Best gifts for VR designers and developers
It’s a pleasure to gift no only lovely or beautiful thing, but also something that is desirable and would be valuable. VR market is so new that list of options is comparably limited. The most probably that VR designer or developer own some of the devices for virtual reality, so before buying be sure that it’s the desired gift.
Let’s start with necessary things. Every VR designer or developer should test as maximum as possible different headsets to define the best practices and understand differences.
Oculus Rift + Touch Virtual Reality System
Oculus Rift still is one of the best VR headsets.
Price: $379
Sony PlayStation VR — Doom Bungle
Sony PlayStation VR is another high-quality VR headset that works only with Sony PlayStation. Doom VR is the excellent game to start.
Price: $283.32
Dell — Visor Virtual Reality Headset and Controllers
Just one of the bunch others Windows MR headsets that require PC.
Price: $260
Jedi Challenges AR Headset
You cant create own experiences for this headset. But it’s good enough to play with something new.
Price: $199
Google Daydream View — one more VR headset that requires specific phone. It works with Google Pixel and few other smartphones.
Price: $79
Merge VR/AR Goggles
The excellent headset that works with any smartphone. It has adjustable lenses and input buttons.
Price: $49.99
Mini Virtual Reality Glasses
It’s the most affordable way to get virtual reality experience.
Price: $9.99
Let’s go to hardware. To run most of the experiences required powerful PC or phone.
Alienware AW17R4
Just big and powerful laptop with GTX 1080 graphics card.
Price: $2.499
CyberpowerPC
It’s great PC with GTX 1080 TI graphic card. Practically all you need for playing, designing or developing virtual reality experiences.
Price: $1,799.99
Pixel 2 XL
One of the best phones on Android. It works only with mentioned earlier Daydream VR headset.
Price: $1,078.99
Samsung Galaxy S8+
Another smartphone on Android that compatible with Samsung Gear VR headset and Samsung Gear 360 camera.
Price: $809.99
I know that 360 video isn’t true virtual reality, but for experimenting with 360 content would be great to have 360 cameras.
Garmin Virb 360
If you haven’t preordered GoPro Fusion, Garmin Virb 360 is closest competitor between all action cameras.
Price: $699.99
Samsung Gear 360
Another 4k video camera. But you’ll need Samsung phone to share video straight to social.
Price: $158.00
Also, small improvements can help to get more comfortable experience. There are listed few more accessories.
6 Packs Cable Management
This system helps to stop thinking all the time about cable on a floor. It’ll be useful for owner all headset that need a connection to PC or PlayStation.
Price: $22.99
Snakebyte Storage Stand for your VR Glasses
Great solution to keep your headset in place. It’s compatible to HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR headsets.
Price: $29.99
Charge and Display Stand for VR PlayStation
Solution to comfortably store VR PlayStation headset and controllers.
Price: $34.99
Hard Travel Case for HTC VIVE
Useful accessories if you even decide to take your setup for a walk.
Price: $45.99
Magnetic Charging Station for HTC VIVE Controller
One more solution to keep your working place organized.
Price: $49.99
Virtual reality is the very new field where experimenting and testing is the best way to figure out the solution. But there are already some excellent writings about specific topics that would help avoid common mistakes and reach better results faster.
Learning Virtual Reality
Book: Learning Virtual Reality: Developing Immersive Experiences and Applications for Desktop, Web, and Mobile by Tony Parisi is comparable old but still useful book for VR developers and designers.
Price: $26.15
VR UX: Learn VR UX, Storytelling & Design
This book by Casey Fictum is the great guide to virtual reality UX designers.
Price: $5.99
Building Virtual Reality with Unity and Steam VR
Comprehensive guide how to get VR experience using Unity game engine and Steam VR libraries.
Price: $59.93
Storytelling for Virtual Reality: Methods and Principles for Crafting Immersive Narratives
The book focuses on the narrative and how stories can best be structured, created, and then told in immersive virtual spaces.
Price: $44.95
Pentalic Traveler Pocket Journal
Sketching is part of creating VR experience. This notebook with black paper makes drawing pleasurable.
Price: $9.40
There are all the best gifts for virtual reality designers and developers that are available at the end of 2017. In the near future are already visible very promising headsets and other devices that help to make virtual reality even more exciting and accessible.
