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7 Comments

1. 

   I find VR very interestig but it wont be here so soon in a global manner – Will only be a small segment – In Portugal – the day when even Grannies started playing Farmville in Facebook was the day when Facebook became Global — With VR I just do not see my Granmother using those Occulous so soon, not even my Mother and while that does not happen it is still hype to sell gadgets to few and not Global at all – Companies, as always, are savy and will promise the moon to eberyone because they know they can gather a few more bucks before it all melts away – Do not get me wrong, I like VR and Im glad it’s here but surely is still a momentary hype for a very testrict segment

   1. 

      Actually, it’s already here as a global manner. You might be thinking of the slow roll out and adoption of high-end platforms like the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and the Playstation VR, which have only recently hit the market — or are about to — and cost hundreds of dollars.

      But the big seller for VR is actually mobile-based VR used as a TV replacement. This is super popular throughout the emerging worlds. Last summer, AliBaba was already selling 300,000 headsets a month through its online e-commerce site in China. Earlier this year, just one of the hundred-plus Chinese VR headset manufacturers, Baofeng Mojing, said it had sold 1 million headsets the first quarter of this year, and expects to sell 10 million by the end of the year, both through online channels and through its 20,000 retail locations. (20,000!) And it’s not just China and elsewhere in Asia — David Kariuki, our freelancer in Africa, says you can pick up low cost, mobile-based headsets in retail shops around Nairobi.

      The reason? Mobile phones are great at playing videos, and watching videos with a VR headset is like having a private theater screen, for just a few dollars. That’s an excellent deal for anyone with a shortage of money, space, or privacy who already owns a smartphone — and that just about describes everyone in the emerging countries.

      In addition to watching virtual videos, another top driver for VR is virtual travel — and both videos and travel beat gaming in general user surveys about interest in VR. You add in adult content and casual games, which mobile-based VR is also good at, and now you’ve got a lot of reasons for folks to buy these headsets.

      With the new Daydream platform coming out this fall, mobile VR is about to take a big step forward. As prices continue to drop, and performance improves, the drivers for adoption of VR in emerging countries will just become stronger.

      I’m not counting out tethered VR altogether. Special purpose gaming-consoles will probably have a place for a long time. And PC-based headsets like the Oculus and the Vive will be popular — for a while — with folks interested in high-end gaming. Plus, Internet cafes throughout the world will now have a new reason for existence. With more and more people having access to the Internet at home, or through their smartphones, the audience for Internet cafes was shrinking. With VR, there’s a new reason for folks to come back to these cafes, and to gaming arcades. As mobile VR becomes ubiquitous, however, the market for tethered headsets will probably shrink dramatically.

      Of course, tethered VR might morph into room-based VR. Instead of wearing AR/VR glasses (or contact lenses?) we might have holodeck-style systems that surround us with computer generated environments in our living rooms or offices. I should write a column about that.

      1. 

         Interesting answer, I may change my mind, let´s see where we are heading

      2. 

         I’ll back Maria up on this. Mobile VR is already here. Million+ Gear VR users Close to 10 million google cardboard. In China and India where many people may not have a computer/laptop many have smartphones and they have been using them to watch movies in a headset for the better part of a decade. VR is an easy sell and is already in great demand. The high end stuff like Vive and Rift is still out of most peoples reach but VR arcades will fill that void. The 100,000 internet cafes in China are all looking toward VR.

         No hype this time around, this is the real deal.

2. 

   There’s a new chinese headset that also has a touchpad control like the GearVR, called “Eye travel” vr.
   Needs a smartphone like most headsets, but it’s cheap, around 25 bucks on Aliexpress.
   I was wondering if you have any info on that model.

   1. 

      I see it:

      http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Eye-Travel-YY01-FOV120-Immersive-3D-VR-Headset-368885.html

      It reminds me a lot of the Pico VR:

      https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2016/05/review-pico-1-copies-worst-features-of-gear-vr/

      Here’s the main problem with the touch pads: you need software that recognizes them. In the case of Gear VR, they have a curated app store, and all the apps allowed on it must work with the Gear VR, including its back button, and its touch pad.

      Samsung can do that because they’ve sold more than a million Gear VR headsets, and are partners with Oculus and Facebook on this, so they have a lot of clout. Plus, developers get to charge more for their apps when they’re on the Gear VR.

      So you have to ask yourself, how is this “Eye Travel” company going to get developers on board with rewriting their apps to work with their specific touchpad? And, if they do manage to do that, given that they’re based in China, the odds are that the apps that do work with the touchpad will be in Chinese, as turned out to be the case with the Pico VR.

      My recommendation is to see which apps support this, and if any of those apps happen to be must-haves for you.

      Here’s a quote from a review on the Geekbuying page: “navigation buttons are not appropriately pre-mapped. There are no applications that can provide mapping headsets buttons. There is no customer support, Technical support, etc.. available for the headset. Replacement parts are hard to come by. And there is no pc sync to reprogram the control buttons.”

      Otherwise, save your money and wait for Daydream VR phones and headsets to come out. Daydream promises better performance, a better interface, and more immersion, and it’s baked into the heart of the latest Android version, Nougat. (So you’ll need to buy a new phone — I’m saving my pennies now.)

3. 

   I use a BT/wifi keyboard & mouse, it is somewhat easier to use with those.