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Manus

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Manus
Information
Industry Virtual reality, motion capture, robotics
Founded 2014
Founder Bob Vlemmix, Stephan van den Brink, Tim van Veenendaal
Headquarters Eindhoven, Netherlands
Notable Personnel Maarten Witteveen (co-founder and CTO)
Products Data gloves (Metagloves Pro, Metagloves Pro Haptic), MANUS Core software
Website https://www.manus-meta.com


Manus (stylized MANUS; its website names the company MANUS Technology Group) is a Dutch company that develops high-precision data gloves for Virtual Reality, Motion capture and robotics. It was founded in July 2014 as Manus Machina and traded as Manus VR during its early years, when it set out to build a consumer glove controller for VR headsets.[1][2] Its gloves track the movement of the wearer's hands and fingers and translate them into a digital hand model, and several models add haptic vibration feedback. The company's head office is in Eindhoven.[3]

Manus began with the goal of letting people control VR games with their bare hands instead of a handheld controller. From 2017 it turned to business customers,[4] and its products moved from inertial and flex-sensor gloves to electromagnetic field (EMF) fingertip tracking. By the mid-2020s Manus positioned its gloves as tools for collecting human hand data used in motion capture, AR/VR training, robot teleoperation and the training of artificial intelligence systems. The company says its hardware is used by more than 2,000 robotics companies, AI research labs, XR developers and motion capture studios.[5]

Reviewed 12 October 2026. Founding, Manus Machina and Manus VR history, 2015-2016 prototype and developer kit specs and prices, enterprise shift, funding, Prime, Quantum and Metagloves Pro specs, and 2026 robotics items checked against the cited Road to VR, UploadVR, TechCrunch, Engadget, Hypergrid Business, IO+, NLO, Auganix, Xsens and MANUS pages and archived manus-vr.com pages. About review dates.

History

Manus Machina (2014-2015)

Manus was founded in July 2014 as Manus Machina by Bob Vlemmix, Stephan van den Brink (its CEO at the time) and Tim van Veenendaal. Maarten Witteveen joined as chief technology officer in October 2014.[1] Manus later described Witteveen as a co-founder.[6] According to Road to VR, a Kickstarter campaign the company ran in August 2014 was unsuccessful. That month Vlemmix demonstrated an early prototype at an impromptu Dutch VR Meetup gathering during Gamescom 2014 in Cologne, about a month after the company was founded; Road to VR described the rig as having "wires everywhere".[7]

From November 2014 the startup took part in the three-month HighTechXL Startupbootcamp hardware accelerator in Eindhoven. TechCrunch reported in June 2015 that, after the accelerator's demo day, Manus Machina had raised 700,000 euros from two local Dutch investors affiliated with the program.[8] The company's own timeline says it gained its first development partners and clients at that Demo Day.[5] The team worked in the Startupbootcamp open workspace until March 2015 and then moved to the Videolab building on the Torenallee in Eindhoven, and it planned to give an early access edition to students at Fontys and NHTV Breda for durability testing.[1]

By May 2015 Manus Machina had 15 staff, and it was preparing to show a wireless glove at E3 2015 in Los Angeles.[7] TechCrunch described that prototype as a flexible glove with a bend sensor on each finger, a nine-degree-of-freedom inertial measurement unit (IMU) on the back of the hand, a tactile feedback engine and a built-in battery. Hand position came from an external camera; the demo used the rear camera of a Samsung smartphone. The first prototype had been built around a large Arduino board, while the E3 version used a custom circuit board. Manus quoted 280 US dollars for a developer kit and about 200 US dollars for a planned consumer version.[8] Hypergrid Business reported that Manus showed the glove at E3, gave the developer kit price as 279 US dollars for pre-order with shipping planned for the last quarter of 2015, and said the gloves were already compatible with the Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR, with HTC Vive support planned.[9]

In an August 2015 hands-on, Road to VR described a newer prototype made from a polyester lycra sports fabric that communicated over Bluetooth. Manus was then an OSVR partner and had received the OSVR Hacker Development Kit. The company said it did not plan to build its own positional tracking system and intended to rely on each headset's existing tracking instead; the demo used a fish-eye passthrough camera on a Gear VR and colored "tracking mittens" over the glove electronics.[10]

Manus VR and the developer kit (2016-2017)

The Manus VR glove

By early 2016 the company was operating as Manus VR, with an office at Torenallee 20 in Eindhoven, and described its product as "the first consumer virtual reality glove".[2][11] In January 2016 it published footage of hand tracking in Surgeon Simulator with the HTC Vive, and it built its own demo, Pillow's Willow, that winter.[12]

Manus VR announced the design of its developer kit in March 2016. The kit was priced at 250 US dollars, with pre-orders opening in the second quarter of 2016 and shipping planned for the third quarter.[2][13] Each glove had sensors that measured the extension of each finger, plus an accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer to track the rotation of the hand. The kit included a pair of gloves, plug-ins for Unity and Unreal Engine, and access to an SDK for Android, Windows 7 and later, Linux, iOS 9 and Mac OS X.[2] Engadget listed a USB dongle, two wrist holders for HTC Vive controllers, a programmable vibration motor, an eight-hour battery, washable gloves and an open-source SDK.[13] The company's 2016 website quoted tracking latency below 5 ms, Bluetooth wireless connectivity and an eight-hour average battery life with fast charging.[11]

For positional tracking the developer kit relied on the HTC Vive: a Vive controller was strapped to each wrist and its Lighthouse tracking supplied the hand's position.[2] In May 2016 Manus added arm tracking to its software. The system combined the wrist-mounted controllers with the position of the headset and used inverse kinematics to reconstruct the arms and elbows; UploadVR reported that the feature would ship in the Manus SDK in June 2016.[14]

In September 2016 Manus VR announced that its gloves were being used in NASA experiments to train astronauts in mixed reality in preparation for the International Space Station.[15][12] After Valve made SteamVR Tracking royalty-free, Manus began work on a tracking bracelet, and it planned to join the first SteamVR Tracking class, taught by Synapse from 12 September 2016, as a step toward a glove with SteamVR Tracking sensors built in.[15][16] In a GDC demo of the prototype, Kent Bye found the wrist-mounted Vive controller gave more consistent hand tracking than optical solutions such as Leap Motion, but noted latency of "a lot more than 20ms" in finger movement; Manus said it achieved much lower latency in its lab.[16]

According to the company's timeline, the first Development Kit gloves (DK1) were released in 2016 and the DK2, with a stronger focus on VR functionality, in 2017.[5]

Shift to enterprise (2017-2021)

In 2017 Manus decided to explore the business market.[4] In a November 2018 interview with the Dutch patent firm NLO, the company said consumer VR had grown more slowly than expected, so it had turned to industrial customers and formed joint ventures with VR solution providers. Examples it gave included Skoda, which used the gloves at the Frankfurt motor show to let visitors try a virtual concept car, medical providers using them for diagnosis and rehabilitation of hand conditions, and NASA, which ordered pairs from time to time.[17]

The company released its Prime I gloves, which added haptic feedback, in 2018, the same year it formed its first partnerships with motion capture firms Xsens and OptiTrack.[5] In June 2019 UploadVR reported the Prime series line-up: the Prime One wireless data glove, which tracked each finger on two joints and streamed into Unity, Unreal, MotionBuilder or enterprise platforms such as IC.IDO and Vizard; the Haptic Prime, which added linear resonant actuators with adjustable strength, frequency and resonance; and the Xsens Prime, designed for integration into an Xsens motion capture suit.[18] In 2019 the company also built Polygon, its first full-body capture prototype.[5]

In November 2019 Eindhoven Venture Capital Fund II invested 2 million euros in Manus VR to fund product development and international sales and marketing. IO+ described the company as having partnerships with NASA, Daimler and Volkswagen.[4]

Manus released the Prime II gloves and a dedicated Xsens glove in 2020.[5] In November 2020, under CEO Bart Loosman, it cut the starting price of the Prime II to 1,499 euros and folded the Polygon inverse kinematics solver, which generates full-body motion from six tracked points, into its Manus Core software. Auganix reported customers and partners including General Motors, Volvo, Toyota, Electronic Arts, Facebook Reality Labs and ZDF Digital, and said Prime Xsens gloves had been used to track performers in a John Legend virtual concert.[19] In February 2021 it opened pre-orders for the Manus Pro Tracker, a SteamVR tracker for professional motion capture and virtual production.[20] Later in 2021 the company released the Prime X series, made Polygon free for the creative community, moved its main office to Eindhoven and opened offices in Germany and the United States.[5]

Metagloves and robotics (2022-present)

Manus showed the Quantum Metagloves at GDC 2022. They replaced the inertial and flex sensors of earlier gloves with magnetic fingertip tracking (see Technology), and Manus priced them at 9,000 US dollars per pair for enterprise customers.[21] Pre-orders opened in May 2022 at 9,000 US dollars (7,500 euros) for the base unit without 6DOF positional tracking, with shipping expected to start in the third quarter.[22]

In 2023 Manus released the Quantum Bodypack and the Prime 3 Haptic XR and Prime 3 Mocap gloves, followed in 2024 by the Bodypack Lite and the Metagloves Pro, and in 2025 by the Metagloves Pro Haptic.[5] In March 2024 Movella launched the Xsens Prime 3 Gloves by Manus at GDC 2024, priced at 3,799 US dollars and integrated with the Xsens Awinda motion capture system.[23] On 23 June 2026 Manus announced that the Quantum Metagloves had sold out and reached end of life, naming the Metagloves Pro as their direct successor.[24]

As its market moved toward robotics and embodied AI, Manus began to describe its gloves as a way to capture human hand data for teaching robots to manipulate objects and for training AI on human demonstrations.[5] In a February 2026 case study it said Apptronik had chosen Manus gloves to collect hand and finger data for teleoperation-driven imitation learning with its Apollo humanoid robot at Mercedes-Benz production facilities in Berlin.[25] At NVIDIA GTC 2026, an operator wearing Manus gloves teleoperated a NEURA Robotics humanoid in the keynote video, and the company said its gloves are an officially supported input device in NVIDIA's open-source Isaac Teleop framework.[6]

Technology

Manus's earliest gloves relied on bend (flex) sensors and IMUs to estimate the pose of each finger.[8] That approach continued in the Prime line: the Manus Prime 3 Haptic XR, for example, uses five 2-degree-of-freedom flexible sensors together with six 9-degree-of-freedom IMUs per glove, integrated vibrotactile haptics, a quoted signal latency of 7.5 milliseconds or less, a 60 Hz sensor sample rate, about 12 hours of battery life and a 3-hour USB-C recharge.[26]

The 2022 Quantum Metagloves moved to a magnetic tracking system. A magnetic base sits on the back of the hand, and a module on each fingertip is sensed within that field.[21] Because the fingertips are tracked directly, the gloves measure absolute finger length and width once calibrated, which lets the software scale a skeletal hand model to each user. In Road to VR's demo, fingers touching each other or the palm, situations where camera-based hand tracking tends to struggle, showed no obvious clipping or stuttering. Manus said that holding metallic or electronic objects could throw off the tracking, that the custom parts and manufacturing made it difficult to bring the price down, and that up to eight gloves can be used near one another without interference.[21] At pre-order Road to VR reported a 120 Hz finger sample rate, signal latency of 5 ms or less and a four-hour swappable battery.[22] The company's later product page lists 120 Hz, latency of 7.5 ms or less, up to three hours of continuous use with swappable batteries, a two-hour USB-C charge, Bluetooth Low Energy 5 with up to 15 m range and a weight of 138 g including the battery.[27]

The Metagloves Pro, the current model, uses five fingertip EMF sensors with 6DOF tracking (3-axis position and 3-axis rotation) sampled at 120 Hz. Manus lists motion-to-data latency of 30 ms wired and 50 ms wireless, up to three hours of continuous use with an interchangeable battery, a Bluetooth 5.0 wireless dongle with up to 15 m range and a weight of 167 g for a medium glove.[28] The company describes a 25-degree-of-freedom hand model and a detachable top module that lets several users share one set of electronics.[29] The Metagloves Pro Haptic adds vibrotactile feedback from linear resonant actuators to the same EMF tracking, aimed at robotics teleoperation, XR training simulations and embodied AI development.[30]

Manus gloves are designed to plug into professional pipelines through the MANUS Core software, which records glove data and streams it into engines and animation tools.[19] The Metagloves Pro product page shows integrations with OpenXR, SteamVR, ROS 2, Unity, Unreal, MotionBuilder and VRED, with optical and inertial motion capture software from Xsens, OptiTrack and others, and a mount for third-party trackers including Vive trackers.[29]

Products

Product Year Type Notes
Development Kit (DK1) 2016 Finger-tracking gloves First developer gloves; finger sensors plus accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer; 250 US dollars; HTC Vive controllers for positional tracking[5][2]
Development Kit 2 (DK2) 2017 Finger-tracking gloves Improved VR functionality[5]
Prime I / Prime One 2018 Data gloves Company timeline lists the Prime I with haptic feedback in 2018; UploadVR reported the Prime One, Haptic Prime and Xsens Prime line-up in June 2019[5][18]
Polygon 2019 (prototype) Full-body motion capture software Full-body capture from six tracked points; made free for the creative community in 2021[5][19]
Prime II 2020 Finger-tracking gloves From 1,499 euros (Nov 2020); Prime II Haptic 2,499 euros; Prime II Xsens 3,990 euros[5][19]
Manus Pro Tracker 2021 SteamVR tracker Pre-orders February 2021 at 300 euros (360 US dollars); 62 g; up to 4.5 hours of continuous use; the company timeline lists it under 2020[20][5]
Prime X series 2021 Finger-tracking gloves [5]
Quantum Metagloves 2022 Magnetic finger-tracking gloves 120 Hz fingertip tracking; 9,000 US dollars (7,500 euros) per pair at pre-order; end of life June 2026[22][24]
Manus Prime 3 Haptic XR 2023 Haptic VR gloves 5x 2DoF flex sensors and 6x 9DoF IMUs per glove; vibrotactile haptics; about 12 h battery[26]
Prime 3 Mocap 2023 Motion capture gloves Mocap variant of the Prime 3 line[5]
Quantum Bodypack 2023 Full-body motion capture Body-tracking pack paired with the gloves[5]
Xsens Prime 3 Gloves by Manus 2024 Motion capture gloves Sold by Movella for the Xsens Awinda system; 3,799 US dollars[23]
Bodypack Lite 2024 Full-body motion capture [5]
Metagloves Pro 2024 EMF finger-tracking gloves Five EMF fingertip sensors at 120 Hz; successor to the Quantum Metagloves[5][28][24]
Metagloves Pro Haptic 2025 EMF haptic gloves EMF tracking with linear resonant actuator feedback[5][30]

Reception

Early hands-on coverage was positive about the concept. Road to VR wrote in 2015 that the wireless glove "looks promising",[7] while Kent Bye's 2016 GDC demo found the tracking consistent but the finger latency noticeable.[16] In its GDC 2022 hands-on with the magnetic Quantum Metagloves, Road to VR said they promised "new levels of finger tracking accuracy", saw no obvious clipping when fingers touched each other or the palm, and reported that the cost of the custom parts stood in the way of a consumer version.[21] The cost of the Quantum line, around 9,000 US dollars per pair, reflected a deliberate focus on enterprise, studio and research customers rather than mainstream consumers.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Christa Parrish (2015-07-14). "Start-up top 10: Manus Machina and the virtual reality glove". Innovation Origins. https://innovationorigins.com/en/start-up-top-10-manus-machina-and-the-virtual-reality-glove/. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Paul James (2016-03-15). "Manus Announces VR Gloves Developer Kit Priced $250, Shipping in Q3". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/manus-announces-vr-gloves-developer-kit-priced-250-shipping-in-q2/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  3. ↑ "MANUS - High-Precision Data Gloves for Robotics, VR and Mocap". MANUS. https://www.manus-meta.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Bart Brouwers (2019-11-12). "Eindhovens investeringsfonds steekt twee miljoen in Manus VR". IO+. https://ioplus.nl/archive/nl/nieuwe-investeerder-voor-manus-vr/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20 "About Us". MANUS (manus-meta.com). https://www.manus-meta.com/about-us. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "MANUS at NVIDIA GTC 2026: From Jensen Huang's Keynote to the Show Floor". MANUS. 2026-05-22. https://manus-meta.com/blog/manus-at-nvidia-gtc-2026. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Paul James (2015-05-29). "Video Preview: Manus Machina's Wireless VR Glove Looks Promising, Headed to E3 2015". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/video-preview-manus-machinas-wireless-vr-glove-looks-promising-headed-to-e3-2015/. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Natasha Lomas (2015-06-23). "Manus Machina Is Building Gaming Gloves For VR". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/23/manus-machina-is-building-gaming-gloves-for-vr/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  9. ↑ Maria Korolov (2015-06-27). "Manus shows off consumer VR glove at E3". Hypergrid Business. https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2015/06/manus-shows-off-consumer-vr-glove-at-e3/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  10. ↑ Scott Hayden (2015-08-06). "Hands On: 'Manus' Wireless VR Gloves Adding OSVR Integration, Promising Hints of Future Positional Tracking". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/hands-manus-wireless-vr-gloves-adding-osvr-integration-promising-hints-future-positional-tracking/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Manus VR - The first virtual reality glove for the consumer market". Manus VR (archived). 2016-06-24. http://web.archive.org/web/20160624082605/https://manus-vr.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Manus VR - Blog and Latest Posts". Manus VR (archived). 2017-02-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20170210114847/https://manus-vr.com/blog. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Jessica Conditt (2016-03-10). "Use your fingers to play in Vive's world with the Manus VR glove". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2016-03-10-htc-vive-manus-vr-glove-dev-kit-pre-order.html. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  14. ↑ Joe Durbin (2016-05-06). "ManusVR Adds Arm Tracking Capabilities To Upcoming SDK". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/manusvr-adds-arm-tracking-to-gloves/. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Charles Singletary (2016-09-08). "NASA is Using Manus VR Gloves to Train Astronauts in Mixed Reality". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/nasa-using-manus-vr-gloves-train-astronauts-mixed-reality/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Kent Bye (2016-09-10). "Tracking Your Hands Using Flex Sensor Technology with Manus VR". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/tracking-hands-using-flex-sensor-technology-manus-vr/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  17. ↑ "#YoungTalent: Where are they now? Manus VR". NLO. 2018-11-29. https://www.nlo.eu/en/cases/youngtalent-where-are-they-now-manus-vr. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 David Jagneaux (2019-06-26). "Manus VR Introduces New Prime Series With Haptic Feedback". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/manus-vr-prime-series-with-haptic-feedback/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 Sam Sprigg (2020-11-09). "Manus lowers price of its Prime II finger tracking gloves for Mocap and VR to EUR 1,499". Auganix. https://www.auganix.org/?p=5805. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Scott Hayden (2021-02-17). "Manus Announces SteamVR Tracker for Professional Creators, Pre-orders Now Open". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/manus-pro-steamvr-tracker/. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Ben Lang (2022-03-25). "Latest Manus VR Gloves Promise New Levels of Finger Tracking Accuracy". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/manus-quantum-metagloves-vr-gloves-gdc-2022/. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 Scott Hayden (2022-05-10). "Manus Begins Pre-orders for Latest VR Gloves for Enterprise, Quantum Metagloves". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/manus-vr-gloves-quantum-order/. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "High-Fidelity Finger Tracking at USD 3,799: Movella Unveils the New Xsens Prime 3 Gloves by Manus". Xsens. Movella. 2024-03-25. https://www.xsens.com/company/press-room/movella-unveils-the-new-xsens-prime-3-gloves-by-manus. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 "MANUS Quantum Metagloves Reach End-of-Life". MANUS. 2026-06-23. https://www.manus-meta.com/blog/manus-quantum-metagloves-reach-end-of-life. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  25. ↑ "Mercedes-Benz Deploys Apptronik's Apollo at Factory Floor Using MANUS Gloves". MANUS. 2026-02-26. https://www.manus-meta.com/use-cases/mercedes-benz-deploys-apptroniks-apollo-at-factory-floor-using-manus-gloves. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 "Introducing SenseGlove Nova 2 and MANUS Prime 3 Haptic XR Gloves". Knoxlabs. 2023-06-21. https://www.knoxlabs.com/blogs/vr-xr-news/introducing-senseglove-nova-2-and-manus-prime-3-haptic-xr-gloves. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  27. ↑ "MANUS Quantum Metagloves: Professional Motion Capture Gloves". MANUS (manus-meta.com). https://www.manus-meta.com/products/quantum-metagloves. Retrieved June 15, 2026.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 "MANUS Metagloves Pro - Specs". MANUS. https://www.manus-meta.com/products/metagloves-pro-specs. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 "MANUS Metagloves Pro - High-Precision Hand Tracking for Robotics". MANUS. https://www.manus-meta.com/products/metagloves-pro. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 "Introducing MANUS Metagloves Pro Haptic: Precise Hand Tracking Meets Real-Time Haptic Feedback". MANUS. 2026-03-20. https://www.manus-meta.com/blog/metagloves-pro-haptic-precise-hand-tracking-meets-real-time-haptic-feedback. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
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