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Samsung Gear VR product shot

Don't mistake Samsung's Gear VR for a high-end gaming device. It'due south not. Instead, it offers some compelling, if brief, virtual-reality experiences for techies and not-techies alike. Fifty-fifty those who are not impressed by the latest commencement-person shooter, intriguing VR experiences including Disneyland, Nepal, and the Blueish Angels are likely to testify compelling.

The hardest part of getting the non-technical folks in your household (if you have whatever) excited well-nigh the Gear VR will be explaining to them how they get it to work without being able to see what they're seeing. In my case, afterwards doing my best to tee-upwards the "It'south a Small World" Disney feel earlier handing the Gear VR off, I was chagrined that the first matter it displayed was a alarm about overheating. But eventually, the Gear VR delivered and my family was hooked.

The Gear VR experience

Up front, I want to go far clear that the Gear VR is not a classically great VR experience — although information technology is powered using Oculus software. Images are somewhat grainy — mostly because y'all are staring at your phone screen from a couple inches away, through lenses that are essentially magnifying glasses — and at that place tin can exist some lag in fast-moving applications.

Just the Gear VR is not a $2,000 Oculus dev kit, or even a $600 Oculus Rift attached to a high-end PC. Information technology is a $100 headset coupled with a phone you already own (and it'due south definitely not worth buying a new Samsung phone to run it!). Judged by that standard, information technology is pretty darn absurd. For many it will be the first way they feel VR, and perhaps the simply way for quite a while.

Applications and videos are hit or miss

There are a growing number of applications, and even more than videos, for the Gear VR. It seems like the more impressive they are, the more than they crash. Or at least, that has been my experience. JauntVR provides some amazing 360-degree experiences, but oftentimes caused the device to hang, overheat, or go black. I'm sure that volition ameliorate with time, or with more than expensive devices like the Oculus Rift, but it can exist very frustrating in the meantime.

To empathize what's possible on the Gear VR, we need to embrace what it can and tin can't do. It performs head tracking using the sensors on your phone (for that matter, essentially everything it does uses your phone's electronics). With my Samsung Galaxy S6 Border, the head tracking was pretty impressive, responding chop-chop in applications that didn't add their own lag.

However, the Gear VR doesn't have whatsoever positional tracking, and then moving around in a VR scene doesn't really move you around. If y'all're sitting in a fixed location, that's probably fine, as you can't move anyway. Instead, there is a bear upon-sensitive area on the right side of the goggles that you swipe in a direction to either navigate menus or move effectually. It is non the simplest system to use, and reminds me of the awkward swipe interface on Google Drinking glass. But if you lot can develop a skillful sense of where to identify your finger, it is usable. More than serious gamers will desire to add a Bluetooth-connected gaming controller to utilize.

Jaunt VR offers a growing catalog of immersive video experiences for Gear VR

Jaunt VR offers a growing catalog of immersive video experiences for Gear VR

The Gear VR can also use your phone'southward photographic camera (bold yous have the Gear VR's cover off) to let you view the earth in front of yous. However, probably due to the limited ability of the telephone, there don't seem to be any applications that do either object tracking, or any type of positional tracking using the camera, like the new, only much more expensive developer kit from Lumus and Infinity AR does.

Some things to endeavour

Hollywood has begun moving into VR, starting with a dedicated VR experience at the trendy Sundance Film Festival. Gear VR owners can get the same feel for themselves, as the videos have been loaded into Samsung's Milk VR library (although for some reason simply until February 12th). Similarly, startup Jaunt VR has created some amazing 360-degree video experiences that you can view after downloading the free Jaunt VR app from the Oculus store. For family viewing, "It'due south a Small World" is a practiced introduction, while "Nepal" provides a more dramatic adventure.

Adjacent VR has been experimenting with live streaming diverse sporting events. I watched (a recorded version) of an NBA game, and wasn't all that impressed. The 360 perspective puts yous courtside, simply because it doesn't zoom in to the play, often the players around the ball were distant and blurry. I found the extreme sports experiences (like Supercross) more than compelling, as the action is the main point of those experiences.

To meet a glimpse of what the medium may get, GONE is an interactive combination TV series and video game made for VR. I had a hard time motivating myself to spin around looking for clues in the wood, merely it pushes the boundaries of gaming and amusement further than well-nigh of the other available content.

It is hard to show a picture of what it looks like inside a VR headset, but this artistic rendering provides some idea of the Gear VR Oculus UI

It is hard to show a picture show of what it looks similar inside a VR headset, but this artistic rendering provides some idea of the Gear VR Oculus UI

Unfortunately, content discovery and management is sort of a mess, split between the Oculus store, Samsung's Milk VR library, and other walled-garden content libraries created by individual publishers. Some of these offer a search capability — although searching for anything using a Google touch pad is painful — while others don't have any search function at all. For VR to move beyond the bleeding border, this needs to change. Ironically, information technology is probably easier to manage content for the inexpensive Google Cardboard than for Gear VR, since Cardboard content comes in the form of Android apps y'all tin can go from the Play store using your telephone UI.

VR content in full general is certainly withal suffering teething pains. I constitute a couple issues that were consistent beyond many of the bachelor videos. The first is that some brand too much use of 360 — I guess just to show off. For example, the U2 video has each performer appear at a different compass bespeak around you. That makes the video hard to scout unless you're sitting on a swivel chair, and even then is probable to kickoff making you dizzy.

The 2nd upshot is related, every bit in one case you've started to look around (especially on the recommended swivel chair), information technology can be hard to figure out where you "should" be looking to follow the narrator. For example, as I "wandered through" the Holy Land video, the narrator would helpfully point out facts about i of the surrounding buildings. But I found myself getting confused about which management I needed to look to see it.

Similarly, in Nepal, action might start to unfold in a direction away from where I was looking, and require some experimentation and rewinding to find it. Traditional film directors address this issue by directing our attention through camera position, zoom, and focus, but immersive videos leave that all up to us. The result is certainly an enhanced sense of place and presence, but non necessarily a better ability to follow the story.

It is difficult to categorize VR content. Some, like Netflix, is just 2D. Some is 3D, but still "flat screen." Some provides 360 horizontal, and some is truly 360-degrees in ever direction.

It is difficult to categorize VR content. Some, like Netflix, is just 2nd. Some is 3D, but still "flat screen." Some provides 360 horizontal, and some is truly 360-degrees in ever direction.

Practicalities of using the Gear VR

The Gear VR is well-designed, and it is fairly piece of cake to prune your phone into information technology. You do need to have ane of the few supported phone models (S6, S6 edge, Note 6, S6+ Edge), though. There are several drawbacks to this constant plugging and unplugging. First, you'll probably demand to remove your phone example for information technology to fit. Second, if yous accidentally striking the power push while inserting your phone — thus locking it — you lot'll need to pull it back out over again, unlock it, and start over (I accept had this happen to me a lot).

It's actually piece of cake to smudge the lenses in the Gear VR during the process of inserting and unloading the phone, so I constitute myself needing to wipe them fairly oftentimes. I used the Gear VR with glasses, with contacts, and with no correction (my optics are only a couple diopters off normal). All three worked pretty well, although of course each change required tweaking the focus wheel. Of the three, I'd say contacts worked best in my case. Headphones as well add to the experience, although they also add together to the headache of getting set up. Some experiences can be streamed (you'll demand good bandwidth for this to work well), while others can only be downloaded (typically gigabytes even for a relatively short immersive video).

UPDATE: I got a chance to use a cool pair of wireless earbuds from Earin with my Gear VR, and they definitely offered an improved user experience compared to having to bargain with plugging in a wired set up and keeping the string out of your way while moving effectually and running the Gear while immersed in virtual reality.

So, is the Gear VR worth $100?

If yous accept the money and a compatible phone, in a word, yes. Think about it. $100 is 6 tickets to a 3D film. That'due south 12 hours of virtual fun. At a minimum Gear VR is worth a few hours of tinkering, and y'all can impress your friends for at to the lowest degree 10 or 20 minutes each. And so there is the gamble that y'all'll actually become hooked on one of the games (and mayhap invest in a Bluetooth gamepad), and find countless hours of entertainment. Or you might decide that a private screening is the best way to sentinel your favorite movie on your next airplane flight — I know I'm always a little embarrassed when the R-rated scenes in one of my favorite Tv series all of a sudden shows upward on my laptop when I'thou in an aisle seat and people are walking by. The same goes for your dorm room or apartment, and Gear VR has a cute Netflix app available.

It's likewise not a long-term investment. If you dear it, then you'll probably figure out a way to upgrade to the Oculus Rift, or HTC Vive, and a powerful-enough estimator to run one of them. Fifty-fifty if you don't love information technology, information technology's likely a amend one will come up along before the end of the twelvemonth. And so it's best to think of it as an amusement expense, like a movie or ticket to an entertainment park. Of course, unlike with those, parking is gratuitous, and you tin can brand your own popcorn.