VR’s Unique Locomotion Device ‘Cybershoes’ Closes Permanently

Ah, Cybershoes. You ever heard of them? These quirky little devices were supposed to bring the magic of walking in VR to your living room. A company in Austria dreamed them up, but as of April 2025, they’ve packed up their roller shoes and said goodbye. Honestly, it’s kinda sad. Or maybe not. Depends on how you look at it.

Antony ‘Skarred Ghost’ Vitillo spilled the beans on this. Apparently, they stopped making these things two years ago. Wait, did you ever see one in real life? Anyway, Vitillo notes that one part of the company shut down in 2024, and then — boom — the whole thing folded in April 2025.

Co-founder, Igor Mitric Lavovski, posted on LinkedIn (because, I guess, that’s where all the juicy news drops) that Cybershoes GmbH is officially done. No secretive bankruptcy details have popped up yet. Andreas Howadt, some law guru from Vienna, says they have to file for bankruptcy within 60 days if they’re broke. Which sounds like a ticking time bomb.

So, about those Cybershoes. They weren’t like the usual VR treadmills. Nope. You sat down to use them. Yeah, a chair. Strapping on these shoes with their special rollers and sensors meant you could pretend you’re on a leisurely stroll while really just lounging back. Wild idea, right?

The whole adventure began in 2018. They didn’t pull in any big venture capital funds. Nope, just €200,000 from a Kickstarter campaign. Not too shabby, considering they started with 3D-printed prototypes and somehow convinced backers it’d be worth it. Later, they hit IndieGogo in 2019, raking in another €140,000 from over 500 folks. Guess a lot of people wanted to stroll in place.

Fast forward to 2020: another Kickstarter for a version that played nice with Quest VR. But, uh-oh, this time around, only $98,000 made it in. Not exactly the success story they hoped for.

And now? You can’t find these things in their store or on Amazon. Somewhere around late 2024, the Quest-compatible ones vanished from online shelves. Poof, gone.

Want more musings on these curious gadgets? Vitillo has a review somewhere. Not that anyone’s rushing to buy Cybershoes now. Or maybe they are. Who knows.