The Virtuix Omni One VR treadmill gets multi million dollar investment

Despite the presence on the best AR/VR headset lists, most XR headsets aren’t perfect. In fact, VR in general still has not one or two, but several demanding problems, which need not partial, but complete solutions.

As in, we really need to work on making VR more accessible, for that will make it more immersive and fun. Chief among these problems is navigation. And I’m not talking about UI and UX, which would be the menu and how you navigate it.

I’m talking about how a person physically moves while wearing a VR headset. Because there is nothing more immersion-breaking than the awful “going out of safe bounds” message when you are just trying to reach some sort of object.

And this is where VR treadmills come in: a way to stay in the “safe zone”, without having to stop moving altogether.



The Omni One from Virtuix is one such solution, which garnered a lot of attention. Right now, you can find a lot of tutorials and experiments of people making their own VR treadmills, but beyond that, there’s not many similar products available to purchase.

And if you’ve ever thought to yourself “Well, who’d buy something like this anyway”, I’ve got two things to share with you:

• Don’t forget that those racing-game fanatics with elaborate, realistic setups exist (and thank god for them!)
• Also, an investment campaign in the Virtuix Omni closed off with the company being very close to giving overboard on its $5 million goal

So, yeah, I’d say that I’d buy one for sure a lot of people would be interested in getting one.

The funding in question is planned to serve as means to ramp up production, which in turn will allow Virtuix to reach profitability in 2024. Right now, 8,000 beta units are being prepped for delivery and the company aims to ship another 1,000 by the end of this year.

But what’s so special about the Omni One anyway? Here are a few examples:

• It is an all-in-one solution, because it comes bundled with the Pico Neo 3 Pro, which can work without the need for a PC
• It’s an innovative approach, because the treadmill is basically a special surface that you move on with further special shoes, while the resulting movements is being tracked with even more special sensors
• The entire setup can be folded up to save space. Super underappreciated!

Fair warning though: the Omni One, as of now, is not stated to support working with other headsets, such as the Quest 2. Will that happen? We don’t know, as of now.

The “bundle” can be pre-ordered for $2,595 — which is still cheaper than an Apple Vision Pro — but you should keep in mind that you’d be joining a waitlist of 35,000 customers.