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Comment by duked | Hacker News Reader

I completely agree, I was very excited until I saw the special shoes requirements. While I can see how it works, I don't really understand why they couldn't use a regular treadmill belt with some piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral movements.

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Because something capable of achieving that currently looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-8eVcN2z3k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msci440q18s

Think about it. How do you accomodate movement along multiple axis simultaneously using treadmill technology in a compact, affordable, game-room-sized package?

There's also this one: http://youtu.be/nQR49JGySTM

That certainly looks expensive.

It was. It cost well over half a million dollars, iirc.

> I don't really understand why they couldn't use a regular treadmill belt with some piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral movements.

Other than the obvious reason as they say, no moving parts(min 4 motors, moving belts etc) How would this work? How would one get coverage on a cone shaped walking zone, sounds to me like an engineering nightmare?

One of the design goals was "No moving parts". (And was done to keep costs down and a more maintainable/repairable/defect-free product)

I'm still excited; I think it's the type of innovation required to bring something like this to a mass market for a reasonable price.

price is an important factor as well. try finding a treadmill that supports lateral movement for $300 USD.

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