VIRTUAL REALITY GLASSES
Although these are not glasses not even protection goggles, the term glasses or goggles is widely used from almost everyone. Neither the reality that is projected there is necessarily virtual but this is also the term used so that most of the people to understand what we are talking about. The VR goggles, or Head Mount Displays, or any other name you will come across are increasing in sales volumes and try to be a part of our everyday life either real life or virtual. Everyone who uses these turns to get isolated from his environment around and feels like being transferred somewhere else. To this new place may watch a spherical video and feel a strong experience as close to the reality as possible, or may participate to a game in three dimensional place with impressive graphics and animation that looks very real.
In any case you will like it very much and make you feel good.
Since the past four years we are spending many hours every day wearing such goggles and creating 360 degrees videos. Not to mention that we spent a considerable amount of money because we bought and own all of those.
We gathered all of the available ones in the office in order to make this presentation. We do not intend to present the technical specifications that can easily be found over the internet. We only want to share with you our experience of everyday use and tell you our opinion of the best ones. We definitely propose you to try any of those, simply because even if it is the 10 euros cardboard that will require to put your smartphone in it, will unfold in front of your eyes a new impressive experience.
Oculus Go
This is our motivation for doing this presentation of the VR glasses. Cheap in cost and completely autonomous (wireless may call it since do not need any smartphone or cable to connect to a PC). If the price remains below 200 euros will become the “Trojan Horse“ of VR meaning that will be in every home offering unique emotions and virtual reality experiences to everyone regardless of age or technology adoption. The image quality is only comparable (not to say even better) to Samsung GearVR when connected with S8. Offer much better quality is comparison to S6 and S7 and are user friendly since do not need to attach any smartphone or have cable connection, just push the ON button and start operating. You can move your head around and see the spherical environment in 3 degrees of freedom but you cannot move in it. Offers excellent head mounting and low weight. Do not create fatigue after a lot of hours of use. It is the absolute “tool” for watching 360 videos. Negative points are the not so good isolation from the environment (limited amount of light comes in through the nose mount), the battery charging requires some time and finally the fact that need activation by mobile phone connection and creation of personal Oculus/facebook account. In comparison Oculus Rift and HTC Vive offer better image quality and the ability to move in the virtual environment.
Playstation VR
Let’s start with the fact that Oculus Go offer better resolution than PSVR. The same applies also for Samsung GearVR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Nevertheless the Sony video game platform has no competition in this category, is very relaxing and comfortable to wear (if exclude the empty space left around the nose mount). When some of the famous games (as Call of Duty) pass to VR version, then will see more and more people to start using these. An excellent sample of a game in VR version is Gran Tourismo Sport. When connected by cable to Playstation Pro “feel” better and operate perfectly.
HTC Vive
The king is called Vive, is here in the PRO version that is currently only available to USA. Outperforms competition in matters as pixels resolution, image quality, manufacturing quality and the content available (not only for games). Offers 6 degrees of freedom, but also requires to place the suitable sensors in the surrounding space and to connect by cable to a PC equipped with an almost perfect graphics processing card and i7 processor. It is heavy to the face and create somehow an uncertainty to the head movement. Headphones are also required for the sound. Above all these are by far the best in total performance and this is a good reason for the highest price of all the VR devices. If can be offered in the future without the need to cable connection all the “VR guys” will be super happy.
Oculus Rift
All of the Go-Rift-GearVR are all Oculus made products. The USA company that now belong to Facebook was and still is the pioneer in virtual reality hardware while still produces excellent software. Is the first company to produce head mount displays that were made available to software developers so that they on their turn produce applications and games as well as make their initial steps to the virtual reality world. Oculus Rift are one of the top HMDs with same resolution as HTC Vive but are not as good in color contrast and image details. Require cable connection to a PC, a perfect graphics card and processor. Offers 6 degrees of freedom, the sensors can be placed as tabletop and also you can find many content titles to choose from. Are lightweight for face mounting, comfortable and the touch controllers for the operation are a true work of art in design.
Cardboards
It is actually a card box. Includes a pair of lenses and a mount to place your smartphone so to see the phone’s screen in magnification and allow to watch any 360 video by suitable application. Image quality and resolution depends on the smartphone’s screen used. Usually is given for free with a sponsor’s logo printed on it, or cost very cheap like 10-15 euros.
Homido & dozens of similar…
Need to put your smartphone in the relevant mounting position, mount on your head and focus. Offer a relaxing and improved mounting on head, like being luxury (made of plastic) cardboards and nothing more. Again the image quality and resolution depends on the smartphone’s screen used. Homido was one of the first to make this design but now dozens of other manufacturers offer similar one. If you have a 3D printer you can even print your own using files found over the net (thinkinverse has more than 10 different ones). Not worth to spend more than 50 euros for a product like this.
VR One by Zeiss
This is an expensive tailor made cardboard. The lenses are of very good quality and the phone (handle many different dimensions) slides along the side. The VROne costs more than many of the plastic adjustable cardboards, but the mounting quality and the optical lenses quality is much better. But once again the image quality and resolution depends on the smartphone’s screen used. Have to mention that four years ago, when the product was presented, most of us believed that Zeiss would have offered a good solution for VR watching but this did not happen.
Samsung GearVR
Another product made by Oculus in Samsung branding. Starting from Note 4 -8 and moving to S6, S7 and S8, Samsung created with Gear VR a best seller product that is still a reference point for all head mount displays. Excellent quality of image although still limited to the smartphone screen resolution. The Korean company with the involvement of the American developers, made a prototype “ecosystem” for VR watchers and created unique applications and high quality content (like Cirque du Soleil from Felix & Paul). Currently all over the world all VR360 presentations in exhibitions and shows are made by use of the Gear VR as the first choice. Now that Oculus Go arrived, this may change. But anyway for all Samsung S6-S7-S8- S9 owners the Gear VR is the only way to go for VR, especially when during sales periods the cost drops down to 30 euros, or even offered for free when bundled with other products.
