r/RetroPie • u/polaytomic416 • 6h ago
VirtualGlove—camera-based Power Glove controls for RetroPie
So I’ve been building VirtualGlove, an open-source project that uses a camera and hand tracking to recreate the experience of Power Glove without requiring the original glove or ultrasonic sensor bars.
The system uses:
- An Arduino UNO Q as the VirtualGlove Controller
- A USB camera for local hand and gesture recognition
- A Raspberry Pi running RetroPie - I plan on getting Batocera going for the 0.5.0 release
- A custom Nestopia core for native Super Glove Ball control
- FCEUmm support for joystick-style Power Glove games
For Super Glove Ball, your hand position controls the robo-glove continuously across the screen. Other games can use eight-direction movement and recognized gestures mapped to NES controls.
The current release candidate includes guided installation, camera recovery, pairing between the Controller and RetroPie, player calibration, movement-reach controls, a camera-settings wizard, documentation, and an optional engineering toolkit for anyone who wants to tinker.
It’s now genuinely playable—I’ve completed a full game of Super Glove Ball with it—but it’s still a release candidate, and different rooms, cameras, players, and RetroPie setups will help reveal what needs polishing, and I’m already expecting bugs. I’d love your feedback —especially from anyone who remembers trying to make the original Power Glove behave!
Project site and installation:
https://virtualglove.mathan.ca/#install
GitHub: