Over the past year or so we have been reporting on the advances in the world of Virtual Reality. So many high tech breakthroughs have been made, chief among them the Oculus Rift. But who has the better part of R5000 to spend to escape reality? That is not even mentioning the monster PC you will need to experience the true Oculus experience. That said, Google has come to the everyday man’s rescue with the Google Cardboard.
The Cardboard kit was initially given away to Google I/O attendees in 2014, and then Google posted the plans online so anyone with an empty pizza box or stray shipping carton could hack together a VR device with a handful of cheap parts. Now the kits are available all around the world and even in South Africa. The awesome peeps at iToys sell it for R119 and they have given us one to test out!
Getting set up
So yeah, the Cardboard might seem a bit silly, but since the plans were originally released last year it has been downloaded more than 500,000 times. There currently exists dozens upon dozens of compatible apps to experience your VR in the comfort of your own home. Current Cardboard apps are largely short, straightforward experiences, but it‘s incredibly cool to be able to try out VR without a significant investment of money or time. You already have an smartphone, right? The Google Cardboard allows you to drop it in and escape reality.
Building your Coardboard is pretty easy. The pieces come mostly attached to each other, apart from the viewing pane, and you just fold the cardoard sides, matching the numbers to create the viewer. The viewing pane is basically three binocular-shaped cardboard pieces that houses the concave lenses. The phone housing flips over the viewer and is attached with Velcro strips. You also recieve an elastic rubber band that attaches to the sides of the viewer with Velcro strips to attach the device to your head.
There’s also two strong magnets that fit on the side and allows you to control the phone. It’s limited to pressing the screen by using the phone’s magnetometer (which is normally used for the compass) but gets the job done. It must be mentioned that the magnet only works for certain phones. If your phone has NFC enabled, the Cardboard app should also launch automatically once the DIY headset is inserted.
The experience
Obviously it is not going to be as immersive like you will find with the Oculus Rift, or Samsung‘s Gear VR headsets, which cost around $200 (+- R 2700) and only work with the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, and Note 4 and 5. But it‘s an easy way to get a feel for what‘s possible with modern virtual reality, and beyond the low cost of the headset, most of the available apps are free. I tested it out with an iPhone 6 and it worked like a charm! Although I couldn’t really get the magnet to work. I also found the available apps to be a bit sparser than on the Google platform.
I tried out two apps with the Google Cardboard. One was called VRSE, it takes you through a set of CGI created virtual reality film experiences. The other is called Roller Coaster VR, which lets you take a wild ride on different VR roller coasters! The experience worked well enough even though your view is limited to the phone’s field of view. One thing to keep in mind is that more intensive VR apps need the latest hardware to enjoy properly. My iPhone 6 kept up quite nicely but I have heard that older devices (like the Samsung S4, iPhone 4 etc.) experiences some lag with more intensive apps.
The whole effect of placing your smartphone screen two inches from your eyes and then focusing on it through cheap plastic lenses can be a little trying. I did get a bit of vertigo after a while and having a history of motion sickness I didn’t spend more than a few minutes with the Cardboard strapped to my head.
So, do we like it?
The whole idea of Cardboard is intriguing and, more importantly, fun. It provides a very cheap and easy way to experience semi-immersive virtual reality games and apps. As developers create more and more apps the Google Cardboard becomes a nifty piece of hardware. It is quite amazing that you can get this VR experience with little more than a piece of cardboard and two plastic lenses.
Of course you can’t expect a mind blowing Oculus Rift like experience from the Cardboard priced at R119. But that is not the idea behind the Google Cardboard, they have created a very accessible piece of DIY hardware that anyone can enjoy. If you aren’t convinced by the whole VR thing just yet the Cardboard allows a cheap and easy way to make up your mind!
Head over to the iToys site to get your hands on the Google Cardboard and a host of other gadgets! Have you tried out the Cardboard? Let us know in your comments below.
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Photo Credit – iToys and myself…
