
Oculus’ New $99 Samsung Gear VR Makes Serious Virtual Reality Affordable - tksohishi
http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/24/gear-vr-for-all/
======
aresant
I bought the original Gear VR with very limited expectations and was surprised
how well it worked.

The reason it works so well is the GearVR platform is comprised effectively of
three things:

a) Lenses to make for comfortable, adjustable viewing.

b) A touchpad for input.

c) A ton of high quality / high fidelity sensors like Accelerator, Gyrometer,
Geomagnetic, Proximity (1)

Since most VR functionality is driven through sensor fusion it's a very
elegant solution to develop a one-size-fits-all headset that gives devs a way
to build/test/deploy against one set of sensors vs a phone-by-phone approach.

Take that plus the fact that the DK2 screen is an overclocked Galaxy 3 screen
(2) and it makes complete sense.

(1) via
[http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/gearvr/gearvr_specs....](http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/gearvr/gearvr_specs.html)

(2) [http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/31/oculus-rift-dk2-gets-
torn-a...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/31/oculus-rift-dk2-gets-torn-apart-
revealing-its-samsung-innards/)

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julianpye
From OC2, but semi-offtopic - What did people think about the Michael Abrash
lecture "These are the good old days"? For me it was one of the most inspiring
lectures on engineering solutions for HCI solutions. The cool part was that it
positions Oculus as a technology company supporting senses far beyond vision.

~~~
L_Rahman
Any chance you have a URL to a transcript or video of this lecture?

~~~
rasz_pl
1:35
[http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854](http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854)

~~~
andrewf
Direct link for Abrash:
[http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854?t=1h35m30s](http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854?t=1h35m30s)

Carmack's:
[http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854?t=3h31m10s](http://www.twitch.tv/oculus/v/17538854?t=3h31m10s)

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monstrado
I've had a chance to actually test this device and I can say it was
comfortable, and the VR experience felt smooth and responsive. I was skeptical
since it was powered by a phone, but I was definitely surprised.

~~~
bduerst
The phone is the screen, right? Or is the phone processing the content and
delivering it to the screen? What's the resolution like?

~~~
dingo_bat
The phone has a big part in content delivery and processing too. The screen
resolution on Galaxy Note devices (GearVR needs one of those) is 2.5k. That is
divided between both eyes. But the thing is that Oculus itself uses the screen
yanked out of a Galaxy Note. So screen quality and resolution should be top
notch.

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danpalmer
I wonder how effective this VR actually is.

It seems that VR heavily depends on high quality screens, with very high
resolution, and low latency and persistence. However this works with a screen
that isn't optimised for those attributes.

$99 may be good, but it seems likely that it will be much worse than the
Oculus Rift, I think is targeting ~$400-500, and could be far better. Is it
worth it?

~~~
exelius
Phone screens on top-end phones are high enough quality to manage (and are
higher resolution than most PC monitors anyway). They also have the added
benefit of being able to render graphics internally as opposed to being
attached to a PC by a cord. Yeah, the graphics may not be quite as good, but
the gap in perceived graphics quality between a $1000 PC and a flagship cell
phone is rapidly closing.

I think the Rift will be the choice of the "PC Master Race", but a solution
like this is much more mass-market friendly. There's no reason a headset like
this should cost more than $30 once mass-produced - and that's low enough to
be an impulse purchase for a lot of people.

~~~
aianus
> perceived graphics quality between a $1000 PC and a flagship cell phone is
> rapidly closing

Is this true? Can an iPhone 6S theoretically run CS:GO or Crysis (an eight
year old PC game)?

~~~
linksbro
Perhaps not the actual CS:GO binary - but one built on Metal could certainly
come close to CS:GO on lower settings.

~~~
aianus
Wow, that's awesome! My 3-year-old video card uses 160 watts of power and
roars like a jet engine running CS:GO at 1080p.

It blows my mind that we've come so far so fast.

~~~
corysama
The trend lines showed a year ago that a high end smartphone in about 3 years
from now (mid-way through the PS4's lifetime) will have higher paper specs
than a PS4 ( _paper specs_ , not necessarily as well-utilized).

An Nvidia Shield tablet is on paper roughly equivalent to an XBox360. The
Shield set top box is double that. A few more doublings and the prediction
will play out.

~~~
Narishma
3 years from now, the PS4 will be 5 years old and much cheaper than a high-end
smartphone.

~~~
notatoad
yes, but a high end smartphone will always be cheaper than a high end
smartphone _and_ a PS4.

the point isn't that phones are cheaper than other things, it's that you need
one anyways.

~~~
Narishma
You may need a smartphone, though that's debatable, but you don't need a high-
end expensive one. And those wont't have paper specs anywhere near PS4-level
anytime soon.

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nivla
Interesting. I would get one if I could hack it for other devices. It is kind
of amusing that even when Microsoft has started making cross platform
compatible hardware [1], Samsung is stuck on a page from the old MS playbook.
Hardware that is only compatible with Samsung devices and not even other
Androids. [2]

[1] [https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/en-
us/support/hardw...](https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-band/en-
us/support/hardware/microsoft-band-system-requirements)

[2] [http://www.tizenexperts.com/2014/06/pair-your-samsung-
galaxy...](http://www.tizenexperts.com/2014/06/pair-your-samsung-galaxy-gear-
and-the-google-nexus-5-tizen/)

------
metasean
Does anyone know (preferably with a source) whether the visual correction in
the _new_ Gear VR will cover the same range (particularly, the near-sighted
range) as the existing Gear VR?

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gregmac
Well, looks interesting, but too bad it doesn't work with the new Samsung
phone I got just 7 months ago (S5).

~~~
b1gtuna
you mean 17 months ago? I got it when it launched, and can't wait to get rid
of it. What an ugly phone =(

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werber
Does anyone else think there is going to be some crazy additional Star Wars
release tie in after the Facebook thing today to boost sales? I wouldn't be
surprised if a VR version for Gear came out once a good bootleg was out.

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nadams
My only question is have they fixed the whole driver problem yet?

The Oculus Rift DK2 was a complete disaster. I understand it's a "dev kit" but
if they are to release it for general use they will need to drastically change
the way the driver installs, the way it communicates error messages and issues
with the connection.

It took me several hours to release I needed to move the Oculus Rift "monitor"
to the right. And it's working "fine" on my desktop - but I can't get it
working on a laptop (and current Oculus Rift statements suggest they will
never support it on laptops...).

~~~
fr0styMatt2
The latest Oculus SDK (0.7.0.0) on Windows _absolutely_ fixes this mess. I
have nothing but praise for the latest software and this is coming from
someone who couldn't use his Rift since around November last year when the AMD
drivers and the Rift's extended mode stopped working together.

Basically now the Rift is considered a proper HMD as a category of its' own
and not a bastardized monitor. There is no more extended mode. Everything
compiled with Oculus SDK 0.6.0.0 and above now works in Direct Mode only. The
latency is noticeably better. With the latest AMD/Nvidia drivers, you just
plug the headset in and there's no monitor-type configuration at all.

Note this is with Windows 10; I don't have first-hand experience with 8.1 but
think it'd be much the same. It really is that much better.

Also, if you haven't checked out the latest VR Desktop
([http://www.vrdesktop.net](http://www.vrdesktop.net)), you need to do this
too. In addition to giving you a giant screen to see your desktop on, you can
now play full-screen games in it, watch YouTube 360 videos properly in it and
watch 3D movies encoded in side-by-side or top/bottom encoding. It's really
really awesome :)

~~~
nadams
> The latest Oculus SDK (0.7.0.0) on Windows _absolutely_ fixes this mess.

Tried to use that to show it off to a friend on his desktop running Windows
10. Didn't work. The demo desk worked - but nothing else did. Also - didn't I
read something where .7 is not backwards compatible with apps compiled for .6?

> AMD drivers and the Rift's extended mode stopped working together.

I find extended mode only works for me on my AMD card. And I think this is
part of the problem - there appears to be a number of "it works for me"/"it
doesn't work for me" threads all over the Oculus Rift forum from people with
varying builds including threads of "if you follow this incantation and
sacrifice a chicken while modifying your registry - this will make the Oculus
Rift work"

> Also, if you haven't checked out the latest VR Desktop

I tried that out - but it crashed for me almost every time I tried using it.

For me the Oculus Rift has pretty much been a fail - I couldn't tell if the
fail has been on my end (ie my desktop) or Oculus Rift's end. Though I really
think if they hope to get a market share is to hire the guy(s) who has been
working on JanusVR and make that a bundled "app". Right now that is the only
reason why I don't just put it in a box and forget about it. Yes - I
understand this is a "development kit" but I would like to know that it's
functional before I develop for it. If people have to read out of the
Necronomicon to use it - there is no point in developing for it. I feel like
others share this opinion because I think Elite Dangerous implemented support
but said that they won't update it until the Oculus Rift has a non-dev kit
version.

I'm just frazzled because I purchased this $300 device expecting it to be
somewhat stable - and it seems like something I would get out of a
kickstarter.

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fr0styMatt2
This is excellent. I know many people for whom this would be cheap enough to
just add on to their next phone contract, who otherwise wouldn't have dipped
their toes in it.

As an aside, I really wish Google and Oculus could get together and work out
how to allow Cardboard apps to take advantage of the extra hardware from the
Gear VR if it's available. Using a Gear VR and then trying Cardboard shows how
woefully inadequate Cardboard is; but there are some cool Cardboard apps that
I'd really love to be able to try with the much much better tracking of my
Gear VR.

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kriro
The two questions that pop into my head are

1) How long can you use it with say an S6 before the battery is drained if I
don't use the micro USB cable that they offer (especially with something like
a game running on it)

2) What about storage. A modern 3d game requires quite a bit of space. Sure
you could load a couple of them onto the phone but AFAIK the S6 doesn't even
support SD cards...how is this handled? USB OTG? I read that the Gear has a
microSD...can I really store all stuff on this or is there a requirement to
leave some Gear apps etc. on the actual phone?

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ryanSrich
Is there any reason this is getting a lot of press now? I've seen it all over
twitter. This thing has been out for a WHILE. I used one a Toms store in
Portland. It was neat but I'd much prefer something with a higher resolution.
VR is all about resolution imo.

~~~
lhl
This is a new version and the first non-"Innovator Edition" (read:
enthusiasts/devs) - the big deal I think is that presumably as a true consumer
product, it'll be getting a lot more distribution, and moving forward will
probably a big part of Samsung's pitch for differentiation of their flagship
mobile products.

More resolution would be nice, but it's not everything. The biggest issue for
VR geeks is probably the lack of positional tracking. A close second (or
first, depending on how sensitive you are) is the relatively low refresh rate
(60Hz) causes noticeable strobing for a lot of people. At that refresh rate
you don't get the temporal super-resolution bonuses you get at higher rates.
Fill factor is as important (if not moreso) for screen-door effect - the CV1
and Vive screens are lower-res, but look much better. AFAIK, the S6/N5 screens
don't support global refresh (although there is direct front-buffer access).
Lack of physical IPD adjustment is a big deal, and it's hard to solve w/ a
single screen w/o sacrifices. Oh, and of course, running the devices
comfortably w/o overheating.

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tluyben2
I picked up a Homido VR cheaply and it is quite nice and fits all phones I
have. The downside is that it starts to hurt after a while but it is enough to
do VR experiments on my S5. I would recommend if you have an older phone and
you can pick it up cheaply.

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lux
I wish it shipped with a gamepad (e.g., for a $149 price point), but this is
still great news!

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sciurus
I wonder if this will work with a Nexus 6, or if it only supports Samsung
phones.

~~~
guelo
Only 2015 Samsung phones.

~~~
calbear81
I wouldn't be surprised if they sold this at breakeven or a slight loss in
order to try and get some market share back for their phones.

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myth_buster
I don't think it's much affordable if I've to upgrade to Samsung's latest
device! Given, it's a good marketing ploy!

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rabble
I got to try this out at XOXO and it worked remakrably well. Really enjoyable
to use and i didn't get motion sick.

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jsprogrammer
Screen sold separately* ?

~~~
Raphmedia
Think of it as an high-tech Google Cardboard.

edit: wording

~~~
ryandamm
No, it's significantly better. The headset has MEMS sensors running at 1 KHz
(the Note 4 runs at 100 Hz IIRC), which means the head-tracking is
perceptually flawless.

Add to that the quality of the optics, the high quality screen, the wide field
of view, and the difference is substantial; if you haven't tried both, just
trust me. They're not even in the same category.

Now, the Zeiss headset, that thing is just a high end Google Cardboard.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Sorry, but there is no screen with this device, correct?

~~~
Gigablah
Think of it as an enclosure for Samsung phone that is significantly better
than a high-tech Google Cardboard.

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macspoofing
Ok, but it's not the right product to bring VR to the masses.

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sayangel
why not? is a tethered experience that requires a $1k+ desktop the right
product?

~~~
macspoofing
1) Tied to Samsung device (singular).

2) No software ecosystem.

3) No hype, interest or marketing.

It's kinda like Microsoft tablet laptops before the iPad. Serviceable, but not
a category maker.

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LouisSayers
Super excited by this. Does anyone know if they've dealt with nausea during
use? This is the only thing I really wonder after trying the original.

I'm also selling Orift.co for anyone interested in the VR space!
([https://flippa.com/5569435-invest-in-the-future-of-
virtual-r...](https://flippa.com/5569435-invest-in-the-future-of-virtual-
reality))

