A Decade In The Making, HaptX Team Debuts Full Body VR Haptics

The original running man from Axon, 2016.

Axon

In 2017 I visited a small VR startup called AxonVR in Seattle. Founder Jake Rubin showed me concept art for a full body suspension system. A user hung in mid air inside a frame, held in place by a network of supports that allowed the arms and legs to move freely. The idea was simple to state and difficult to build. They wanted to create total immersion by capturing every motion and returning physical feedback across the user’s entire body. It looked like something from a futurist exhibit. It also captured the ambition of a team that believed VR needed more than visuals and audio to be useful.

The suspension system never shipped. AxonVR changed its name to HaptX and shifted its focus to haptic gloves powered by microfluidics. The team found immediate demand for precise tactile feedback in robotics, training, and design. Gloves became the company’s core product. Enterprise customers used them to train medical staff, evaluate automotive prototypes, and operate remote manipulators. Defense agencies incorporated them into medic training modules. Robotics groups relied on them for fine motor teleoperation.

That focus eventually reshaped the company. HaptX began working closely with a manufacturing group called Advanced Input Systems. The partnership deepened over the years and expanded again in 2024. The gloves became a supported product line inside the broader organization. The combined entity adopted the name 1HMX. Rubin and members of his team became part of the larger company. The resources available to them changed. The manufacturing footprint now spans several continents. The gloves matured into a stable commercial product with a large global customer base.

Last week Rubin reached out again. The note contained a link to a new system called Nexus NX1. It launches next week under the 1HMX brand. Rubin told me it is the closest thing the company has ever built to the suspended full body concept they sketched ten years ago. The visual form is different. The purpose is the same.

eNexus NX1 joins three mature products in one turnkey system. The HaptX Gloves G1 provide detailed tactile and force feedback. The Virtuix Omni One provides a platform that enables a user to walk in any direction while remaining stationary in physical space. Freeaim robotic shoes add natural stride and foot movement. The system tracks seventy two degrees of freedom across the hands and body. It captures posture, limb rotation, foot placement, center of mass, and soft tissue movement. It returns real time tactile information from hundreds of points on the fingers and palms.

The result is a body scale interface that can control both virtual characters and physical robots. Users can walk, reach, grasp, and lift with realistic feedback. Developers can collect data describing how skilled workers move through complex tasks. Robotics teams can link the system to a humanoid robot and observe how a trained operator performs precise motions. Training groups can use it to rehearse procedures inside simulated environments.

The introduction video shows the intended use. A person walks inside the Omni platform. The shoes move with the surface. Every gesture and shift in balance flows through the system. A humanoid robot mirrors the movements. The user receives touch and pressure information through the gloves. It is not a suspended rig. It is grounded. The experience is shaped by the strengths of the components.

I asked Rubin how closely Nexus NX1 matches the vision he described in 2017. He said it aligns with the goal the team set when they were still called AxonVR. Full body input, full body output, and real physical response. The form changed. The intention remained.

Preorders for Nexus NX1 open November 18 with shipments expected in second quarter 2026. It marks a return to the idea that started the company. AxonVR imagined a full body system before the industry had a way to build it. The version arriving now comes from a far larger organization with the scale to produce it.