May 26, 2021 – Visualization firm and software developer Theia Interactive has today announced the launch of Claria, a set of biometric tracking tools capable of analyzing and reporting a person’s physical reactions while in virtual reality (VR). According to the company, Claria is built exclusively for HP’s Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition headset, and tracks six key physical responses to help designers, marketers, researchers and creators understand exactly how a person feels about a given product or experience.
Claria draws on biosensors within the Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition headset to track heart rate, heart rate variability, cognitive load, eye vector, pupillometry (the measurement of pupil size and reactivity) and saccade (a rapid movement of the eye between fixation points). As a result, Claria offers a comprehensive look at a person’s physical responses, and then creates easy-to-understand datasets from this information.
This in turn should allow product designers to determine what element is or isn’t intuitive in a product for example, or enable marketers to understand what attracts attention within a publicity campaign, or provide psychologists with information to pinpoint the exact onset of stress in a given situation. Theia Interactive stated that decisions that once relied on subjective interpretation can now be made using empirical data.
“Claria takes the guesswork out of designing products and campaigns,” said Bill Fishkin, co-founder and CEO of Theia Interactive. “We can put someone in VR and know exactly what about the experience we build attracts them, excites them, even overwhelms them, to arrive at better designs through more informed decisions.”
The biometric results recorded by Claria can be played back, or viewed as heat maps and graphs, to help users better understand the information. Claria is also designed to work within Unreal Engine and has multi-user capabilities that can bring different parties together inside a project. Users and creators can connect from anywhere in the world, using voice chat and built-in VR tools to make changes to their work in real-time, based on the reactions observed.
“Knowing a person’s true, unfiltered reaction means that anyone designing products or trying to attract people has a significant advantage over those relying on traditional methods,” said Jay Fraser, Senior Manager, XR GTM & Developer Relations at HP. “The HP Reverb G2 Omnicept Solution has the tools to collect and interpret that data, and Claria makes it easy for anyone to easily leverage the power of this cutting-edge technology.”
Theia Interactive noted that Claria is available now as a perpetual license through the company’s early access program. Licenses are available in packs of three, five and ten. The full access launch is expected by the end of 2021. For more information on Theia Interactive and its virtual reality services and solutions, please visit the company’s website.
Image credit: Theia Interactive
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.