This is pretty much a gear vr, same apps, same resolution, galaxy s7 type hardware. I tried it a few times on my s7 while it was fun for a bit the software selection just wasn't there, plus the cost was much higher than regular apps. This is more of a novelty device, nothing killer about it.
This is way better than Smartphone + Cardboard/Daydream/Gear VR for those that wanted a cheap alternative. The problem with Daydream and Gear VR is the phone is too expensive.
There are people out there who wants to buy a cheap phone for VR. This will meet their needs, because its the price of a phone + cardboard compatible VR, except the quality and ease of use is way better. You won't have to worry about having your phone's screen clean because this is integrated.
Aye, this is the problem with VR at the moment. The tech, at least the earliest tech, is there. But it's just too expensive. Proper hardware is expensive as hell, making software for it expensive as hell, having room for it even is expensive.
I can see themeparks going nuts with this. I want my high end Jurassic World VR ride, I'd go to Universal Studios for that in a second. Or flying on a broom through some HP thing, or going through some space battle in Star Wars. There you can spend cash for a $10k incredible VR setup with multiple people interacting on the same ride, ten million on the software, and you'd still spend no more than you would on a normal theme park ride. Consumers can't spend nearly that much.
Or goodness, just being able to do VR based tourism where you can genuinely feel like you're experiencing a bunch of places/museums etc. (Imagine a hypothetical art gallery where they could hang *everything* in their collections.).
Tie it to those omni directional treadmills & fitness and you're going to do huge damage to standard gyms.
So they bumped the resolution and possibly even the refresh rate up, but are now dependent on a mobile SoC that runs at 5 watts, using an Adreno 530 that in max configuration can barely push half a Tflop?
How is this going to do anything but wireframe 3D at native res 90+Hz? I needed to upgrade my GTX770 just to run REZ Infinity on my Oculus VR smoothly, and that's a 15 year old game from Dreamcast...
I just don't get what the practical application for this thing is going to be if its that slow.
Snapdragon 821 is a red flag. The desktop version needs a GTX660 to power it, using a mobile SoC will provide a poor user experience and scare off early adopters.
Well it runs GearVR games so it's basically a phone built into a headset this just means all the people buying vr headsets for porn won't have to spend $400 now
Yes, sooooooo much courage required to add a headphone jack to a product the size of a house brick...
But besides privacy and consideration for others, the idea of not having anything on your ears is a good one, since you can hear your surroundings and you don't get ear fatigue.
Would be nice if some headphone makers explored this sort of design.
"Fast-Switch likely means a higher refresh rate" Not higher refresh rate (90Hz is nothing unusual for LCD), but faster worst-case pixel switching time. For low-persistence driving (e.g. 'Lightboost') you must wait for ALL pixels to complete switching before pulsing the backlight, or you'll illuminate pixels that are still changing colour. At 90Hz, the difference between illuminating at the start of the refresh interval (e.g. OLED) or at the end of the refresh interval (e.g. LCD) is 11ms, or OVER HALF of your motion-photons budget potentially wasted on waiting of hardware (and worse, 11ms injected AFTER the final post-warp orientation sampling).
So... can I have this but with a cable I can connect to my computer? I don't need all the bells and wistless that the oculus rift has, just a bit of head tracking and a decent display to strap on my face that can use the compute power of my Desktop computer. I don't need room tracking and I definitelly don't need it to play on the go.
I just want the original (MK1) Oculus rift capabilities with a decent display without having to pay 600€.
"They have had the courage though to add a 3.5mm headphone jack..."
Never thought I'd see the day when a device including a 3.5mm jack for stereo sound support would be seen as courageous. Well thanks anyways Fakebook for including what should be a default "feature" anyways.
Dead On Arrival. The "Go" moniker indicates this is something of a mobile device .. but it's not. In fact, you shouldn't even be standing when you use these head sets for risk of becoming disoriented, losing your balance, falling and striking your head on a table. This is the massive and insurmountable problem with VR, the headset both provides and ruins the experience.
I've seen it happen. VR isn't for everyone. I tried playing Eve: Valkyrie on the Oculus Ryft and suffered motion sickness. No, how am I supposed to go buy a product that LITERALLY makes me want to vomit? VR is a niche market unlike anything the technology sector has seen before.
VR without tracked motion controllers isn't that interesting. Sure, it's a novelty to see things move around you, but being able to interact with it is a much better experience. Maybe this is enough for $199 though.
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28 Comments
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GhostOfAnand - Wednesday, October 11, 2017 - link
If reasonably spec'd, and sufficiently developer friendly, the price could make this a killer device.GhostOfAnand - Wednesday, October 11, 2017 - link
And, I must add, if it isn't a privacy nightmare like most Facebook stuff.shabby - Wednesday, October 11, 2017 - link
This is pretty much a gear vr, same apps, same resolution, galaxy s7 type hardware. I tried it a few times on my s7 while it was fun for a bit the software selection just wasn't there, plus the cost was much higher than regular apps. This is more of a novelty device, nothing killer about it.IntelUser2000 - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
This is way better than Smartphone + Cardboard/Daydream/Gear VR for those that wanted a cheap alternative. The problem with Daydream and Gear VR is the phone is too expensive.There are people out there who wants to buy a cheap phone for VR. This will meet their needs, because its the price of a phone + cardboard compatible VR, except the quality and ease of use is way better. You won't have to worry about having your phone's screen clean because this is integrated.
Frenetic Pony - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
Aye, this is the problem with VR at the moment. The tech, at least the earliest tech, is there. But it's just too expensive. Proper hardware is expensive as hell, making software for it expensive as hell, having room for it even is expensive.I can see themeparks going nuts with this. I want my high end Jurassic World VR ride, I'd go to Universal Studios for that in a second. Or flying on a broom through some HP thing, or going through some space battle in Star Wars. There you can spend cash for a $10k incredible VR setup with multiple people interacting on the same ride, ten million on the software, and you'd still spend no more than you would on a normal theme park ride. Consumers can't spend nearly that much.
Qwertilot - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
Or goodness, just being able to do VR based tourism where you can genuinely feel like you're experiencing a bunch of places/museums etc.(Imagine a hypothetical art gallery where they could hang *everything* in their collections.).
Tie it to those omni directional treadmills & fitness and you're going to do huge damage to standard gyms.
Samus - Friday, October 13, 2017 - link
So they bumped the resolution and possibly even the refresh rate up, but are now dependent on a mobile SoC that runs at 5 watts, using an Adreno 530 that in max configuration can barely push half a Tflop?How is this going to do anything but wireframe 3D at native res 90+Hz? I needed to upgrade my GTX770 just to run REZ Infinity on my Oculus VR smoothly, and that's a 15 year old game from Dreamcast...
I just don't get what the practical application for this thing is going to be if its that slow.
K_Space - Friday, October 13, 2017 - link
Aren't you referring to StarVR?https://www.starvr.com/
webdoctors - Wednesday, October 11, 2017 - link
Snapdragon 821 is a red flag. The desktop version needs a GTX660 to power it, using a mobile SoC will provide a poor user experience and scare off early adopters.SAD.
SunLord - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
Well it runs GearVR games so it's basically a phone built into a headset this just means all the people buying vr headsets for porn won't have to spend $400 nowhaukionkannel - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
There will be Also more expensive 835 version. So different products to different price gategories. Just like in phones.jjj - Wednesday, October 11, 2017 - link
SD821 might be less than great on the CPU side but it's not about the CPU here and it's more than fine at this price point.at80eighty - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
They have had the courage though to add a 3.5mm headphone jacklol
prisonerX - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
Yes, sooooooo much courage required to add a headphone jack to a product the size of a house brick...But besides privacy and consideration for others, the idea of not having anything on your ears is a good one, since you can hear your surroundings and you don't get ear fatigue.
Would be nice if some headphone makers explored this sort of design.
at80eighty - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
the idea of not having anything on your ears is a good one, since you can hear your surroundings and you don't get ear fatigue.Would be nice if some headphone makers explored this sort of design
um. ever heard of speakers?
prisonerX - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
Thanks for the idiotic reply. Congrats.edzieba - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
"Fast-Switch likely means a higher refresh rate"Not higher refresh rate (90Hz is nothing unusual for LCD), but faster worst-case pixel switching time. For low-persistence driving (e.g. 'Lightboost') you must wait for ALL pixels to complete switching before pulsing the backlight, or you'll illuminate pixels that are still changing colour. At 90Hz, the difference between illuminating at the start of the refresh interval (e.g. OLED) or at the end of the refresh interval (e.g. LCD) is 11ms, or OVER HALF of your motion-photons budget potentially wasted on waiting of hardware (and worse, 11ms injected AFTER the final post-warp orientation sampling).
valinor89 - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
So... can I have this but with a cable I can connect to my computer? I don't need all the bells and wistless that the oculus rift has, just a bit of head tracking and a decent display to strap on my face that can use the compute power of my Desktop computer. I don't need room tracking and I definitelly don't need it to play on the go.I just want the original (MK1) Oculus rift capabilities with a decent display without having to pay 600€.
06GTOSC - Thursday, November 9, 2017 - link
Indeed. If you want to play driving games or flight games with a headset, you don't need anything beyond head tracking so you can look around.JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
"They have had the courage though to add a 3.5mm headphone jack..."Never thought I'd see the day when a device including a 3.5mm jack for stereo sound support would be seen as courageous. Well thanks anyways Fakebook for including what should be a default "feature" anyways.
TEAMSWITCHER - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
Dead On Arrival. The "Go" moniker indicates this is something of a mobile device .. but it's not. In fact, you shouldn't even be standing when you use these head sets for risk of becoming disoriented, losing your balance, falling and striking your head on a table. This is the massive and insurmountable problem with VR, the headset both provides and ruins the experience.Diji1 - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
I've never read anything about what you're describing so I can only assume you're inventing a problem with wearing VR HMDs for some reason.TEAMSWITCHER - Friday, October 13, 2017 - link
I've seen it happen. VR isn't for everyone. I tried playing Eve: Valkyrie on the Oculus Ryft and suffered motion sickness. No, how am I supposed to go buy a product that LITERALLY makes me want to vomit? VR is a niche market unlike anything the technology sector has seen before.peevee - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
What can you do with it if it is not connected to a Windows PC or Android phone?blzd - Saturday, October 14, 2017 - link
It is itself an Android device. So basically like a VR headset for Android but you don't need to put your own phone inside.cfenton - Thursday, October 12, 2017 - link
VR without tracked motion controllers isn't that interesting. Sure, it's a novelty to see things move around you, but being able to interact with it is a much better experience. Maybe this is enough for $199 though.pSupaNova - Friday, October 13, 2017 - link
Lots of negativity in the comments, when this is the best way of having VR.VR should not be tethered in anyway to a Desktop, that is for Research/Development.
If it is half as good as the bellow article states then Oculus will have shown again that VR is not just a fad.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/10/wireless-oc...
06GTOSC - Thursday, November 9, 2017 - link
Wait so what do you use it with if not a PC?