The use of gesture and motion controls in smartphone-based VR will be the key to driving usage, according to the latest report from Juniper Research.
Juniper has forecasted that VR in devices will grow 280 per cent by 2020, up from 128 million by the end of 2016 to 492 million.
The research firm predicts that nearly 50 per cent of all wearables and almost all VR devices to use gesture control technology by 2021. However, for more established platforms like PCs and smartphones, it expects usage to remain limited.
“The arrival of motion control for smartphone VR in 2017 will start a shift towards multimodal computing, using both peripherals and motion and gesture control,” said Juniper.
“However, at the moment this will simply extend current functionalities, holding back adoption across devices as a whole, unless the UI paradigm changes.”
James Moar, research author, added, “VR and wearables have shown the way that gesture and haptics can provide fresh ways to interact with technology.
“The game-changer for other platforms will be when technology firms are brave enough to reinvent their UIs to incorporate gesture and motion control, rather than considering it an optional add-on.”
