Cybershoes Inc

Cybershoes Inc
Information
Type	Private
Industry	Virtual reality hardware
Founded	2018
Founder	Michael Bieglmayer
Headquarters	Vienna, Austria
Products	VR locomotion shoes
Website	https://www.cybershoes.io

Cybershoes Inc was the United States operating arm of Cybershoes GmbH, an Austrian Virtual Reality hardware startup based in Vienna that designed and sold a foot-worn locomotion accessory of the same name. The device let a seated user walk and run inside VR games by making natural leg motions, which the shoes translated into in-game movement. The company was founded in 2018 by inventor and chief executive Michael Bieglmayer, together with five co-founders: Doris Bauer-Posautz, Igor Mitric Lavovski, Georg Wimberger, Andreas Kern, and Georg Loffelmann.

The product was pitched as a cheaper and more compact alternative to full-body VR treadmills such as the Virtuix Omni. Instead of standing and physically striding, the wearer sat on a swivel stool, strapped the shoes over normal footwear, and swung their legs back and forth across a textured carpet; a wheel built into each sole spun with the motion and was read as forward movement, while the rotating stool handled turning. Cybershoes shipped a tethered version for PC VR and, later, a wireless version for the standalone Meta Quest. The company wound down its operations between 2023 and 2025.

History

Cybershoes was founded in Vienna in 2018. It funded its first product through a Kickstarter campaign that opened on October 2, 2018, with a goal of 30,000 euros. The campaign cleared that target within hours and went on to raise 247,674 US dollars from 1,006 backers, with basic pledge tiers around 151 to 193 euros.

The company exhibited the accessory at CES in January 2019, its first appearance at the show, demonstrating it with PC VR titles such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR and Doom VFR. Cybershoes received a CES Innovation Award for the device, and returned to CES in 2020 with a finished, retail-ready product. The first commercial PC version, bundled with a swivel chair (the Cyberchair) and a round carpet (the Cybercarpet), was presented at gamescom in 2019 as a ready-to-ship design and later sold through Amazon and the company's own website.

In late 2020 Cybershoes ran a second Kickstarter to bring the accessory to the standalone Meta Quest. The campaign opened on November 19, 2020 and closed on January 4, 2021 having raised 98,420 US dollars from 470 backers against the same 30,000 US dollar goal. The wireless Quest model reached United States retail on Amazon in May 2021, priced at 349 US dollars for a kit that included the shoes, a wireless receiver, the Cyberchair, a 60-inch round carpet, an AC adapter, and cabling.

The business operated through two legal entities, the Austrian Cybershoes GmbH and a United States Cybershoes Inc. According to MIXED, production of the shoes stopped around mid-2023, the US entity ceased operating around mid-2024, and the Austrian parent was formally shut down in 2025. The publication attributed the closure to the limited market for dedicated VR accessories.

Technology

A pair of Cybershoes consisted of two shoe coverings that strapped over the wearer's own shoes. Each unit held a barrel-shaped wheel set into the sole and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that sensed the foot's orientation. Sitting on the swivel stool, the user kicked or dragged their feet back and forth so the wheels spun against the floor; the harder and faster the motion, the faster the avatar moved. Physically turning the stool rotated the player's facing direction in the game. The textured Cybercarpet gave the wheels consistent grip and kept the chair from sliding.

The original model connected to a PC over a wired USB link through a dedicated radio receiver, and the company quoted a charge time of about three hours for eight to ten hours of use, with a supported user weight of up to 100 kilograms. The later Quest version added a receiver module that plugged into the headset over USB-C and carried an extra IMU to compute movement on-device, allowing untethered play.

Because the system emulated standard gamepad or thumbstick input rather than acting as a tracked VR controller, it worked in principle with any game that supported free, artificial-stick locomotion, and the company also added native support for selected titles. On PC this covered SteamVR games on the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality, and Pimax headsets, including Skyrim VR, Arizona Sunshine, and Half-Life: Alyx; on Quest it worked with games using artificial stick movement, with native integration for titles such as In Death: Unchained and The Wizards - Dark Times.

Products

Product	Year	Platform	Notes
Cybershoes (PC version)	2019	PC VR (SteamVR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality, Pimax)	First commercial model; wired USB receiver; sold as a kit with the Cyberchair stool and Cybercarpet; funded by a 2018 Kickstarter that raised 247,674 US dollars
Cybershoes for Quest	2021	Meta Quest / Quest 2 (standalone)	Wireless model with a USB-C headset module and extra IMU; funded by a 2020 Kickstarter (98,420 US dollars, 470 backers); launched on Amazon US at 349 US dollars

Reception

Reviewers generally praised the build quality and the comfort of the seated approach while questioning whether the accessory was ready for a mainstream audience. In its hands-on at CES 2019, Digital Trends called the shoes surprisingly intuitive and comfortable and said they translated well to open-world games like Skyrim. The Ghost Howls, reviewing the Quest version in December 2020, found the hardware well made and comfortable and credited it with reducing motion sickness, but concluded it was suited to early adopters rather than the mass market, citing inconsistent walking detection and the fatigue of the leg-swinging motion.