” that actually frees your body from the floor, i.e. it allows for moving more freely in the virtual space while the physical device is actually home-compatible compared to “lawn mower man” kind of interfaces. govert flint did this as a graduation project at the design school in eindhoven:

it seems that it has different ways of collecting data, i’ve read about accelerometers, probably even potentiometers would probably do the job. then, they added some software to actually recognise gestures. i think we should go further than that and really use the whole body posture. in that way, we could use the kinect to record the posture and simplify the design of the chair. would be great to try that out (i do love the possibility to swing left and right, that’s going beyond a bar stool. actually, that guy should do a kickstarter project.

btw: the original lawnmower man interface is akin to a gyroskope:

but that’s clearly not consumer compatible. so i’m sold on that chair thingy.

then there’s the züricher hochschule für künste who allow the user to lie on “bed” and use wings attached to the arms to fly like a bird. also quite inspiring, but again, in terms of practicality, not for me at home: