bHaptics TactGlove can provide great touch sensations in VR

At AWE, I was able to go hands-on with the latest version of the bHaptics gloves. And I have to say that they have improved a lot compared to the last time…

bHaptics

I’m pretty sure that if you are a reader of this blog, you already know bHaptics very well. But just in case you’ve just started with XR, let me give you a short primer. bHaptics is a Korean company that focuses on providing haptic sensations for VR. It specializes in vibrational haptics, and it provides various accessories (vests, gloves, etc…) with inside vibrational motors that can provide you with the sense of having been touched or hit by something while you are in VR. The haptics are meant to make your gaming experience more realistic: if in a shooter game you’re hit and you have a vest vibrating at the point you have been hit, the game is for sure more immersive and cooler to play.

While various companies providing this type of hardware are mainly focused on the enterprise sector (e.g. Senseglove), bHaptics focuses on both enterprise and gaming. Its accessories are usually quite affordable, and bHaptics works a lot with game developers to integrate its hardware with games available on stores like the Meta Quest Store or SteamVR. When I was working on the fitness game HitMotion: Reloaded, I worked with them, and I have to say it is one of the best companies I’ve ever collaborated with: they provided us with the hardware, plus all the facilities to have a smooth integration. We integrated everything in a few hours. If you are a game studio, I would really advise considering a collaboration with them.

When I was at their booth, I was able to go hands-on with the latest iteration of their Haptic vest and Haptic gloves. The main focus of the experience was the gloves, though, so I will focus my review on them.

TactGlove DK3

The gloves that I was able to try were the TactGlove DK3. These gloves feature a few different motors:

• One for each fingertip, to provide haptic sensations when you are touching something in VR with your fingers
• Two on the palm, to provide sensations when the whole hand touches something, or when some object touches your hand
• One on the wrist, to provide a haptic sensation related to hand movements

The gloves are made with synthetic material. To wear them, you just stick your hands in, and then you close them around your wrist using a magnetic strap that ensures the gloves stay in place.

The gloves are washable so that you can keep them clean. And in case you need to quickly operate your phone while you take a break from VR, you can keep the gloves on, because the fingertips are touchscreen-friendly.

Once the gloves are set up, you can launch your game on Quest and then have the haptic sensations simulated by the vibrations of the motors. And this is what happened during my hands-on session.

Hands-on impressions of TactGlove DK3

I tried these new gloves by bHaptics for around 10 minutes (so consider this article a “first impressions” post and not a complete review). Wearing them was very easy, and the fact that the closing strap was magnetic and not with velcro made it incredibly easy to put them on and off. I can’t comment on the sensations of the gloves’ material on the skin, because I was wearing an internal hygiene glove. But overall, the fit was good, and the glove felt pretty lightweight. My only complaint on the comfort side is that you can constantly feel the little vibrational engines touching your fingertips. It is like always having a watch battery strapped to your finger. I don’t know if this sensation goes away with the constant use of the glove, but for sure, in my short demo, I kept having it.

bHaptics showed me a demo about repairing a spaceship (which also contained a cat I could pet, so it was definitely good). In the demo, there were buttons to touch, knobs to rotate, and elements to grab. After the demo, there was a playground where I could keep interacting with various objects to test the sensation given by the glove.

I have to say that compared to when I last tried bHaptics gloves a couple of years ago, the product made a big jump ahead. The purely “touch” sensations were now definitely good. Touching buttons, touching objects, touching the table… all felt much more immersive with bHaptics gloves than without. Compared to the past, it seems the haptic sensation is much more nuanced. In the demo, I could touch a sphere hanging from the ceiling and then a similar-but-heavier sphere, and I could clearly feel the difference in haptics. All buttons in the experience were incredibly nice to touch. I can’t say the haptic sensation was the same as in real life, but I can say in some cases it started to go towards the “believable” stage. The sensation the haptic motors can give on the fingertips is now not the one of “vibrating”, but the subtle sense of “touching”, and this is simply amazing. It has been one of the best haptic sensations I had on my fingertip in the last times.

All the other sensations that were not strictly “touch” were definitely less believable. For instance, lifting an object would require force feedback on your hand and your arm. Or grabbing a drill, lifting it, and operating it would require a whole set of different haptic sensations. It was still nice to feel some vibrations in this case, but it was definitely not as realistic as in the other case of just touching.

It’s interesting to mention that I tried my demo on the Quest, and the bHaptics gloves were not influencing the hand tracking performance of the device at all. I even tried to put one hand in front of the other, and the Quest fingers tracking was working as well as before.

Price and availability

bHaptics gloves can be preordered for $385 on the bHaptics website. Shipping starts at the end of June (2026).

Final impressions

I was genuinely satisfied by this hands-on session with bHaptics. I could really see a big progress in their product, and a company spokesperson confirmed to me that a lot of work has been done to improve the haptic sensations.

The haptic feedback is more nuanced and more realistic, and especially the sensations of “touch” with the fingertips are well emulated. When you touch something with these bHaptics gloves, you have a higher sensation of realism. All the other sensations (e.g. grab, lift) are not as realistic, but it depends on the fact that these are affordable gloves that just feature vibrational motors and not any other force feedback mechanism. It is definitely difficult for them to emulate other touch sensations.

In general, it seemed to me a good product if you want to have a light enhancement of your sense of immersion when playing your VR games.