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Can someone explain to me how they can make a device worth buying for $200? That seems incredibly cheap since the cost of decent VR systems are ~$500+ and that'
by Osmium 9y ago
Can someone explain to me how they can make a device worth buying for $200? That seems incredibly cheap since the cost of decent VR systems are ~$500+ and that's without a machine to provide processing/GPU.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoLow end components. The experience is not going to be anywhere near that of a PC tethered Oculus and it's going to be more of what you find on Daydream/Gear VR.
- Osmium 9y agoMy only experience so far is Google Cardboard with an iPhone ... would you expect an Oculus Go to be any better than this? (I know iPhone screens aren't high-DPI enough for VR, but I doubt a screen in a $200 product would be much better, and the processor/GPU would surely be inferior? I'd really like to get into VR at a decent price point, but I just can't see how this works.)
- bitmapbrother 9y agoDaydream/Gear VR experiences are significantly better than cardboard. The Oculus Go is likely running a forked version of Android so that they can leverage their existing Gear VR catalog: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/gear-vr/ https://www.oculus.com/experiences/gear-vr/
- JD557 9y agoI'm expecting the quality to be on par with gear VR. They should be able to cut some costs when compared to phone manufactors, since they don't need to support SIM cards, can use bulkier components and get the case "for free".
- root_axis 9y agoIt has no positional tracking so that already puts it within the "google cardboard" region of user experience quality (compared with the premium headsets)
- greggman 9y agoI know it has no positional tracking but Apple's ARKit and Google's ARCore seem to make it clear you can do positional tracking with only a camera on the device, no external sensors. Has anyone announced any VR that uses the AR tech for positional tracking?
- pavlov 9y agoThe accuracy of ARKit-style tracking is low. It’s mostly good enough for the use case where you hold a 5” window in your hand to peek into the AR world... But if you strapped it to your face, the latency and positional fluctuation would give you motion sickness very soon.
- flavio81 9y ago>with only a camera on the device Sounds like it's going to be slow compared to other methods. A key to a good VR immersion experience is very low latency and high framerate.
- doublerebel 9y agoPavlov is correct, the tracking in ARKit and ARCore are just good enough for small mobile screens, and not good enough for anything immersive. Windows Mixed Reality headsets use AR tech for positional tracking, but the MR headset tracking is made for a maximum of room-scale experiences (as opposed to hololens which can go multi-room).
- gtm1260 9y agoYes, take a look at the Oculus Santa Cruz. It's still in development, but it has I think 4 very wide angle global shutter cameras on it. It is using a similar kind of Visual Inertial Odometry to things like ARKit and ARCore. Like the other posters have said, there is no way to get the kind of precision required for immersive HMD with a single mobile quality rolling shutter camera/lens setup and IMU.
- ohhhwell 9y agoI would guess it's closer to a Daydream or GearVR type experience. Which is a significantly better experience, even if it's roughly the same hardware as a "google cardboard" device. What makes it better is better sensor/OS/system integration (as well as good enough sensors and the right screen tech).
- hwillis 9y agoIt's supposed to have a 1440p screen according to polygon. God only knows what "stand alone" means but the price doesn't seem totally insane. It simplifies it a great deal to take out the design constraints of a phone and the screens and processors (for basic streaming video over wifi) have been around for a few years now. Still, it is surprising that the price would jump so far down from the price of a cellphone. I don't think it's a loss leader but I really doubt they have much of a profit margin. If that's the case this may be a bit of a gamble on VR being as massive as everyone (including myself) hopes it will be.
- mekpro 9y agoSince their mentioned that Gear VR and Oculus Go apps are binary compatible, I guess their definition of standalone is this one is work like GearVR + Samsung Galaxy Phone Built-in. https://www.oculus.com/blog/pioneering-the-frontier-of-vr-introducing-oculus-go-plus-santa-cruz-updates/ https://www.oculus.com/blog/pioneering-the-frontier-of-vr-in...
- giobox 9y agoNo 6 degrees of freedom support, which is arguably needed for a "true" virtual reality experience. This is basically Samsung Gear VR/Google Daydream but without using your cellphone for the display.