The Story of VoxelSensors: Building the Future of Human-Computer Interaction

When Johannes Peeters signed the documents to found VoxelSensors in March 2020, the world was about to change dramatically. “I was at a notary actually signing the deeds to create a company when, just when I left, I started getting calls from friends and family that we needed to go to the grocery store to buy camp food and all the basics that we needed,” Johannes shared on Category Visionaries.

The next day, Belgium announced its first COVID lockdown. For most founders, this would be a nightmare scenario. For VoxelSensors, it became an unexpected advantage. With no external pressure, they could focus on building their foundation in spatial and empathic computing.

The timing proved serendipitous. As Johannes explained: “We can have a quiet start, meaning we can really put the foundations of the company in place, find a couple of patents, look at or scout the world, look at what kind of investors we would be looking at, what kind of people we would hire.”

This wasn’t Johannes’s first venture in the space. His previous company, Soft Kinetic, had been acquired by Sony in 2015. After the acquisition, he spent time in San Francisco helping an automotive company integrate perception sensors for driver monitoring and autonomous driving. This experience proved invaluable – it showed him both sides of the technology market.

“I was before on the supplier side when were soft clinic and Sony, and I was on the receiving end figuring out what best technology there was and how to negotiate with the different vendors,” Johannes noted. This dual perspective helped shape VoxelSensors’ approach to solving fundamental challenges in 3D perception and eye tracking.

Their core innovation is a novel sensing architecture that’s “ten to 100 times more efficient on the power usage and on the latency” compared to traditional approaches. For augmented reality and mixed reality devices, this solves a critical problem: the delay between real-world movement and digital response that causes motion sickness.

The technology works across markets. In consumer electronics, it enables AR experiences where “digital renderings are indistinguishable from the physical world” without requiring massive batteries. In industrial applications, it allows for wider field of view and longer range sensing while maintaining safety standards.

Looking ahead, Johannes envisions a future where technology enhances human interaction in subtle but powerful ways. “We’ll have the ability to get a sense of presence,” he explained. “Now you and I are chatting and we’re far away from each other. The most sociable experience is, of course, if you’re next to each other in a room… The next best thing is if you get that feeling of being next to each other, but digitally.”

He’s quick to dismiss dystopian fears about constant digital overlay. Instead, he sees these capabilities as “magical moments” that users can engage with at will: “I think I look at it as the use of sunglasses. You get somewhere the sun’s out, you put them on, the sun goes away, you put them back again.”

With 16 employees and growing partnerships with major tech companies and manufacturers, VoxelSensors is methodically building toward this vision. Their story shows how sometimes the most challenging circumstances – like founding during a pandemic – can provide the perfect conditions for building something revolutionary.