
Google Developing Stand-Alone Virtual-Reality Headset - cryptoz
http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-developing-stand-alone-virtual-reality-headset-1455218948
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Torkel
I think making a stand-alone VR headset makes a lot of sense. Dual-purpose
devices don’t work out. VR is good enough for people to want to purchase a
stand alone device. Or it’s not good enough, and then it doesn’t matter either
way.

Also, a well made VR viewer that attaches to a phone (i.e. Gear VR) is just as
big and almost as heavy as a stand alone viewer would be. So there are only
marginal space savings to be made.

Making the best VR experience is not the same thing as making a mobile phone.
Screens needs to be optimized differently, possibly using more than one
screen. Chip cooling is a thing in VR. Faster sensors. Different appication
stack. Support for positioning and control input. So many things are different
from what needs to go into a phone.

Compared with desktop/console, the mobile eco-system is 10X the size and
revenue and longterm this is where you want to build your product. Desktop and
console VR, were the headset is attached with a cable to a big loud box, may
make some sense in gaming and short term. But longer term that seems a bit
silly. Look at the iPads benchmark scores - those things are already
rediculously fast.

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sytelus
I disagree. Most people's purchase decisions are based on price and they would
happily accept a device that has inconvenience of sliding smartphone VS just
putting on glasses. This if, of course, given that experiences are pretty
close in quality. There are technically no reason that quality would be too
inferior with smartphone based devices as long as smartphones have some
additional bells and whistles. The smartphone is a powerful computer already
equipped with tons of sensors, CPU, GPU, batteries and a large screen. I think
only the field of vision may be bit impacted but I highly suspect average
people would want to shell out another $500 for bit larger FoV.

~~~
stcredzero
Perhaps there's a social barrier to VR being more than a niche device?

 _> There are technically no reason that quality would be too inferior with
smartphone based devices as long as smartphones have some additional bells and
whistles._

According to the Oculus folks, 90Hz is the minimal refresh rate for avoiding
nausea in too much of the population. Their latency target with regards to
refresh after head tracking input was 5ms, last time I read about it. There's
a reason why their 1st commercially released device is going to cost $600 and
require a hefty gaming PC.

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nickysielicki
Blegh, paywall'd.

I have no idea if this article[1] is missing any key information from WSJ's
but I found it via Google news and their primary source is the WSJ article.

Summary so far is that they're making two devices, one is an improved
cardboard that presumably uses your device's screen but also provides
additional sensors via Bluetooth/OTG.

The second device is a standalone headset.

No details so far on if these are both going to be HMD's or if this will be a
Google Glass successor.

[1]: [http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/11/google-developing-
standa...](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/11/google-developing-standalone-
vr-headset/)

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Zigurd
It will be interesting to see what's meant by "standalone." Will it be a VR
Android with a VR UI? A variant of an Android TV UI? Material design with
actual z-axis displacement and parallax.

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cthulhujr
I wonder if it will be part of the nexus line; perhaps it will run apps
targeted for the Nexus Player.

