VR’s Most Fantastic HMDs And Where To Try Them
What to expect when you’re expecting to experience VR for the first time
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a 360-degree panorama worth? What about when the 360 picture starts moving? How many words is it worth to then be able to interact with the moving images that encompass your field of vision?
For the potential enthusiasts who will make up the first wave of VR/AR audience expansion, getting a real feel for the platform’s technological and creative potential through plain text is quite challenging. Few of us have the option of plunking down $2200 for a top-of-the-line VR system, fast PC included. But fortunately there are plenty of ways to dip your toes into the wide variety of VR/AR experiences that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Valve, and Samsung want you to try without breaking the bank.
Augmented Reality
For now, AR may be seen by many as VR’s kid brother — but maybe the kind of kid brother who winds up far more successful than his older siblings. AR takes the world around you and adds some additional bells and whistles, like the Pokémon or a hologram of your child.
There are currently two main types of AR experiences: one is phone-based, with apps like Pokémon GO or Snapchat putting overlays onto the images from your smartphone’s camera. The other is headset-based, with a product like the Hololens that sees everything you can see.
- How to try it: For the smartphone iteration, just download some of these apps onto your phone, then play around with those apps. Unfortunately, a Hololens-type experience is gonna be tough to find — there’s no release date for the consumer product, nor do they appear to be heading to trade shows any time soon. But at least we have a few very exciting demo videos.
- Cost: Free, assuming you have a smartphone.
- Upsides: It’s free, fun, doesn’t require much external hardware, and unlike VR, does not require your full attention.
- Downsides: A lack of immersion or empathy — two of the widely agreed-upon merits of VR. Otherwise, the capabilities of smartphone AR is someone limited. It can stick a Pokémon on the ground or a filter on your face, but still doesn’t do a great job of identifying objects quickly. And while anyone willing to pay $3000 can order the Developer Edition Hololens, which promises a much more robust, interactive version of AR, a widely available consumer version still seems far off.
360° Video
360° video is what the name implies — a video at the center of which is you, looking anywhere you please. By some accounts, 360 video does not even constitute a proper VR experience. But my rule of thumb is that if you’re putting a weird looking thing on your face to see something that’s not really there, that’s VR.
- What you need: A smartphone and a $10 Google Cardboard headset. Or, if you own a Samsung phone and want a slightly higher-end experience, spend the additional $90 on a Gear VR headset.
- How to try: Cardboard viewer in hand, download the New York Times VR app and the Cardboard App on your phone, and watch some of the thousands of hours of 360 video content available to you. We recommend this tour of Rio de Janeiro.
- Cost: $10. If you need to, cancel your Netflix subscription for a month. There’s enough 360 video content to tide you over.
- Upsides: It costs $10 to experience a wholly new medium and watch its norms evolve. The potential to evoke profound empathy for both refugees and victims of sexual assault is clearly understood with just the simple piece of cardboard.
- Downsides: The one-size-fits-all nature of the Cardboard viewer means that your phone may not fit perfectly, limiting your field of view and making it difficult to focus. More importantly, you can look, but can’t touch. While you’re at the center of these stories unfolding around you, it can be frustrating not to be able to interact with them, which brings us to…
Gamepad VR
Finally, you can get in there and interact with stuff. The PSVR and Oculus Rift both allow you to actually act upon the world that their headsets transport you to, via a video game controller.
- What you need: either a) a powerful gaming computer and an Oculus Rift, b) a successful PSVR preorder, or c) Any means of locomotion.
- How to try it: Go to one of the in-store demos. On weekends, both systems can be experienced at select Best Buy locations, and the PSVR can be found at some Gamestops. Find the closest PSVR demo here, and the closest Oculus demo here.
- Cost: Free to try.
- Upsides: The ability to actually interact with your surroundings provides a greater sense of immersion. These headsets also offer slightly greater calibration than the cardboard, allowing you to adjust the lenses to meet your face’s specific needs.
- Downsides: Unlike the real life footage captured in 360° vide0, the graphics for both systems leave something to be desired, with graphics roughly comparable to last-generation consoles. Also, unless you have some gaming experience, interaction via controller can be pretty unintuitive.
Roomscale VR
La crème de la crème of the VR experience: you can mill about your virtual world as two cameras track the position of your head and your two hand-held controllers. As of right now, the only player in this space is the HTC Vive, although Oculus will be making its entry into roomscale with the Touch later this year.
- How to try it: Between Microsoft, Gamestop, and Microcenter, there are about 100 locations in the U.S. where you can try the Vive for free. Find the closest one to you here.
- Cost: The demos are free, but you might need to wait on line for a bit. Otherwise, an HTC Vive will run you about $800, plus the cost of a computer powerful enough to run it.
- Upsides: Ease of use and intuitive controls. The demo environment makes your introduction to roomscale about as smooth as it can get: in-store staff members do a good job of getting you set up, and the powerful gaming rigs that these demos use ensure that your experience looks as good as possible.
- Downsides: In terms of tech, you’re limited to the size of the room, you can trip over the wires running into your headset, and you can’t see your own body when you look down, which can be pretty disorienting. Logistically, the demos are pretty short (10–15 min), which might not give you the sense of how easy it is to spend hours on end in the system.
Odds and Ends
Since so much of the industry is still in the prototype and developer’s kit stage, some of the best ways to experience VR are at unique events. Any convention even tangentially related to tech is likely to have a VR booth featuring some unique experience. Major tech cities like New York, San Francisco, and Austin have monthly meetups where devs will show off what they’ve been working on and collaborate. One-off installations like The Void’s Ghostbusters experience or Dave and Buster’s VR game are also available. Meanwhile, VR-specific conferences like VRX offer access to professionals with the means, sponsorship (and sometimes, the exclusive invitation) to attend.
How to try it: A little Google-fu is your friend here. Look for VR meetups in your city, and upcoming conferences and conventions nearby.
Upsides: These events are where you will find the real future of the industry. Right now, the field looks pretty sparse for consumers. Devs and enthusiasts are working on plenty of stuff, and these types of events are where they are going to show it off. What few consumer-ready products are available are also prohibitively expensive (see: $700 treadmill, $25,000 robot). Sure, the $600 shocky-stabby-freezy gloves might not pan out, but the VR sex dolls will, and it might be good to know which model to invest in early.
Downsides: There’s a reason that these vendors aren’t chomping at the bit to sell to consumers — some of them are going to be pretty rough. These events can also be difficult to find, and expensive to attend.
