Pinch VR Industrial Design
PinchVR® is pocket-friendly in its collapsed mode allowing the user to swivel between a closed and open case design enabling the normal use of their smartphone within a 28mm thick form factor. Once expanded, PinchVR® became a fully featured VR system with popup lens assemblies, head strap and controllers. The back and forth between these two modes would be controlled by a mobile app sensing the orientation of the smartphone.
Due to the long list of features of the product, it was challenging to simplify focus on what the key differentiating feature was. We decided to focus on the actual interaction mechanic, or ‘pinching’ of controllers with the index finger and thumb to encapsulate the product experience and likewise reflect that in the branding. The design language was aimed to be futuristic, minimalist and aggressive in our pursuit to deliver a fundamentally new mobile experience.
We developed several utility and design patents for a pocket sized mobile VR system, doubling as a smartphone holder or case, that unfolds into a virtual reality headset and can be worn anytime anywhere.
Although there are several options for creating sleek VR headsets, we felt there was a lot already solved in utilizing smartphone components to drive entry level VR experiences. There were several smartphone accessories that were coupled with smartphones that were interesting.
The smartphone case was the most obvious form factor that made sense in creating an experience that was attached to the smartphone and provided additional functionality, namely battery cases and wallet cases that were already successful in the marketplace.
Although there were several novel concepts we continued to utilize in the production design, we also revised several others that required rethinking due to comfort, manufacturing and ergonomic constraints. The key component to solve for was comfort which required several iterations to account for due to the size constraints we were working with within the collapsed state of the visor.
To solve this we moved away from a padded interface with the user’s face, and instead relied on an optimized head strap design that offloaded pressure away from the bridge of the nose and moved it to the forehead.
The guided railing system for the optical assembly also required several iterations due to its sensitivity to movement in the expanded state of the visor. We derived a scissor X system that allowed for a spring loaded expansion and locking mechanism for the optical assembly that ensured the optics stayed perfectly still in their expanded state.
The introduction of fresnel lenses to the design also opened up more possibilities with space optimization. We were able to achieve an overall thickness of 28mm for the enclosure in its collapsed state with the smartphone nested in the phone holder enclosure.