Etee

Etee
Information
Industry	Virtual reality, human-machine interfaces
Founded	2015
Founder	Ming Kong, Liucheng Guo
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Products	Finger-tracking VR controllers, SteamVR trackers, touch and gesture sensing technology
Parent	TANGI0 Ltd. (TG0)
Website	https://eteexr.com

etee (stylized lowercase, sometimes written eteeController) is a line of button-free, finger-tracking Virtual Reality controllers and the consumer hardware brand of TG0, the trading name of the London company TANGI0 Ltd. The controllers replace the usual buttons, triggers, and joysticks with a continuous touch- and pressure-sensitive surface that reads how each finger curls, touches, and squeezes, so a grab or a pinch in Virtual Reality maps directly onto the matching hand motion. The hardware was first brought to market through a Kickstarter campaign in 2020 and is sold in both a self-tracked 3DoF form and a 6DoF form that uses SteamVR Lighthouse tracking.

TG0 itself is a deep-tech company focused on capacitive touch, gesture, and pressure sensing. Its patented technology is licensed for use well beyond Virtual Reality, including automotive interiors, medical devices, fitness equipment, and consumer electronics, and etee is the application of that sensing platform to VR input.

History

TANGI0 Ltd. was incorporated in London on 21 September 2015 by Ming Kong and Dr. Liucheng Guo, who set out to build low-cost touch and pressure sensing surfaces by pairing off-the-shelf materials and integrated circuits with machine learning. The company trades as TG0, a name explained as meaning "touch zero," echoing the electrical idea of grounding. Its registered office is on Upper Richmond Road in southwest London, and it has additional operations in Hong Kong.

The etee controller was revealed in early 2020 and launched on Kickstarter on 2 April 2020. The campaign ran until 11 May 2020 and closed at £90,650, around 112,000 US dollars, from 338 backers, comfortably clearing its £45,900 goal. Stretch goals unlocked during the run added a touch-sensitive LED slider, open-source CAD files for the controller handle, and a formal developer program. Backer units were targeted for late 2020, though delivery slipped amid the COVID-19 pandemic. TG0 went on to sell the controllers directly through its eteexr.com store and through VR retailers such as Knoxlabs.

The company has continued to raise money to grow its broader sensing business. In December 2024 TG0 announced a 4.5 million pound Series B round, reported as roughly 5.4 million euros, led by NetmindAI; the company's listed clients across its licensing business have included Zwift, Airbus, Italdesign, and Novares. Investor trackers place TG0's total funding raised at about 12.3 million US dollars.

Technology

etee controllers are built on TG0's capacitive sensing platform. Instead of mechanical buttons, the body of each controller is wrapped in a soft, sensor-laden surface that detects the proximity, contact, and pressure of the user's fingers. The device reads the index, middle, ring, and pinky fingers individually, uses a pair of proximity sensors for the thumb, and recognizes default gestures such as point, pinch, and squeeze. A configurable thumbpad can act as a trackpad, joystick, or D-pad, and the LED slider can be set up as two independent buttons or as an analog input, which lets the controllers stand in for conventional VR input while still capturing finger motion. Each controller carries an inertial measurement unit for orientation and a DRV2605 haptic driver that delivers feedback scaled to how hard the user is gripping, so squeezing a virtual object produces a proportional rumble.

Positional tracking differs by model. The base controller is self-tracked and reports 3DoF using its onboard IMU, communicating over 2.4 GHz Bluetooth Low Energy. The 6DoF SteamVR version adds Lighthouse tracking so that the controller's position in space is read by external SteamVR base stations, in the same way as a Valve Index or HTC Vive system. A separate AdaptVR kit instead clips etee's finger-sensing surface onto third-party trackers such as the Vive Tracker or the Tundra Tracker, borrowing their positional tracking to reach 6DoF. Because the system speaks the SteamVR Input API, the controllers work across SteamVR headsets and, with base stations and the supplied dongle, with Windows Mixed Reality and Oculus headsets; battery life is rated at up to about 6 hours of continuous use with 14 hours of standby.

Products

The etee range centers on the finger-sensing controllers, sold in a self-tracked version and a SteamVR-tracked version, with accessories that add tracking or charging. TG0 has also offered standalone SteamVR trackers under the etee brand.

Product	Type	Tracking	Notes
eteeController	Finger-tracking VR controller	3DoF (onboard IMU)	Button-free controller; full-finger sensing; BLE wireless; sold with Unity and Python SDKs
eteeController SteamVR Kit	Finger-tracking VR controller	6DoF (SteamVR Lighthouse)	Adds external base-station tracking for room-scale positional tracking; first shown via the 2020 Kickstarter
eteeController AdaptVR Kit	Finger-sensing add-on	6DoF (via third-party tracker)	Attaches etee finger sensing to a Vive Tracker (1.0/2.0/3.0) or Tundra Tracker
eteeTracker SteamVR	SteamVR tracker	6DoF (SteamVR Lighthouse)	Standalone tracker marketed for full-body and object tracking

Reception

Early hands-on coverage was cautiously positive. Reviewing the controllers around the 2020 launch, Antony Vitillo of The Ghost Howls found them very light and quick to pick up, and praised how well they read individual finger bends and grip strength, while noting occasional detection errors and ergonomic quirks, along with the practical problem that most existing VR games are designed around physical buttons rather than continuous finger input. Road to VR highlighted the project's novelty as a buttonless, finger-tracking alternative to mainstream controllers and treated the successful Kickstarter as evidence of genuine interest in more natural VR input, while cautioning that the small campaign size left delivery and long-term software support uncertain. etee is frequently positioned as a lower-cost, more accessible take on the finger-aware input pioneered by the Valve Index Controllers, with the added flexibility of working across a range of SteamVR-compatible headsets.