The cost of components and the future of eteeXR

We are happy to pass on the news that all units of our first production run of eteeController SteamVR are in the final stages of being fulfilled for both our Backers, including Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and also initial pre orders via our eteeXR website.

This accounts for all units from our first production run!

We’ve secured components and are gearing up for the second production run. If you pre order from now, your eteeControllers will be shipped in August 2023 (16 weeks from now approx).

As you may be aware, the costs of components, especially those related to SteamVR tracking has increased drastically over the last couple of years. This is due to COVID supply chain issues that are still persisting. But also smaller players like etee are competing with major hitters in the industry like Valve and HTC. Our eteeTrackers contain 20 IR optical sensors and have been praised for superior tracking but any increase in costs of those tracking components is difficult to absorb within the current price. We continued to deliver market competitive pricing for eteeControllers and eteeTrackers throughout the pandemic and did not increase our prices to account for this with our first production run. As we look to the future of etee, our ongoing support for it and growing virtual reality with our community we are unfortunately now forced to increase our prices moving forward. This price increase is a reflection of the market conditions. We aim to adjust prices following any changes to give you the best tracking at competitive prices.

We will continue to monitor component prices available to us and when we can pass on savings to customers we will do so.

As VR evolves, we are evolving too and we are adopting an open modular approach to our products. We see the value in allowing consumers to ‘mix & match’ their products. If you have, for example, your own third party SteamVR Trackers already, then you could just purchase our standard eteeController + eteeAdapter bundle allowing a cheaper entry point into full finger sensing in VR. If you don’t already own third party trackers, you can purchase our eteeController + eteeTracker bundle, which will now be the new name for eteeController SteamVR. It is the same product but it is being renamed to fall more inline with our modular approach. You will see further changes to reflect our eteeEcosystem on the eteeXR website in the near future. Sign up to our newsletter to stay up to date with promotions and exclusive offers.

We hope to keep expanding our eteeEcosystem further as new technologies enter the market and we will keep adding to our product line to support these new technologies and offer further value to our customers.

Thank you for the support as we make this transition from a Kickstarted product into a fully realised VR ecosystem.

Any questions, please do reach out to eteeSupport here and we will assist you.