JOIN USGear VR gives fascinating VR experience
When a friend asks what you did over the weekend, you may soon say, “I stood 15 feet away from a dinosaur” — and you will not be bluffing. That is because the Gear VR, a virtual reality headset developed by Samsung Electronics and Facebook’s Oculus VR, was released recently.
The $100 device, which looks like a boxy pair of goggles, gives consumers an early peek into the new immersive video technology that will begin stampeding into their homes next year.
The Gear VR requires inserting a Samsung Galaxy smartphone into the headgear: The device relies on the smartphone’s screen for video and its computing brains for running apps and games. It is a precursor to the more powerful Oculus Rift, a headset that connects with a personal computer, which will make its debut next year.
For an early stab at consumer virtual reality, the Gear VR is a work in progress. The virtual reality experience is fascinating and the Gear VR is probably unlike any consumer technology device you have owned before.
But in my testing of the device over a week, the video strained my eyes and the extra weight on my head made my neck sore. This is an entertainment device that is best taken in small doses, not used for hours at a time.
To wear the headset, which feels like cheap plastic, you attach two adhesive straps, one horizontal and the other vertical. On the right side of the device is a touch pad for swiping through menus or selecting items. A small wheel near your forehead adjusts the focus. The Gear VR runs software downloaded through a special app store that serves only apps and games developed for virtual reality.
I downloaded the Jurassic World game, which takes place in the middle of a forest, where you can gawk at an apatosaurus as it swings its long neck close to you. The Milk VR app plays videos shot in virtual reality format, allowing you to look up, down and around your surroundings. My favourite virtual reality game was Land’s End. It involves solving puzzles by staring at giant stones to lift and move them.
Samsung and Oculus are initially marketing the Gear VR to gamers. But the risk of this approach is that in the long term, virtual reality may appeal largely just to gamers. The dinosaur game was a glimpse into how museums could take advantage of virtual reality, for instance. It is even possible to imagine people in retirement homes enjoying the idea of being taken to a different place.
I suspect that Gear VR’s virtual reality experience will be seductive for many because it is so fresh and different, but it will not become a regular activity because of the weaknesses of the headset. The technology needs to lose some weight, and the video quality needs to be clearer and easier on the eyes.