KatWalk Mini VR Treadmill up to 50% off Pre-Order Promotion for the month of April

So I’ve been looking into getting the KatWalk Mini VR treadmill and apparently they are having a pre-order promotion:
https://www.kat-vr.com/blogs/news/kat-walk-mini-omni-directional-vr-treadmill-now-even-50-off

The more people that pre-order, the lower the price of the device. Original price is $4000, right now tier 6 is unlocked which means it’s around $2,500 with free shipping.

The above promotion does not apply to areas of exclusive distribution:

Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Japan and United States

You really need to evaluate if this will do what your looking for.

@MarcoBalletta backed this during the KS and can likely answer questions on it

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What i can say is that you have to pay the customs and transportatiom from the sea port to your house, so the “free shipping” might not be free but a hole in the pocket.

If you can, i would suggest you to buy it from local vendors ro avoid customs fees and you shoukd make sure that when they claim “free transportation”, they acrually deljver the huge heavy box , right outside your stepdoor.
It is a huge heavy box!

@Heliosurge i bought the device from them, it was not the kickstarter, it was months after it closed :wink:
Big mistake i made to not buy it under kickstarter time and huge mistake i made by getting fooled with the claim “free shipping” they made

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I live in Canada, I don’t know if there are any local vendors selling the KatVR and if so, it’s probably the retail $4,000 price. This promotion on alibaba would save me a lot of money. They say anyone who pre-orders gets free CIF (Cost, insurance, and freight) delivery. I wouldn’t mind paying for customs and other fees because overall the savings will still be lower than retail.

What do you think of the KatVR Mini @MarcoBalletta, is it good?

  1. Did you check how much would be the custom fees?

  2. Do you have a huge car to load inside your car the huge box when you are going to get it at the seaport?

  3. Be sure they are not fooling you with what they claim is free and then become hidden costs for you

  4. do you have a lot of space for it to store it? It is bulky and heavy

  5. i do not use it at all. I feel like chained on a platform losing completely roomscale. The games supported are not that many and they run only if they are in steamvr. There were a lot of limitations in the katvr mini software. I felt the katloco was better than the katvr mini. Go figure. Ps4 games compatibility is only about 2 games. There was no keyboard mode for non vr gaming. Not sure if that changed. There was a problem in the mechanism of going up and down that was blocking. They sent a hardware fix to us but i never tested. I have read the problem was still there even with the fix. Not sure if they found other solutions for it.
    I am not up to date to give u a 100% accurate review since they might have improved the software. For me the problem is being stuck on a platform . You lose the freedom of the gameplay area. I like to have that for avoiding bullets etc.
    In general i am not pleased with any commercial locomotion methods. All have things that not satisfy me and that is why i am building my personal locomotiom system based on my desire that of course will have its own bad points.

Try to see if they allow you in this katvr mini official customers page

You can look for other customers and ask them questions. They might use it more than me

A friendly advice, as everything that is sold around, you might always end up in someone that is a retailer or whater for the product they are selling and give you a bias feedback. I would ask to as many people as possible for their feedback and then make up your mind

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  1. How do I go about calculating the customs fees?

  2. Yes, I have an SUV that could pick it up at the seaport, but I would prefer that they deliver it directly to my door.

  3. I’m aware not all of the shipping will be free and I will probably have to pay between $200 to $500 extra.

  4. I have a big and spacious house so that is not much of an issue

  5. Do you usually move around a lot in roomscale? When I play Pavlov I do move a bit around the room but not by much. I mostly use artificial locomotion by using my controller. I can see how being strapped on a platform would be restrictive.

On their website it says the mini supports all SteamVR games with locomotion now. Could you try it again and let me know if that’s true? How is the walking and running on it? Does it feel realistic and immersive?

Also the Kat Loco is not real walking because you are essentially standing in place. I got the Cybershoes which I don’t really use anymore because it involves being seated. I’m looking into KatVR mini in hopes it will be the closest thing to actual walking/running.

Just trying to learn as much as I can from your experience to make my decision.

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  1. You have to check in what category fits the katvrmini for the customs in canada and check on their webpage.

There is paperwork needed for taking the katvr from the customs and fees that go with it.

You have to make sure that the custom does not block the cargo for missing papers otherwise you would end up paying for the days the cargo is stored at the seaport after a certain number of days it is stuck there.
I think i paid also a fee for them to bring the cargo to my van.

  1. a suv is too small. I had to book a van from zipcar
    There are dimensions of the wood box around somewhere. Forgot the dimension and weight. We might have posted it here in the forum before.

  2. i think you will pay over a $1000 extra

  3. when i plaid a game like raw data, i felt even like room scale was too small for me to avoid intense action moments :slight_smile:

Katvr feels like sliding and the movent to walk forward does not feel to me a real walk. It was more a movement of the foot starting with a step forward to then push back the ground by sliding the foot from front to back.

I would not trust their claim that their katvr mini works for any game that has locomotion. It workes with games they tested and belong to their library of tested games. How about ocolus games? They were not working back in time.

My katv is completely dissasembled and stored away behind my pc. I have no room to leave it open in my house. I would not be able to test it , this is why i suggested getting feedback from people from the facebook page

I would look at the weights of the box to give you an idea of what you will be needed to move.

Also look at this thread where we talked about the katvrmini in the past

https://community.openmr.ai/t/kat-walk-mini-vr-treadmill/7302/53

I have found the dimension of the box

130x130x70cm,

And 130kg.

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@MarcoBalletta Thank you for your honest answers. I won’t buy the KatWalk Mini. You’ve saved me from a lot of headaches.

Would it be worth buying the Kat Loco or Walkovr to simulate walking? If so, which one is better? I heard some people say there is a mismatch between how fast you move in game versus your actual movements. I find that to be the case in my cybershoes also.

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No no
You should not base your buy or not buy based on my feedback. You should keep looking for review and ask around to other customers in the page i told you.

I have katloco, walkovr, cybershoes and other locomotion devices.
They all have good and bad things. I did not try the latest updates of any of them. I can not give a precise review on any of them. My review is based on older firmwares so might not be accurate.

Based on the old firmwares, i think that walkovr is a little ahead than katloco, but i would prefer katloco if their laterla movent would not have 1 sec of delay(at least that was with the firmware i teied them). I do not like of walkovr the chest movement for lateral and backwards mlvements. None of them fully satisfy me.
The way it looked to me a few months ago, was walkovr being farther in their developing compared to katloco.
But again, i have not tested their units fkr moths now. I am so invested in having “fun” making my own system, which will not be perfect either.
So i can’t suggest you properly. I advice you to join the forums where customers of these products are and ask around

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You have confirmed for me that the walking/running experience won’t be that real because of the sliding motion and also I watched this video - YouTube

Where the device makes noise moving the back piece up and down and moving on the platform makes noise. I think that would be pretty immersion breaking. I’m also worried about the weight and bulkyness of it. It’s gonna be hard to get it to my basement.

So it’s for those reasons I decided not to buy it.

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I am so sorry. I did not want to ruin your plan/joy of getting such device :frowning:

It’s okay. I did independent research as well before coming to my decision. I saw this video “Why Treadmills are not the future of VR” Why Treadmills Are Not The Future for Virtual Reality? (Clip) - YouTube

And they were talking about how weird it feels to walk on them.

Hopefully in the future, there will be a better walking solution that is less bulky and expensive.

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This kind of remembers me of when @Heliosurge and I we were chatting a lot about locomotion and ways to imagine to create a sort of locomotion system that felt like walking and running by using a rolling sort of surfaces to walk on or shoes with rollers etc .

It is such a challenging topic and so hard to imagine a solution that feels real, especially for moving in every directions.

I got into trying diy things like this

that looks so silly, but running for ex. felt more natural this way, than instead using any consumer locomotion system i have been seeing around.

The latest thing I have seen around is this

and i am curious to get to know more about it :slight_smile:

But then again, do we lose roomscale?

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Wow that looks very interesting. I hope he’ll share more once he gets the patent. I’ve been thinking about this problem and thought of some possible solutions.

  1. Walking on a non-moving conveyer belt with cylinders
    HTB1iJe8SpXXXXa0aFXXq6xXFXXXN.jpg_350x350

The cylinders would automatically roll your feet back when walking on them. I imagine having a super slick circular platform with a bunch of them all pointing inwards toward the center. Something like this:

  1. Having some custom made roller skates along with a jacket that has strong straps attached to the ceiling (trx straps?) to prevent you from falling while skating on them in one place. You could even place a barrier all around you so that the skates won’t go too far out from the middle. Something like this:

I’ll think of some more ideas.

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Some of tve houghts me and @Heliosurge were talking about too.

He was also suggesting a floor with sensors. They sell part for anyone building their own play area

For the rolling there is this

https://www.stridervr.com/

But then we loose roomscale and how about sideways movements?

For the shoes, i was looking into those children’s rolling shoes idea

But then how do we move sideways.

I have seen people suspending themselves on cyvershoes, but then no toom scale and no sideways movements.

Overall we have many methods to translate our leg movements in game movements, but the hardest part is trying to make our play area and the system we are wearing , feeling identical as we would walk and move around as we do in the real world everyday

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Yeah, that’s always the main challenge. I’m thinking for the kid’s roller shoes, if you get an extra wheel or two and custom insert it into the middle of the shoe but oriented sideways, that’ll probably allow for sideways movement. Anyways it seems WIVR looks the most promising. I think I know how he did it.:

A flat platform that attaches to each shoe. On the sides of the platform are smooth conveyor belt style wheels attached. When the foot is raised off the floor, the wheels are activated and begin spinning. Once the person puts the foot down and the device moves your foot behind your other foot a certain distance, it stops. Repeats the process for the other foot.

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