The ZED Mini camera turns VR into AR

You know how when you put someone in VR initially that doesn’t understand the technology or know very much about it, one of the first things they always do is reach out with their hands and try to touch the digital world? VR headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, and all of the others don’t track your hand movement at all and instead rely on peripherally handheld controllers instead, but it doesn’t stop our brain from reacting that way. The simulation is so believable that, as impressionable creatures, we want to reach out and touch things.

The ZED Mini, a recently released attachable AR camera (it’s still basically a devkit, this isn’t a consumer product just yet) essentially lets you do just that. By attaching the camera to the front of an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive it transforms your otherwise insulated VR headset that can only be used to transport you to other worlds into an AR headset that can be used to augment the world around you.