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Oculus Go

oculus.com

245 pointssalimmadjd166 comments

The key thing about Oculus Go that is entirely missing from their website is that it only allows 3dof in the movement tracking. It's just like cardboard/daydream/gear. Unlike all the tethered VR headsets that do full 6dof.

In my opinion this isn't VR at all. It's a glorified 360 degree viewer. Personally I think it's pretty deceptive of Oculus to market this like it's a full VR heatset when it's very much not. If you are interested in VR for the immersion or the experiences, avoid this. Get something with full positional 6dof tracking.

Don't get me wrong, I think positional tracking is very significant, too—but that doesn't mean this "isn't VR". You can still move around fluidly in 3D space, it's just that what triggers that motion won't be the motion of your head—and that is an important fact, but being able to navigate 3D worlds mean it isn't just a 360 degree viewer. I've enjoyed 'rails'-based games and others where you navigate through gaze (or clicking if you have a controller I imagine) on the GearVR. And even if you're stationary (e.g. when sitting in the living room of Netflix app), exploring a real-time rendered 3D space by head rotations feels very different from viewing 360 video, which is a really poor experience IMO (for one thing, no depth perception).

I've used devices with positional tracking, and it's on another level for sure; but since I don't have a PC that could support one of the nicer headsets atm, it would mean shelling out at least ~$1400 to do VR.

So if this is more comfortable, has integrated audio, a higher-res screen, comes with a controller, and I don't have to set it up with my phone to use each time—it's definitely got me thinking about it...

Edit: also, if anyone knows: the main thing I wonder about this is whether it overheats super quickly like the GearVR. That's the worst part of the cellphone experience IMO—most games will cause overheating within ~5min.

Edit2: the Reddit faq[0] claims the heating issue is resolved, "overheating is no longer a problem (on Gear VR, this is the #1 issue - because phone components are packed into 5mm, your VR play session will always come to an end with the message 'your phone has overheated, gotta stop playing VR until it cools down')"

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/8g7ypb/the_answer_t...

I’m kind of in agreement with you... I don’t think the “real” VR inflection point will be here until we have something in this price range (sub $400) all-in-one with 6dof and leap motion-style hand tracking.

But I still bought two Oculus Go’s. Because I think I might be wrong about the 6dof and the finger tracking. I have a sneaking suspicion that with excellent rendering and good design we might see the Mario/FarmVille/Angry Birds/Pokemon Go of VR on a 3dof all-in-one device. We’ll know one way or another within 18 months.

If you’re a developer, it seems worth the risk to assume the inflection point is today, 5/1/2018 though.

I tried it at F8 today. The experience is EXACTLY like Daydream. Take that for what you will.

Pfffffft.

Windows Mixed Reality headsets are so much better than this.

The two really aren't comparable.

Windows Mixed Reality requires an entire PC attached to it. The whole point of this is that for $199, you get everything you need to start using it, no cellphone or (expensive) PC tether.

Whether there's a market for such a device I'm not so sure, but there's no doubt Windows Mixed Reality/Rift/Vive et al have relatively huge cost barriers to entry vs simpler VR devices like this.

I'm going to re-iterate the OPs opinion that this isn't VR.

If it is we need to a new name where Daydream / Oculus GO = glorified viewmaster and Rift / Vive (and windows mr?) = I touched the future.

They are vastly different experiences. The feeling of presence in Vive and Rift that come from (a) having your head movement fully tracked (b) being able to walk around things (c) having your actual hands in the simulation, make it an entirely different experience IMO.

I showed my non-tech family cardboard a couple of years ago. They were mildly impressed. I showed them Rift last Christmas and my non-tech mom wanted one immediately. I advised her not to get one yet but she was blown away.

Sure it would be better not to have a PC attached but without full 6dof and hands it's basically just a viewmaster toy for 360 videos.

There are already standalone Windows MR devices with 6dof. HoloLens has also had 6dof for years. Vive has a stand-alone 6dof as well, but it’s only in China so far.

HoloLens hasn’t been officially released and the developer edition costs $3000.

Could you link to a standalone Windows MR device with 6dof?

Sorry, I was wrong about that. I was thinking of Lenovo Solo, but that is Google Daydream-based. However MR does not inherently require a detached PC. HoloLens is a PC.

Sorta self-promotion (but not really), but I made a spreadsheet comparing the specs of phone VR, standalone, and desktop computing headsets here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10c2iIQL0EcDIWuVEx0Zs...

It should probably have its own category, but Playstation VR would be a good addition to the spreadsheet as well.

Thanks for that.

By the way, the Oculus Go is available with 32GB or 64GB storage ($199 or $249)

Thanks for the comparison, I've been out of the VR game for awhile. It looks like the Oculus Go is an amazing price for what it offers based on that spreadsheet.

It's amazing what $200 can get you, but what really makes me excited is the future. And I think the future is standalone VR in the $150-300 price range.

Could you add the windows MR ones? They are all pretty similar except the samsung one:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/collections/vrandmixed...

And they are pretty cheap when on sale at around $225

I bought mine for $200. Really impressed so far. Much more convenient to set up than a vive and works about as well in my experience.

The controller tracking is noticeably worse, but given that it's less than half the price, it's not bad.

Sure thing, I'm getting around to it but I did them last because there's multiple models and such.

Not to hijack the achievements of Oculus, but there is also a project to bring Linux to standalone VR headsets: https://github.com/SimulaVR/Simula

Get an Oculus Go for now. But show SimulaVR some love for the future :]

Rift Owner here.

Mmmmmm. That's some nice looking hardware. Not appearing like you had a medical device strapped to your face was one of my driving decisions for picking the Rift over the Vive. And the simple straps and soft touch fabrics look really nice and comfortable here.

But I have yet to find any lasting appeal to the "low-end" VR experiences. It really gives a poor impression of what the tech is capable of and walk away with a "gimmicky" feeling.

> But I have yet to find any lasting appeal to the "low-end" VR experiences. It really gives a poor impression of what the tech is capable of and walk away with a "gimmicky" feeling.

I'd argue that even "high-end" VR leaves many with a bad impression walking away with a "gimmicky" feeling. The Rift continues to be the worst technology investment I've made, no amount of personal enthusiasm for the concept makes up for the fact many people get motion sick on these things eventually. Feeling sick for "fun" in my free time is not up there with my favorite leisure activities.

Outside of a handful of impressive tech demos (RoboRecall etc), the vast majority of the content on the Rift is equally low rent too.

Each to their own but my experience has been the opposite. I just purchased an Oculus Rift with touch controllers, being carefully optimistic but a bit skeptical, thinking it was going to be as you said "Gimmicky", somewhere on par with 3D cinema experience-wise.

But man, it totally blew my mind how good and immersive it is. Maybe the strongest feeling of "wow, we really live in the future" I've had. The low latency combined with excellent controls really creates a feeling of being there. Google Earth by itself is worth the price of Oculus many times over. Then there are titles like Lone Echo, Robo Recall, Beat Saber, Skyrim VR, Quake 1 and Quake 2, Minecraft etc etc. Sure there aren't a ton of AAA titles yet but those that are hold an amazing quality IMO and has spoiled me from "normal" gaming

Could that just be a game design problem?

When iPhone came out, the games were gimmicky.

Same for Facebook platform.

And then there was Farmville. And then there was Angry Birds. And then there was Pokemon Go.

Games which were designed AROUND the limitations of the platform, rather than being a crappy stripped down version of previous fully realized gaming experiences.

GearVR and Rift owner here. Social VR, for example AltspaceVR, is also quite worthwhile with mobile VR like the GearVR. Yes, you cannot look around people and you have only one 'hand', but that's good enough. Another feature I regularly use is PhoneCast to use most Android 2D apps in VR. I remember catching up 4 seasons of The Walking Dead in double speed with BsPlayer every night. Of course BigScreen will also be a killer app when it's released for mobile to watch movies with others.

Speaking of Bigscreen...it was released for mobile today :-D

Oculus Go launch title and also Samsung GearVR support

Congrats! Tempting to grab a couple Go's for Bigscreen, just to watch movies comfortably in bed or something.

It's great for watching movies on an airplane. None of the games have done anything for me, but the movies are cool.

Watching TV on an airplane is the #1 reason I would buy a VR headset. The in-seat screen UIs are atrocious and they tend to only have ~4 or so episodes of any given show. Unfortunately, the Oculus Go's battery life is only about 2 hours according to the Ars Technica review[1]. Some planes have AC outlets, but YMMV.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/oculus-go-review-the-...

For the record, the upcoming Lenovo Mirage Solo headset has a 4000 mAh battery and (purportedly) 10-hour battery life. Of course, it is double the price of the Oculus Go.

it looks like it is available now: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/tablets/virtual-reality-and-sm...

I saw a review that mentioned Oculus discouraged using it while it was plugged in, so even on a flight with outlets you wouldnt be able to watch 2 movies on a 4 hour flight with it.

What about the noise level on a plane? Are they able to cancel that out?

You can provide your own noise cancelling headphones - you're not forced to use the headphones integrated into the strap.

What I think Oculus really nailed down was the controllers. Playing Robo Recall, I can sometimes even believe I'm holding an actual, although lightweight, weapon on my hands.

That said, resolution is not the greatest asset. I doubt this device improves on that – if anything it will probably be worse.

What blows people away is not the display, it's the head and position tracking, of both the HMD and the controls. It's amazing how you can "see" them and accurately pick them up on a table. I hope this device has that.

Actually Steam/Vive brought that tech first to market with the HTC Vive + Lighthouse, and after trying both the Lighthouse tech has noticeably less latency (through less complex tracking mechanisms). Plus side is Valve is giving away the tech for free.

What do you mean it is giving away the tech for free?

You can use Vive's lighthouse tracking commercially for free, with no royalties or patent licensing. For whatever reason, Facebook still decided to re-invent an inferior implementation using cameras and computer vision.

"Inferior" is debatable. It is pretty darn accurate. And it could potentially track my coffee mug, which has value :)

I don't think it's debatable. The Oculus tracking system at best does the same as the Lighthouse tracking, except lighthouse has less latency, less processing requirement (you can track a room full of hundreds or thousands of discrete balls since there's no CV loop). Plus in theory multiple users can use the same set of lighthouse emitters (they work kind of like Wii's IR based tracking system).

I don't think lighthouse was originally royalty-free and without any licensing fees back in 2016 when these systems released, pretty sure that was announced later.

>I doubt this device improves on that – if anything it will probably be worse.

It's actually higher resolution than the Rift.

it's for consuming 360-ish video experiences, which i think is less gimmicky than you're implying. good 360 videos are fun and immersive and let you explore visually in a way that flat film doesn't. i actually think this kind of passive engagement with "VR" will be more common (because it's easier) than highly interactive video games.

Out of curiosity; are their any VR platforms which pair with a drone such that the orientation of the drone is based on the direction your head looks? (I have neither a drone, nor a VR headset)

Or are drones oriented only by hand-held controls?

Yes. https://www.dji.com/dji-goggles

I actually enjoy watching regular video on the light wireless headsets.

Can you watch 2D streams (Netflix, Youtube, etc) on the headset?

The PC VR headsets have virtual theaters that you can watch any 2d content in. I'm sure this will have the same.

The review mentioned it did, but I don't understand why they have a virtual room. Why not just display the video at full resolution?

Why do I have to have my head and face oriented toward a virtual screen? Why would I want to look down at a virtual coffee table, or up at a virtual ceiling, or behind me at a virtual couch while the movie is playing at some fraction of the device's resolution in a different virtual direction?

1. Video Goggles have existed since the 90s, they want to differentiate themselves from that dead technology. So being able to look around a screen is actually pretty neat.

2. The screen simulates your full range of vision. So to fill it edge to edge would be impossible to watch. You would have to pick an arbitrary fraction of the screen to show at a time. Why not set up a virtual space where you can move closer or further away from the screen or move around like you can in real space? Self configuring!

Moving closer or further is an interesting idea - except I expect I'd be watching video either sitting in a chair or lying down, and thus quite stationary.

As for it adding to the experience, for optimal viewing in real life, we turn off the lights precisely to avoid the surroundings from distracting from the experience...

All of useful video players including the Netflix one have an empty space mode that is just that. And the virtual environment adds to the experience.

You can, but the experience is often like watching a giant standard-def TV set - none of the consumer grade VR headsets have the resolution to do this well yet. I personally find watching a film on an tablet or phone significantly better, unless the isolation offered by strapping a VR headset to your face is more important to you.

It has a native Netflix app (one of Carmacks pet projects)

Is there a site that lists available 360 content?

Really think the industrial design team at Oculus are outstanding, I was blown away with how nice my Rift headset looks, feels and how well considered each device is.

This is before I get into the Touch controllers which become invisible the fit so naturally to your hand.

Really like the design of the Go too but wont be buying one because for me the hand presence is what makes VR.

In my experience all VR has been rather gimmicky and poor. At least this one is cheaper/doesn’t require a headset.

What you look like is your driving decision on which VR device to buy? For me, that'd be mostly irrelevant.

It wasn't a huge factor, but I bought it partly as a party trick to pull out when people are over. Having it look less ugly and intimidating was definitely a plus when getting new people to try out VR for the first time.

On the other hand, I own only the Gear VR, and this looks like the logical next step up for me.

Just an FYI, though I'm sure you're already aware, this doesn't offer any improvements over the Gear VR's VR experience. The screen and performance are worse than the newest Galaxies.

It does offer better ease of use (always ready, no messing with docking your phone) and a lighter weight. Additionally it (obviously) doesn't take away from your phone's battery life.

Again, I'm sure you're aware of all that, but I'd hate for someone to spend $200, expecting something that this is not.

Wow, that webpage sucks. What are the specs?

Here's the important info from a review

> Unlike the Oculus Santa Cruz, the Oculus Go doesn’t include full motion controllers or futuristic inside-out tracking technology, which lets users walk around rooms with no external cameras. It allows you to rotate your head, but not lean or walk around. You can move its small controller like a laser pointer, but not fully mimic a virtual hand. It’s got basically the same features as Samsung and Oculus’ Gear VR, but as a dedicated piece of hardware, not a combination of smartphone and plastic shell.

So basically it's another one of those "turn your smartphone into VR" without needing the smartphone.

> futuristic inside-out tracking technology, which lets users walk around rooms with no external cameras.

Perpetuating the myth that 6DOF head tracking is for "walking around the room".

It's not. Even small head movements reveal parallax and without that VR isn't anywhere near as convincing an illusion.

6DOF is pretty much a base requirement for immersive VR.

Daydream, and I assume Gear but I don't know for sure, has that slight parallax by using a neck approximation and head pitch and roll.

Gear does have a head model, you can tell really easily in pretty much every Gear/Go game by looking at parallax differences between near and far objects.

So basically the most interesting experiences (eg. The Lab's Longbow game) are not available.

This is a very limited and transitional device then.

The Oculus subreddit seems to have a decent writeup:

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/8g7ypb/the_answer_t...

TLDR: "Overall, Go's performance should be on par with a Galaxy S8 or better."

It's pretty much the same hardware as a GearVR with an S8. The big difference is that it is physically larger, so the thermals are greatly improved. Thermal throttling may be the largest bottleneck in mobile VR.

Indeed. Does it do any sort of position tracking, or just orientation tracking?

It is nice though that it has been designed for prescription lens inserts.

There's no "6 degrees of freedom" here, just head orientation, much like the Gear VR and so on. It's significantly more basic than the Rift in that regard.

you can find the specs on bestbuy: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/oculus-go-stand-alone-virtual-r...

So much

Bought an S7 on the cheap recently to see if its 2K screen (2560x1440, so possibly the same as this?) would be good enough to watch films on, was okay but nowhere near what I'd like. Unless that's severely misrepresentative, I'll be keeping away from deeper VR experiences until they're at a stronger level (please prove me wrong!)

The fun and immersiveness does not come from the screen quality, but from your ability to navigate and interact with a virtual space. If I could convince you that you are walking on the surface of Mars, you wouldn't complain that I gave you a smudged visor.

Until the mobile experiences have a quality 6dof and motion controls, they have almost no appeal to me.

To be clear, I was buying one primarily to see whether it would suffice as an alternative to a projector (hitting a nice balance between image quality and lack of eye strain) so I'm coming from a perspective of exclusively caring about resolution. I mightn't complain about a smudged visor on mars, but I absolutely would complain (and have complained) if a film was out of focus in a cinema to the point where reading the subtitles gave me a headache.

As far as more immersive experience, I probably could afford to build a new computer and get a proper VR system rigged up but the cost involved vastly exceeds the level of appeal it has to me. The image quality is definitely at a level where it it probably already is pretty great, mind!

Luke from Linus Tech Tips indicated that 3dof "VR" might be damaging VR as a whole, as it gives people an unrealistically awful impression of what VR has to offer. This is in contrast to what I originally thought of Cardboard+co: low barrier of entry teasers. After repeatedly hearing that VR isn't special from people who have only used these low-end devices I've been forced to agree with Luke.

These platforms should drop the VR moniker - they are 360 stereoscopic ten day wonders and little more.

The assumption you make here is that they'd think otherwise if they had used a 6dof headset which doesn't really seem to ring true for me. There are lots of Rifts and Vives lying unused in people's homes and in general 6dof VR hasn't taken the world by storm either.

I can agree with the resolution issue but the framerate issue I think is still a sticking point. You really lose the immersion at low framerates and things like motion sickness start to take over any fun you might have.

I havent used any VR system, so take what Im about to say with a grain of salt, but Ive heard the actual VR headsets are much better in terms of immersiveness and quality than using phone headsets.

They are, but that's not because of better resolution. 6-DOF tracking (tracking position, not just orientation) on the headset and controller makes a _huge_ difference. Not for 360-degree video (it's actually pretty much irrelevant for that) but for all the other applications of VR. (Games, 3D drawing and modeling, social experiences, etc.)

This Oculus Go is very similar to a phone headset, since they aimed for a modest price point. It's a little better than the Samsung headsets, but only a modest improvement.

Unless you've tried it, I think it's really unfair to say Go is a modest improvement. The optics for one are much better than even the rift - not to mention you don't get dust inside the headset to ruin the experience.

Go also has a Snapdragon 821 for ONLY VR. The GearVR was sharing resources with a ton of other garbage background processes that Go doesn't need to worry about. And the thermal performance is also way better.

Finally, you can get Oculus Go to run at 72Hz which is a way more comfortable experience than GearVR.

So you get a lot more than your phone can give you for 25% of the cost.

> Go also has a Snapdragon 821 for ONLY VR

Sadly the Snapdragon is woefully underspecced in it's video decode capability - tops out at 4K which is less than ideal - 5K HEVC are already popular and a noticeable improvement for VR video.

I don't think it's all that popular yet, most 360 content I see is 4K and anything better than that is fairly rare. I do agree it's needed but especially for mobile VR storage requirements are also an issue that keeps people from releasing at better quality.

I bought one this morning (heck, I actually bought two- got lucky at Best Buy) I agree it's better than the GearVR, but it still seems only modestly better to me- I agree the optics are definitely better.

As you say, it's a good deal given the modest price point.

Screen resolution isn't good enough yet for a passive experience like movies.

The Verge review [1] has more specs:

> Its screen is a 5.5-inch display with a 2560 x 1440 resolution (1280 x 1440 per eye). It’s based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 processor from 2016...

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/1/17306458/oculus-go-standal...

Given the comparisons to Gear VR, does anyone know if this is running Android under the hood?

It is. The Ars Technica review[1] is pretty thorough.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/oculus-go-review-the-...

Okay, so I just picked one of these up and tried it out for half an hour or so. It is nothing less than a game changer. The screen quality is phenomenal, it's super comfortable, and it Just Works (TM). I have a Rift and PSVR and previously had both Rift DKs; this will get infinitely more use. Being untethered means I can sit on my couch, lay in bed, or sit on a plane and experience great VR.

My wife tried it for 10 minutes and already wants one of her own. This thing is priced to sell and just a great piece of tech. Can't wait to start developing for it!

> This thing is priced to sell

My gut feeling is that they are selling each unit at cost, or even at a loss, just to dominate the market. It's not like Facebook can't afford it.

Yep, I'd nearly bet on it. That SoC alone is what, $40? Screen closer to (or even over) $100, given how high-end it is. That leaves very little room for RAM, flash, controller, etc.

I wonder if they will notice an uptick in bounce rate for Firefox 59.0.3 users, primarily because it seems to crash the tab. The Ars Technica review linked by 'portmanteafu provided great information.

Can you share a Firefox crash ID from your about:crashes page? I see some bad flickering when I scroll with Firefox 59.0.3 on Windows 10, but I haven't been able to reproduce a crash yet.

This crash was caused by an internet security program called Palo Alto Networks' Cytool Traps that injects its DLL into Firefox's process and attempts to intercept and analyze network traffic. Here's the Firefox bug report:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1458377

I wish this page worked on Firefox Quantum :(

(can't scroll past the buy / watch video buttons)

Yeah, it's super glitchy/laggy on FF. Unbelievable that Oculus (Facebook) didn't test their page on FF.

To be honest, I kinda hate this kind of website where you scroll and the content changes.

My instinct is to agree with you.

On the other hand, it's a way of giving a dynamic introduction like you might achieve with a video but putting the speed of navigation through it into the control of the user.

It's doesn't work properly in Chrome either if you have Ublock Origin enabled and/or anti-Facebook filters in place. Which is not that surprising considering that Oculus IS Facebook.

Even when trying to sell you hardware, Facebook is spying on your every click.

It locked up my downward browsing on Firefox. I had to manually click the three content circles on the right to continue progressing through their presentation.

It kind of works for me on FF, the video in each section seems to have its frames locked to scrolling. So sitting here scrolling the mouse wheel 500 times chugs along the page.

In short: I hate that web site.

I am most excited not by gaming on this device, but by the prospect of experiencing the VR film content that is premiering at Sundance/Tribeca/SxSW. VR has a rich and diverse future, current clunkiness aside.

I'm sure there are cheaper ways of tuning in, but something about a polished name brand product appeals to me more than a smartphone-on-the-face cardboard approach.

Does anybody know what data Facebook harvests related to one's usage of their Oculus VR devices?

Ordered, can't wait. Will be nice to have a VR option that doesn't require burning battery or overheating my phone (OG Pixel). I built my last gaming PC to minimum-Oculus-VR specs, but never got around to buying the headset. Glad I waited.

The Go and the Rift are targeting pretty different experiences. The Go can only track rotation while the Rift can track position changes as well. This opens up many different actions (e.g. crouching down to pick up a can the road) which boost immersion. If you get a chance to demo a Rift or an HTC Vive, I would highly recommend it.

If your PC has the specs to handle the Rift you're doing yourself a disservice not to buy one at the new reduced price.

I bought one on a whim and expected it to be interesting but I was completely blown away and use it almost every night.

The Go isn't really the same experience because it doesn't track head position or hand position.

$399 is great, but I'm going to have to sell a bunch of stuff to pay for the Go as it is.. cancer med and oncologist visit copays suck :(

I've been wanting to buy an HTC Vive for a long time. The thing is, I don't have a desktop PC, so I've just postponed and postponed the purchase. Is this thing better than a google cardboard is it more or less the same?

Watching reviews it looks like it's mostly "experiences" and not much different from a cardboard.

If you are considering a Vive, you should probably avoid this. It's only 3dof, unlike the Vive's 6dof. In my opinion this isn't VR at all. It's a glorified 360 degree viewer. See my other comment in this thread.

(Disclaimer: Vive owner)

The major differences from Cardboard:

- OS and hardware are hand tuned to allow head tracking latency in the low double digit ms

- low persistence display (pixels only flash briefly, so less smudging)

- far superior optics, so that you get a more correct projection of space into your eye

- generally higher quality software. Experiences will vary but there are some very high quality ones

It's better than cardboard but it's in the same ballpark. It's probably the most refined mobile VR experience that exists at the moment. The games are pretty shallow or short for the most part.

Anyone know if FB is selling these at a loss to gain marketshare? $199 USD for the 32GB version is a welcoming price for mainstream acceptance.

I always wonder with these things why the big jump in price for memory - what's the bom difference? Is the 32gb just the 64gb one with half the memory crippled?

It's £5 for the cheapest possible 32gb sdcard, about £12 retail for one I'd expect to work well. So presumably the memory is quite a small part of the cost difference -- there seems so much other tech in there, a quarter of the price can't be just memory.

School me oh gurus; is this just price differentiation?

The jump from 32GB and 64GB is definitely price differentiation. But $50 for more memory on an expensive toy isn't that bad either (or maybe Apple has conditioned me to think this way).

3DOF, right? No positional tracking?

Correct. It's Gear VR space - I guess the objective is to have a device that sits between the high end (Rift/Vive) space, and the low end (Gear/Cardboard) space.

That said, I can't see high end users adopting downwards - and for low end users, it's not much of a step upwards (still no positional tracking, which is kinda a watershed point for VR experiences), and is an additional device, when they can accomplish largely the same thing with a cellphone and gear VR setup.

I suppose that leaves new adopters as the market, but with a lower entry point than Rift - but it's going to be a watered down experience and could undermine their high end sales too.

Honestly, I'm not sure I understand what the strategy is here.

I'm pretty sure I get it -

It's an up-scale gift.

All those times you've walked into Best Buy, and you've seen the WALL of crappy VR? Well, this will be the undisputed king of all of them.

I'm seriously considering one for airplanes. I'd definitely want to use my noise-cancelling headphones instead, though. "also includes a 3.5mm headphone jack" So that's good.

It'll be lighter than one phone-based ones, too, I bet. Less fidgeting, trying to get your phone in and out. Don't get distracted when you get an IM from your friend, wrecking your view for a minute. Auto-brightness isn't on, messing with you.

And it's a walled garden. Oculus IS the store. That's good for them. So, they may sell these at a loss, and still come out ahead.

The smart move is to buy one and only use the free apps, or the stuff you really, really know you want.

I have a 6.3" smartphone that doesn't fit in these vr-contraptions.

So I guess I would be a potential customer?

On the other hand I didn't look into the whole thing too much and don't know anything I would like to do with this thing...

Correct. The Lenovo Mirage will be the first 6DOF mobile headset available outside Asia. (I believe the HTC Focus is already available in certain Asian markets)

As if Go as word wasn't already too much overloaded.

At least Disney isn't pushing go.com as hard anymore.. That's a start? ;-)

They have enough location data to show UK pricing (I am in the UK), but when I ask about where I can trial a headset they silently fail and show me somewhere on the east coast of the USA.

Carmack was quite excited about the Go during his talks.

It looks like Xiaomi made more in 4 months than Oculus stuff in last 4 years.

https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-go-update-announcing-our-...

There are some images mid-page that move when I move my phone. However, they move in the opposite direction I’d expect them to move. When I move left, it looks as though I’m looking right (and vice versa). Is my brain being tricked here?

Supposedly better optics to deal with screen door effect and a higher resolution per-eye but I couldn't find any information on FOV per eye. What is Oculus Go's overall pixel density?

Can you replace the lenses?

My desktop Rift's lenses are all scratched from normal use (people with glasses used it, etc.).

I couldn't imagine having a "on the go" device with lens that you can't replace.

It says there are prescription inserts on the website

No, it's only a plastic spacer to leave extra room for your eye glasses.

Scroll down. They are most definitely selling inserts for lenses.

I stand corrected! In my defense, their website is a mess.

So, put in inserts with no strength (extra purchase) and hope for the best...

I wish someone sold a cheap but good quality VR set with dispay + HDMI driver board to be hooked up with Raspberry Pi. Go seems ideal if it just had HDMI port.

The Raspberry Pi's HDMI can't drive more than 1080p 60hz. The resolution on the Oculus Go for comparison is 2560x1440 72hz.

Technically it can drive up to 3840x2160 at 24 Hz if overclocked, but the video decoder is limited to 1080p, limiting practical use cases. But you are right, 1080p screen would be better fit (for even cheaper price). I'm currently using OSVR HDK (the original version), but that thing is pricey for what it is.

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/3966

I have a Daydream VR headset from Google and these two are a lot like design-wise. Competition on comfort design could be a good thing in my opinion.

I just want to be able to make money as a dev, AND have a wide selection of software available. I still think Valve is going to win in this arena down the line.

Would this work for emulating multiple screens for my PC? Has anyone tried it with existing hardware, can you for example program with it?

You "can". I have not tried programming, but I have tried reading.

Resolution is poor, so text display doesn't look great. Not horrible, just not great. However, if you secretly wanted to program using a movie theater display, I guess that would work. I think that's how it would feel like.

The thing is, other than having a gigantic (perceived) display, what's the advantage? We'll still be manipulating text – and you'll have to touch type, because you won't be able to see the keyboard.

We need a lightable-like VR experience before that makes sense.

For watching movies it works. Depending on the person it may be uncomfortable after a while. If you are ok with it, then it is actually nice. The software is not yet there though, the ones I've tried just emulate a movie theater. If/when you can project 3D movies, then it will be great.

I regularly use Reedy through PhoneCast (Samsung GearVR) to read epubs, and the RSVP works good as well. Reading goes almost as well as on my e-ink e-reader with the advantage that I don't have to hold the reader. The resolution on the GearVR is slightly higher then on the Rift, and that pays of while reading. The GearVR is quite heavy though, so I don't want to wear it for more then 30 minutes.

> If/when you can project 3D movies, then it will be great.

Most of the movie playing software for the Gear VR supports 3D movies in a variety of formats. It's the only way I can watch 3D movies at home right now.

Can I use it to e.g. play games on another device, like a PS4?

I thought the PS VR headset would be perfect for this. Unfortunately it requires to be connected by wires which is frustrating. Something like this, but tailored to PS4 would be awesome.

The latencies involved would make you barf in matter of minutes. Streaming over wired ethernet is already barely adequate for action games and VR requires significantly lower latency to feel good.

You can keyboarding without watching.

Using a remote desktop or VNC client through PhoneCast VR (on GearVR) works, I don't know if this Samsung app will be available on Oculus Go, and I see no Remote desktop VR apps. You might be able to stream your desktop as a video stream and use a wireless mouse and keyboard. I have not seen a way to surround yourself with different desktops in mobile VR. That would be my goal as well. It can be done with a highres Mixed Reality headset which I also have, but they need a Windows PC. That experience is adequate. I realized that I could just as well create my ultimate setup in real life, surround myself with 6 27 inch bezel to bezel Dell screens and stand in the middle.

Bigscreen does this and is a launch title for the Oculus Go. It's available today.

https://blog.bigscreenvr.com/bigscreen-is-launching-today-on...

Stream your Windows PC --> mobile VR headset using the "Bigscreen Remote Desktop" feature

I can't speak to this specifically, but generally HMD screens are too low resolution to show text well enough for programming. Also (from what I understand), every virtual screen requires a corresponding HDMI port on your machine

Why?

You only require the HDMI port used by the Rift. Everything else is rendered as a texture inside the virtual environment. That works today, you can have multiple screens floating around, your Windows desktop, etc.

The one HDMI per screen thing is because Virtual Desktop simply output your actual computer screens in VR.

There is nothing stopping you from using one huge screen with transparent background and a bunch of windows.

Check this out: https://vspatial.com/

Nice, but is there a virtual monitor app available, so I can work on one giant monitor or several monitors at once?

Try Bigscreen or Virtual Desktop

I dont want VR unless it and it's software is foss. Is the hdk2 my only option?

I unfortunately cannot use this as I’m concerned about living in a Facebook panoptician (seriously).

* living being narrowly defined as interacting with a/the world via an immersive virtual reality.

Is this running Android or not, what is the OS?

Android Nougat.

Can it be used with Blocks?

No, Blocks especially requires 6DoF. Can probably view Blocks stuff though.

Oh wow.. that page was terrible, couldn't even stand waiting for it to load.

No comments yet on how this is almost exactly the Google Daydream viewer with a builtin phone?

That's exactly what this is and has always been advertised as being. It's even software compatible with the Gear VR.

Can you get the Daydream plus an equivalent phone for $200?

yeah, nah, I'm gonna pass on that.

why would you take a vr setup from the living room and "mobilize" it. what idiot is going to take his oculus go with him on the go ?

this platform is going to be restricted to low quality titles/products

to be fair this is going to be a lot more affordable than a real vr setup but IMO this is the wrong way to introduce vr to the masses

now vr is going to have this 2005-10 facebook game-esque connotation to it, which is anything but ideal

opinions ?

If smartphones are any indication, VR on the go will happen eventually, without a doubt. If it's not this model that popularizes it, it will be some other model.

what idiot is going to take his oculus go with him on the go?

I really think you are underestimating people here

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