I’ve been playing AR pool in Seoul, it was King’s Pool AR mode and I really liked it. However, I didn’t play it with an actual pool cue (stick) not it had any haptic feedback to make it feel real. Just imagine having a unique pool cue gadget that can interface with a proprietary and complimentary augmented reality pool app and provide you with the benefits of holding a real pool cue, including the haptic feedback and the physical feeling of holding a pool cue in your hand.
One of the main benefits of this type of AR game is that it can actually be a very useful simulator for practicing playing pool or Billiards without needing an actual pool table in your house. Of course, because it’s an app, you won’t have to put back the balls on the table, use different game modes, undo and redo ball locations, choose any table size you want and change its height, practice tricks, have the score saves automatically, etc.
However, for this type of app, you’ll need AR glasses, because you want your hands to be completely free. It can work with a phone attached to a headset like in HADO, but the best use for it will be with AR glasses for sure.
Now that Magic Leap One is out, I think that this type of game can even be done with an online multiplayer option. However, for that game to feel real, we’ll need that pool cue to have some sort of haptic feedback embedded features. It might be restrained to your waist with a hydraulic extension to give you the feeling of support when you put the pool cue on the table which actually doesn’t exist (remember, it’s an AR game, the table and anything other than the pool cue is all virtual). When you hit the ball, there should be a mechanism that gives you the haptic feedback like you hit a real ball or if a ball hits the pool cue on the side, you should feel it.
So to play pool in your home, all you need is that one pool cue gadget and a complementary app and you can play pool in your house. The cost of that should be much less than buying a real pool table if you already have AR/MR glasses available.
If I had AR glasses, I know that I would be really glad if such accessory was available, because I can just invite friends, take that pool cue stick and play pool with my friends in my little apartment.
What do you guys think about it?
Banner image credit: By User:Evdcoldeportes [CC BY-SA 2.5 co], via Wikimedia Commons
