The Worst VR Headset Ever Made

VR. Virtual Reality. Cardboard. They go together better than you’d think. Well, only if you don’t think they go together at all. Because they really don’t.

But alas, I’m going to look back at the the good, the bad, and the really bad of an oddity in the VR space.

Rest in pieces Google Cardboard.

Check out my vid on Whimsu about the wacky world of Google Cardboard applications, cause, well, they get wacky;

Soundcloud:

Video Sources:
Adam Savage’s Tested
Android Authority
Virtual Reality Oasis
IGN
Fifth Gear
Barefoot Gaming
Oren De-Panther
FusedVR
SlashGear
Gamereactor
CNET
The Verge
Digital trends
Digital Trends
Bloomberg Quicktake: Originals
TechCrunch
Neon Spectrum VR
PhoneArena
Ralph Barbagallo
WIRED
Tom's Hardware
TechCrunch
Linus Tech Tips
Gadgets 4 Geeks Australia
TechCrunch
Surreal entertainment
Durovis Dive
AlfredEPoor

[MrJr]

Say what you want about this thing, it's what got me into VR. It's what led me down the path of craving a world beyond my own. I'd sit for nearly half an hour during my lunch breaks in HS just...watching YT videos through it. Long before the Quest 2, Vive, etc, there was a broke HS student, time on his hands, and a $15 cardboard kit he borrowed in the library. As bad as it is, it was still my gateway and a significant part of who I am today.

[SleepyAdam]

I remember trying a GearVR at a convention one year and whatever demo they chose for it blew my damn mind. I was like at the bottom of the ocean in a wrecked ship and you could see through cracks in the ship and see fish swimming around seemingly hundreds of meters away. The sense of depth was incredible and the ship looked low quality but detailed in terms of stuff to look at.

And then I actually got one of those cheaper "VRBox" headsets and could never replicate that experience until I finally got my PC VR years later. But I might never have bought it if it wasn't for that initial experience so I suppose it did it's job in that area.

[DomiAnimations]

Ahh, just what the future needed...

*Cardboard Glasses.*

[voltairethegoldflame]

I'm 90% sure the main use for phone VR was porn.

[poweroffriendship.]

*Fun Fact:* Spongebob Squarepants predated the idea of Cardboard VR way before Google did.

All you need to do is to go inside of that empty cardboard box and use your I M A G I N A T I O N. That is the real virtual reality.

[Niko_Tortellini]

I remember the free Gear VR that came with my S7 required you to plug your phone into the device, which brought it to its own menu for VR stuff. Knowing that pornhub had "VR" porn, I went to the web browser application to satisfy this curiosity only to find that porn had been blocked from the VR's web browser. Seeing this as the absolute failure that it is, it has since been sitting somewhere in a basement collecting dust.

[SlayCC]

I remember seeing the carboard on the news back in 2015 and it blew my mind. I googled some tutorials and made one of my own using some carboard and a pair of toy binoculars I bought at the dollar store. I downloaded some dumb vr app on my phone and tried it, it was blurry as hell, very motion sickening, but it blew my mind. I just finished HL-Alyx a couple months ago with my quest 2 and it was some of the coolest experiences of my life.

[Catbattle]

I remember my school had a single class where we used Google Cardboard to visit mars or something. It stands out as a a really cool memory, but I don't think I actually learned anything from it. To be honest, I feel like a school/educational environment is probably a place where they could still have a market.

[thebush]

I'm glad we reached the point of standalone cheap VR because as someone who used a GearVR and cardboard headsets for PC VR with Nolo trackers n stuff, it was absolutely terrible and having to take my phone out of its case every time I wanted to do VR stuff, and limited by my phone's battery and heat and not having access to my device while using it in VR was just bad.

Oculus Go was better but still not great.

I was waiting for Santa Cruz to release since it was first talked about so when Quest dropped I immediately bought it, then did the same for Quest 2.

Now I'm just waiting for my Kat Walk C2 to arrive and maybe Cambria for the final piece of the puzzle...

[mildsoup]

The perfect application for Google Cardboard was as the ultimate lazy TV, a pair of earbuds lay on your bed and enjoy watching a big screen with great sound while using minimal effort without the fear of a giant tv falling on you because you mounted it to the ceiling. I was in heaven.

[solidcap]

I remember when I was in high school someone from Google came to the library and for English class we went and tried them out. I remember them being OK kind of interesting, but not really anything to run home about. Most of what we did was just look at various 3-D pictures of historical sites.

[Hautest]

I had a google cardboard and I tell you what, the VR Porn I could finally easily for cheap experience was dope

[bigcrouton]

I think this is Tyler’s way of telling everyone with the name change that he’s going to slowly start winding down the channel and start uploading to whimsu more but who knows I’m dumb

[dave]

I remember playing with cardboard and daydream when it was a big deal. It was a really cool experience to see all the creative ways game devs were building pretty good VR games that could run on the limited power of my phone. Eventually I stopped mainly because of the extreme amount of heat it produced in my phone. Holy shit my phone would easily get to 100-130F+ when I used daydream. I even made some makeshift cooling pads to try to protect my phone a bit, but they weren't that effective There was no way that way that wasn't shortening the lifespan of my phone. Not worth it. Though, I was sad when I heard that Google stopped supporting daydream. Would've been nice to revisit those games every now and then :(

[Tyler-gvzf]

I absolutely loved my Gear VR with my S7 Edge. At the time, it was amazing to see what just my phone could do. To be honest, I miss using it.

Edit: After seeing this, I just went to Walmart and bought a Quest 2. I’ll update this post with my impressions!

Edit 2: Guys, it’s awesome (well, so far at least). I was annoyed with the Facebook account requirement, but I got around it by making a burner just for the headset.

The motion controllers are slick and easy to use. Quite the upgrade from the ol’ Gear VR! I got Beat Saber (I’ve heard it described as a mandatory purchase, despite being $30), it’s solid fun.

Apparently I can hook it up to my laptop for Steam VR games? Not sure if I’m smart enough to figure that out but the potentially better graphics sound enticing…

Edit 3: the fiancé loves playing Beat Saber, which is surprising for someone who generally isn’t into video games.
I’m debating on buying the “pro” strap…. So far I’ve been using a MacBook charger to charge while playing but I definitely want to get a long USB-C cable with a “L/90 degree” connector so it doesn’t wear out from the constant bending near the plug-in.

Edit 4: I ultimately decided to buy a “elite” style strap and it is night and day as far as comfort goes. It is also far simpler to use the headset with multiple people because resizing the basic strap is a pain, especially compared to the easy to use dial on the “elite” strap.
Additionally, the process of connecting to a computer was a breeze; all I had to do was plug it in and download some software.

[joaovitormatos]

If you are on mobile right now in a supported phone and you tap on the gear in the top right corner of the screen, you'll see "watch in VR" as an option

[taddersauce]

I remember my parents ordered a cardboard from the nyt. It was my first experience with the thing. You could look at 360 mini documentaries with pretty clear resolution. I thought it was great and it certainly didn’t damage my experience when people started using oculus, index and vive.

[lipnoodle]

While obviously phone VR would never hold a candle to true VR, I feel like there was still room for novel experiences using it. What really sucks is that you can no longer use the daydream "suite" or Gear VR. You can kind of hack Daydream onto your phone, but you can't actually launch anything in it. I understand dropping support for those apps, but it seems like Google and Samsung went a step further and outright prevented the apps from launching at all.

[arnumorales]

Around 2016 there were a lot of Chinese copies of VR sets for android phones (at least here in Mexico). They were cheap enough, so people bought those. I remember trying them because a friend had them, I saw a Björk 360° video and I was fascinated. I wanted to buy my own set but I never did. It was my first experience with VR.

[Kallodus]

My first ever VR experience was with a $15 Google cardboard knockoff, and it convinced me to try the real thing. I've never looked back, but cardboard made me say wow, then true VR blew my mind. It's crap now, but it's part of my VR experience.