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USens

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uSens
Information
Industry Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, computer vision
Founded 2013
Founder Anli He, Yue Fei, Chris Shi
Headquarters San Jose, California, United States
Notable Personnel Anli He (CEO), Yue Fei (CTO)
Products Impression Pi, Fingo, uSensAR


uSens (uSens, Inc.; Chinese: 凌感) is a computer-vision company headquartered in San Jose, California, that developed hand tracking, inside-out tracking and gesture-recognition technology for virtual reality and augmented reality devices. It was founded in 2013 by Anli He, Yue Fei and Chris Shi.[1][2] In 2019 its website listed offices in Beijing and Hangzhou in addition to San Jose.[3]

In 2015 it crowdfunded the Impression Pi, a smartphone-based VR and AR headset with gesture and position tracking, on Kickstarter. It later dropped the headset to sell its tracking technology to hardware makers, centered on the Fingo stereo-camera module and SDK, which provided 26 degrees of freedom (26DOF) hand tracking.[4][5] In 2018 it introduced uSensAR, a smartphone AR engine, and by 2019 it also marketed gesture-control and in-cabin sensing software for cars.[6][7]

Reviewed 6 October 2026. Founding, founders, funding rounds, Impression Pi Kickstarter figures and refund notice, Fingo module specs, partnerships, uSensAR and the 2018 dispute report checked against the cited press releases, archived uSens and Kickstarter pages, and news articles. About review dates.

History

Founding and Impression Pi

uSens was established in Silicon Valley in late 2013.[1][2] A March 2018 report by the Chinese VR outlet VR Tuoluo, republished by Jiemian, described the founders as Anli He, a former senior chip designer at Intel; her husband Yue Fei, a human-computer interaction specialist; and Chris Shi.[2] Anli He became chief executive and Yue Fei chief technology officer.[8] In 2015 the company described itself as operating from San Jose and Hangzhou.[9]

The Impression Pi Kickstarter campaign launched on 12 March 2015 with a goal of US$78,000 and closed on 6 May 2015 (both dates Pacific time) with US$301,719 pledged by 508 backers.[10] uSens described the headset as wireless, with six-degrees-of-freedom head tracking, 3D gesture recognition and augmented reality.[9] In September 2015 uSens announced a US$5.5 million pre-Series A round, completed that June, co-led by IDG Ventures, Lebox Capital and Maison Capital. The same announcement mentioned Fingo Virtual Touch, a line of touch-free 3D interactive kiosks the company sold in China.[1]

Fulfillment went slowly. uSens told backers that the Starter Pack shipped in April 2016, and that the first Core and Empower rewards shipped in January 2017.[11] On 21 February 2017 it announced that it had ended the Impression Pi product line to become "a core technology provider", a decision it said was made in early 2016. It offered refunds to backers still waiting for rewards and to those who wanted to return rewards they had received, with requests due by 31 March 2017.[4]

Series A and the Fingo platform

On 1 June 2016 uSens announced a US$20 million Series A round led by Fosun Kinzon Capital. Maison Capital returned, and Great Capital, Fortune Capital, Oriental Fortune Capital, iResearch Capital, Chord Capital and the ARM Innovation Ecosystem Accelerator also took part. The company said the money would go toward launching its inside-out 26DOF hand tracking and 6DOF head tracking.[8] TechNode reported total funding of US$26.7 million after the round, including a US$1.2 million angel round in 2014.[12] In May 2018 the company said it had raised US$26.6 million in venture funding to date.[13]

At a launch event in San Francisco on 29 August 2016, uSens announced an open beta of its SDK and pre-orders for a series of Fingo developer modules. The three modules were an entry-level Fingo, Color Fingo and Power Fingo.[14] TechCrunch reported that the company did not intend to sell consumer hardware and wanted headset makers to adopt its tracking software.[15] It ran the uDev Challenge developer contest in the United States and China, and at the Augmented World Expo on 31 May 2017 announced winners sharing US$200,000 in prizes.[16]

At CES in January 2017, uSens showed Fingo with several VR headsets. Variety reported that the module was compatible with Epson's Epson Moverio BT-300 glasses and that uSens was mainly targeting developers.[17] In May 2017 the company said its next-generation technology combined 6DOF head tracking and 26DOF hand tracking on a single stereo camera module, where earlier approaches had needed three or four cameras.[5] Fingo SDK 1.1, released in July 2017, improved two-hand tracking, occlusion handling and tracking against complex backgrounds, and added support for Google Pixel phones.[18]

Partnerships and the move to smartphones

In November 2017 uSens said it was a tracking partner in HTC's Vive Wave open platform for mobile VR, which HTC introduced at its developer conference alongside the HTC Vive Focus.[19] At CES 2018 it announced a partnership with Pico Interactive that brought Fingo 26DOF hand tracking to the Pico Goblin all-in-one headset through a custom mount. The two companies said they would focus first on education and enterprise customers.[20][21]

The same CES brought uSensAR, a single-camera smartphone AR engine built for low-end cameras, sensors and IMUs. uSens pitched it at Android phones outside the reach of Google's ARCore.[6] uSens said the engine already provided AR camera effects in the native camera app of chipmaker Spreadtrum's SC9853 platform.[6] In a release the following day, Spreadtrum described the joint solution for its SC9853I chipset and said the uSens technology, based on monocular RGB cameras, delivered position accuracy of up to 1 mm.[22] On 31 May 2018, at AWE, uSens released a beta of the uSensAR Hand Tracking SDK for iOS and Android, which used a phone's RGB camera with computer vision and deep learning to track the full hand skeleton rather than only fingertips.[13]

Leadership changes

In January 2017 uSens appointed Eunseok Park, previously US regional director of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, as its US general manager.[23] In March 2018 the VR Tuoluo report republished by Jiemian described a public dispute between Anli He and co-founder and former chief operating officer Chris Shi over his departure. According to former employees interviewed by the outlet, staff were told of his exit in December 2017, and much of the Beijing gesture-recognition team and over half of the 12-person Shenzhen hardware team had since left. The report also said that uSens was moving from VR toward mobile AR and automotive gesture recognition, with a Series B round in progress.[2]

Products

Product Announced Type Notes
Impression Pi March 2015 Smartphone VR/AR headset Kickstarter-funded; the top Master tier was an all-in-one unit that did not need a smartphone; line ended in 2017 with refunds offered[9][11][4]
Fingo August 2016 Hand tracking module Entry-level module for 26DOF controller-free hand tracking and marker-based 6DOF head tracking; listed at US$99 in 2017[14][5]
Color Fingo August 2016 Tracking module Inside-out 6DOF head position tracking and AR overlay; dual 1280x720 RGB cameras, 60 fps, 20 ms latency, 1 m to 3 m range; made available for pre-order on 1 November 2016[14][24]
Power Fingo August 2016 Tracking module Hand tracking, inside-out 6DOF head tracking and AR overlay, with its own battery and Qualcomm Snapdragon processor[14]
uSensAR January 2018 Smartphone AR engine Monocular SLAM with visual-inertial odometry and plane detection; Unity, C++ and Java support[6]
uSensAR Hand Tracking SDK May 2018 (beta) Smartphone SDK Skeletal hand tracking from a phone's RGB camera on iOS and Android[13]
Falcon suite 2019 or earlier Automotive software Gesture control and driver and passenger monitoring based on deep learning[7]

Technology

uSens described its hand tracking as 26DOF, with tracking of 22 finger joints, and its head tracking as inside-out 6DOF.[5] Its company profile, as archived in 2019, said the mobile positional tracking (SLAM) was built for mobile AR and VR devices using machine learning and computer vision.[3] The Fingo modules clipped to the front of a head-mounted display. In 2017 the company listed support for Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream, Google Cardboard and PC-tethered systems such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.[5][16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Virtual Reality Startup uSens Raised $5.5 Million in Pre-Series A Funding Led by IDG Ventures, Lebox Capital and Maison Capital". Yahoo Finance. uSens, Inc.. 2015-09-15. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/virtual-reality-startup-usens-raised-180929873.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "凌感创始人撕X，核心手势技术团队几乎走光". Jiemian (republished from VR Tuoluo). 2018-03-14. https://m.jiemian.com/article/1989271.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "About Us". uSens. https://web.archive.org/web/20190722140957/https://en.usens.com/company/about-us/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Announcement to our Valued Impression Pi Backers". Kickstarter. uSens, Inc.. 2017-02-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20170816233253/https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/impressionpi/impression-mobile-vr-ar-with-gesture-position-trac/posts/1812462. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "Augmented and Virtual Reality Tracking Technology from uSens Now Needs Only One Stereo Camera Module". PR Newswire. uSens, Inc.. 2017-05-10. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/augmented-and-virtual-reality-tracking-technology-from-usens-now-needs-only-one-stereo-camera-module-300454915.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 "uSensAR, the Smartphone Augmented Reality Engine, to Enable up to Two Billion Android Smartphones Users to Experience AR for the First Time". CES Press Room. uSens, Inc.. 2018-01-08. https://ces.vporoom.com/2018-01-08-uSensAR-the-Smartphone-Augmented-Reality-Engine-to-Enable-up-to-Two-Billion-Android-Smartphones-Users-to-Experience-AR-for-the-First-Time. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Falcon Suite". uSens. https://web.archive.org/web/20190722134200/https://en.usens.com/industry-solutions/falcon-suite/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "uSens Secures $20 Million in Series A Funding to Advance Mobile ARVR Tracking". PR Newswire. uSens, Inc.. 2016-06-01. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/usens-secures-20-million-in-series-a-funding-to-advance-mobile-arvr-tracking-300276340.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "Wireless VR + AR Headset Impression Pi from uSens Raises More Than 300% of Its Goal; Kickstarter Ends Today". PRWeb. uSens, Inc.. 2015-05-06. https://www.prweb.com/releases/wireless_vr_ar_headset_impression_pi_from_usens_raises_more_than_300_of_its_goal_kickstarter_ends_today/prweb12701414.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  10. ↑ "Impression π: Wireless VR+AR with Gesture+Position Tracking". Kickstarter. https://web.archive.org/web/20190507075228/https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/impressionpi/impression-mobile-vr-ar-with-gesture-position-trac/description. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Impression Pi project updates (feed)". Kickstarter. uSens, Inc.. https://web.archive.org/web/20170824220320/https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/impressionpi/impression-mobile-vr-ar-with-gesture-position-trac/posts.atom. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  12. ↑ Emma Lee (2016-06-03). "AR/VR Startup uSens Secures $20M For Hand And Head Tracking Tech". TechNode. https://technode.com/2016/06/03/usens-a-round/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 "uSens Debuts World's First AI-based 3D Skeletal Hand Tracking SDK for Smartphones". uSens. 2018-05-31. https://web.archive.org/web/20190722144234/https://en.usens.com/news/usens-debuts-worlds-first-ai-based-3d-skeletal-hand-tracking-sdk-for-smartphones/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 "uSens Announces SDK and Hardware Series for Virtual and Augmented Reality Tracking". EE Times. uSens, Inc.. 2016-08-29. https://www.eetimes.com/usens-announces-sdk-and-hardware-series-for-virtual-and-augmented-reality-tracking/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  15. ↑ Lucas Matney (2016-08-29). "uSens shows off new tracking sensors that aim to deliver richer experiences for mobile VR". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/29/usens-unveils-vr-sensor-modules-with-hand-tracking-and-mobile-positional-tracking-tech-baked-in/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Jon Piazza (2017-05-31). "uSens Announces Winners of $200,000 ARVR App Developer Contest". uSens. https://web.archive.org/web/20210506083944/https://en.usens.com/blog/2017/05/31/usens-announces-winners-of-200000-arvr-app-developer-contest/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  17. ↑ Janko Roettgers (2017-01-04). "uSens Fingo Is a $100 Hand Tracking Module for VR and AR Headsets". Variety. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/usens-fingo-100-hand-tracking-module-vr-ar-160055715.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  18. ↑ Jon Piazza (2017-07-19). "Check out the Fingo SDK 1.1 Release". uSens. https://web.archive.org/web/20210506101750/https://en.usens.com/blog/2017/07/19/check-out-the-fingo-sdk-1-1-release/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  19. ↑ Jon Piazza (2017-11-28). "uSens hand and gesture recognition technology". uSens. https://web.archive.org/web/20210506091933/https://en.usens.com/blog/2017/11/28/usens-hand-and-gesture-recognition-technology-takes-the-lead-in-integrating-with-vive-wave/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  20. ↑ "uSens Partners with Pico Interactive to Bring 26DOF Hand Tracking to Pico Goblin All-in-One VR Headset". CES Press Room. uSens, Inc.. 2018-01-08. https://ces.vporoom.com/2018-01-08-uSens-Partners-with-Pico-Interactive-to-Bring-26DOF-Hand-Tracking-to-Pico-Goblin-All-in-One-VR-Headset. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  21. ↑ Jamie Feltham (2018-01-05). "uSens Brings Fingo Hand-Tracking To Pico Goblin". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/usens-brings-fingo-hand-tracking-pico-goblin/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  22. ↑ "Tsinghua Unigroup Spreadtrum and uSens Jointly Release First AR Mobile Solution for the Mainstream Market". CES Press Room. Spreadtrum Communications. 2018-01-09. http://ces.vporoom.com/2018-01-09-Tsinghua-Unigroup-Spreadtrum-and-uSens-Jointly-Release-First-AR-Mobile-Solution-for-the-Mainstream-Market. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  23. ↑ Brandon Eiges (2017-01-23). "Dr. Eunseok Park Joins uSens as General Manager". uSens. https://web.archive.org/web/20210506085323/https://en.usens.com/blog/2017/01/23/dr-eunseok-park-joins-usens-as-general-manager-of-augmented-and-virtual-reality-tracking-company/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  24. ↑ "uSens Makes its Color Fingo Virtual and Augmented Reality Tracking Kit Available for Pre-Order". EDN. uSens, Inc.. 2016-11-01. https://www.edn.com/usens-makes-its-color-fingo-virtual-and-augmented-reality-tracking-kit-available-for-pre-order/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
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