Immersion Loses Its Grip on CyberGlove

Immersion has sole its CyberGlove business to a private equity firm so it can focus not on gaming gear, but medical and touch businesses.

Immersion is best known for developing haptics technologies that are used in everything from mobile phones to game controllers: if your phone has ever vibrated or your controller ever rumbled, the odds are that you have Immersion to thank for it. However, the company is backing away from a technology that some were hoping would eventually make its way into mainstream applications: the CyberGlove. Immersion has announced it is selling its CyberGlove business to the private equity firm Shackleton Advisors. The company did not disclose financial terms of the sale, but noted the move is part of a strategic decision to focus on its medical and touch lines of business.

CyberGlove will be spun off into its own company, CyberGlove Systems LLC, and will continue to honor warranties and offer customer support. CyberGlove is keeping Faisal Yazadi on as CEO—Yazadi served as head of sales for the CyberGlove division, and says the company will continue to invest in the CyberGlove technology. “We continue to acquire new customers, and customer demand is anticipated to increase as we invest in our products and share our software development kit for the development of new applications in markets such as aerospace, automotive, biometrics, engineering, gaming, military, and motion capture,” said Yazadi in a statement.

The CyberGlove offers both kinesthetic and vibrotactile feedback; available in 18- and 22-sensor versions, the gloves are widely used in motion capture and in applications enabling users to manipulate virtual objects and “feel” their interactions with them.