Facebook is buying CTRL-labs, a NY-based startup building an armband that translates movement and the wearer’s neural impulses into digital input signals, a company spokesperson tells TechCrunch.
CTRL-labs raised $67 million according to Crunchbase. The startup’s investors include GV, Lux Capital, Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Spark Capital, Founders Fund, among others. Facebook didn’t disclose how much they paid for the startup, but we’re digging around. The acquisition, which has not yet closed, will bring the startup into the company’s Facebook Reality Labs division. CTRL labs’ CEO and co-founder Thomas Reardon, a veteran technologist whose accolades include founding the team at Microsoft that built Internet Explorer, will be joining Facebook while CTRL-labs’ employees will have the option to do the same, we are told.This acquisition also brings the armband patents of North (formerly Thalmic Labs) to Facebook. CTRL-labs purchased the patents related to the startup’s defunct Myo armband earlier this year for an undisclosed sum. CTRL-labs acquisition brings more IP and talent under Facebook’s wings as competitors like Microsoft and Apple continue to build out augmented reality products. There is plenty of overlap between many of the technologies that Oculus is building for Facebook’s virtual reality products like the Quest and Rift S, but CTRL-Labs’ tech can help the company build input devices that are less bulky, less conspicuous and more robust. “There are some fundamental advantages that we have over really any camera-based technology — including Leap Motion or Kinect — because we’re directly on the body sensing the signal that’s going from the brain to the hand.” CTRL-labs Head of R&D Adam Berenzweig told TechCrunch in an interview late last year. “There are no issues with collusion or field-of-view problems — it doesn’t matter where your hands are, whether they’re in a glove or a spacesuit.” Facebook is holding its Oculus Connect 6 developer conference later this week where the company will be delivering updates on its AR/VR efforts.