Google’s DayDream
At last week’s 10th Google I/O conference, the company announced an array of new products, including Google Home, Google Wifi, and Google Pixel. The array of new products signaled the company’s new found interest in hardware — with more of an Apple-like emphasis on the intersection between hardware and software.
While many knew that Google planned to release a VR headset, the announcement still proved to be the most surprising — due to the message communicated through design. The search engine turned tech-giant announced called its project Daydream VR, and similar to the Samsung Gear (another VR headset), is mobile powered. Announced along its new phone — the Google Pixel — the accompanying daydream project is sure to help drive sales.
But the goal of Daydream is much bigger than sales, Daydream is Google’s attempt to domesticate VR — after taking the lessons learned from Google Glass to heart. To do this, the headset’s design takes advantage of our association to materials, using fabric and mesh instead of the normal injection molded plastic. The fabric helps the headset take on the form, and the familiarity, of a sleeping mask. Instead of clicking shut, the headset softly closes around the phone — and is secured by a small elastic band.
The Daydream’s remote also aids in Google’s attempt to humanize VR. Although it may seem ideal to use body gestures to control in VR, that mode of interaction mostly functions as shock value. In practice, gesture based controls (like those seen in Microsoft’s Holoens) or gaze-based controls (seen in the samsung gear) often add a layer of abstraction to our to digital action. Gesture based interaction is not accurate enough yet to really work, and gaze controls add tension to user’s posture, as they focus on keeping their head steady to select certain things. Both systems also have a necessary time-lag, which consistently make users impatient and anxious. Although it maybe tempting to fall into the “new for the sake of new”, the Daydream remote provides brings comfort and tactility to the VR experience. The thickness of the remote — in contrast to the Apple TV remote — is a celebration of real-world feeling, which will do nothing but aid both speed and ease and digital interaction.
This causal, un-assuming form is a great move by Google, and attacks the stigma that natural exists around the technology. The emphasis on accessibility and casual use is also supported by its impressive price. At only $79, it’s even cheaper than the Gear VR, making in the new medium more accessible than ever.
By putting comfort and familiarity first, Google did everything right in this release. Echoing Snapchat’s product relapse from just a couple weeks ago — the daydream is example of product that attempts to make technology human.
By underplaying the tech, and material that combats the usual Silicon Valley design language, Google will breakdown stigmas and enter our living rooms (for better or for worse).
