Want a virtual reality headset, but can’t afford the hefty pricetag on most existing models ? (Too expensive toy?). Google dropped an inexpensive solution following its I/O keynote: Google Cardboard, an app that lets Android users transform their phones into VR headsets with the help of a DIY cardboard viewer. This is interesting. The parts needed to build it are cardboard, two lenses and magnet. This is not the first idea to turn smart phone to VR headset, but this this looks really interesting. Surely its a joke, but its also a real thing. So real that it is even available as ready made product. Here is picture from DIY cardboard viewer instructions:
If this made you curious (it made me), the app is available in the Google Play store. Cardboard is widely available and easy to work with. To build this VR headset, I still need to find those lenses somewhere…
And the app can even be tested without building the cardboard part (if your eyes focuses near enough and you can view on the right way you can see 3D without any extra hardware, worked somewhat for me). The app had some interesting 3D VR demonstrations.
Besides Android app there is also some VR Chrome experiments.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Hands-on: Daydream View has perfect image focusing, a controller that senses its position well-enough, and great ergonomics with a comfy cloth exterior — It’s more high-tech than it looks — When Google revealed its Cardboard virtual reality platform back in 2014, it launched an endless series …
Google Daydream View is the coziest VR headset
It’s more high-tech than it looks
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/4/13156964/google-daydream-view-virtual-reality-headset-hands-on
When Google revealed its Cardboard virtual reality platform back in 2014, it launched an endless series of conversations in which I tried to explain why a $20 piece of cardboard wasn’t the same as an Oculus Rift. The two might both get called “VR,” I protested, but their technology and design created two fundamentally different ways to interact with virtual worlds.
Two years later, Google has another VR platform. This one is called Daydream, and it’s launching on the Pixel and Pixel XL phones, along with a $79 headset called Daydream View. More compatible phones and headsets are expected in the next several months
Daydream View, which will come out early next month, is roughly comparable to Samsung’s Gear VR. Both are goggles that turn phones into virtual reality headsets, combined with a custom controller that’s far more complex than Cardboard’s single-button setup.
Daydream feels a little cheap, but not fragile or shoddy
Like the Gear VR, the Daydream View has a single strap that holds it around your head. The strap is designed to be easily tightened by pulling two buckles along its length, and it keeps the headset on just fine, even if mine felt like it kept slipping very slightly. The mask, when I kept it at the right angle, also shut out light about as well as most decent VR headsets.
Daydream doesn’t guide users to perfectly center their phones. Instead, a pair of capacitive bumps tell the screen where it’s positioned, and the image automatically aligns itself to match.
More than the materials or ergonomics, what sets Daydream’s hardware apart is its controller, an oblong disc with a clickable trackpad, two menu buttons, and a volume rocker.
While Google was vague about cross-compatibility earlier this year, it’s now confirming that any Daydream headset should work with any Daydream phone.
Daydream: Bringing high-quality VR to everyone
https://blog.google/products/google-vr/daydream-bringing-high-quality-vr-everyone/
In the U.S., Daydream View will be available for pre-order starting October 20 at Verizon and the Google Store. Slate will be available in all countries at launch