After five years of a merger, Ultraleap and Leap Motion, once combined under the Ultraleap name, are reportedly going separate ways. According to a Sky News report, sources have confirmed that Ultraleap plans to sell its hand-tracking business, while also significantly reducing its workforce by half. This news has been confirmed by a statement from an Ultraleap spokesperson, who also noted that the decision was made to reflect the changing needs and behaviors of customers and adapt their strategy accordingly.
It should be noted that Max Thomas, a developer, recently announced on X that he is seeking employment after the layoffs of the US team at Ultraleap. In 2019, Ultrahaptics, now Ultraleap, bought Leap Motion with the intent to combine their complementary ideas, a haptic effect produced through ultrasound with industry-leading hand tracking.
Fast forward to June 2024, the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest have taken prominent positions in the standalone VR headset market, with hand tracking solutions that do not rely on Leap Motion. While the ultrasound haptic effect of Ultrahaptics may not have been widely experienced, Leap Motion’s hand tracking continues to be utilized by various smaller manufacturers, providing a robust hand-tracked user interface without additional platform overhead.
In positive news, Ultraleap has recently unveiled Hyperion, the latest version of its hand tracking software, further improving the hand tracking industry. Representatives from Ultraleap exhibited Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses with an added sensor for all-day gesture recognition at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, CA, last week. As part of the Khronos Group responsible for OpenXR, Ultraleap played a role in shaping the implementation of hand tracking support in the industry standard, enabling applications developed using it to be compatible with any compliant device.
