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;
• Video
Soundcloud:
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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

[@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.

[@fede1324ee]

Same here, a friend took a gear VR to school and put me a vr video of a someone doing parkour if I remember correclty, and at the end, the dude jumps from a super high place. The falling sensation was so real, I actually felt fear and super weird while falling

[@akaheadlesschicken]

Same thing happened to me but with a short horror experience. I remember putting on the headset and immediately loosing awareness of my real world surroundings. I don't think phones were the problem. The devices needed a decent input method and enough "killer apps" to keep you invested.

[@DiThi]

Have you noticed official Google Cardboard headsets didn't have a head strap? That was on purpose. Regular phones had way too much latency, and no low persistence (a key feature in all headsets since the Oculus DK2). The lack of straps mean that the user had to rotate the whole torso to look around, avoiding fast movements. These clones like "VRBox" have been more damaging than Carboard, for this reason. They add a strap, and becomes a vomit machine.

[@kinyutaka]

I still have my Gear headset, even without having a Samsung phone anymore. It sits in a drawer. But I have it

[@TheJimmyCartel]

Could be wrong but I had a GearVR and I'm pretty sure you just put your phone in it. Wasn't much different then my cardbox.

[@MrJr1976]

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.

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

similar thing here. cardboard was great

[@Spheredalai]

yep! same, cardboard is the only VR i could buy and have experienced in my whole life

[@user-yp2gd6ud8u]

Preach. 7 years ago I started with the cardboard, now I’m a tech engineer in a virtual production company. Life changes when you find your passion even with a 2$ cardboard and an old beatup android phone.

[@DiamondDepthYT]

Totally agree and relate!

[@Jinsoku440]

I went from cardboard to gear vr, upgraded my phone specifically to do the "latest and greatest in mobile vr", to Rift with room tracking, bought my wife the Quest 2, and am now saving for the Cosmo; without the accessibility of the cardboard/gear headsets, I wouldn't have had some of the most immersive and impressive moments in gaming of my life. Cardboard crawled so VR could run!

[@DomiAnimations]

Ahh, just what the future needed... *Cardboard Glasses.*

[@Sorrowdusk]

Put your grasses on, nothin' will be wrong

[@GandhiTheGodOfWar]

@@Sorrowdusk There's no blame, there's no fame It's up to you the first words should be finded

[@zensuufu]

@@Sorrowdusk Put your grasses on, nothin' will be wong.

[@boredyoutubeuser]

Better than killer ai! 😂

[@voltairethegoldflame9280]

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

[@edmundthespiffing2920]

Everything, eventually and inadvertently, will be used for porn. Life is porn.

[@katethegoat7507]

@@edmundthespiffing2920 amen

[@theloner6063]

Watch movies in IMAX screen size.....

[@narke-y]

@@theloner6063 how about it not just being a big-ass screen, but occupying your whole field of view?

[@robloxpro947]

the other 10% is children

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

*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.

[@Gaia_Gaistar]

Lucid dreaming is kinda like natural VR. Or you could take hallucinogens and put a blindfold on.

[@daniel_rossy_explica]

Close your eyes. Now imagine an apple. Bite it. What color does it have inside? what about outisde? And now what about THE outside, the background. Where does that apple is? Done it? Cool. Now tell me, in a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is "nothing at all" and 10 is "like RL", how well could you see that apple?. I have Aphantasia, and I score very much 0 on that test. So that's my "imagination"

[@pridelander06]

This plaque is to commemorate the brave pirates who gave their lives protecting this box from the robot menace. Lest we forget.

[@skyclaw]

And Calvin and Hobbs did it way before Spongebob.

[@user-zn4pw5nk2v]

@@daniel_rossy_explica why do i need to close them, the apple is yellow i tried biting it but it kept running from it so i don't know how it looks like inside unless i use my x-ray vision which says white, and i am inside my room looking at the apple and not mad so i can't imagine a background when it's already there. Solid 4/10(at best, 2 regularly, but once i had a surreal 10/10 experience of white and black triangles in a checkered board pattern outside of reality because they didn't move when i tilted my head unlike everything else in the room, definitely a weird one, but the fact people don't see their blood vessels is the weirdest thing of them all because they are in front of your rods and cones, so really is the real VR experience.

[@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.

[@TheGingey]

Why would they do that? Porn has to be at least the second biggest use after gaming.

[@Niko_Tortellini]

@@TheGingey It's one of many reasons I've come to the conclusion that techies are, in fact, not people.

[@ceninant]

Gear VR works with VR porn.

[@l_lxr]

quest 2 works like a low end pc works with bluetooth keyboards theres even vr porn games but.. u didnt hear this from me

[@CODDE117]

Opposite experience with me, because the videos were easily downloadable. Blew my fucking mind

[@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.

[@uku4171]

My previous school participates in a VR project, so during distance learning I got to borrow a Quest to beta-test an educational game at home. I also pirated a bunch of PCVR games and played them. My friend got to borrow an Index and now they have Quest 2s as well, but I'm in another country now.

[@bland9876]

Imagine The magic School bus in VR.

[@L0rdOfThePies]

They did something similar with us when i was 8 or 9! These people came in with all these google cardboard things and sat us down for one lesson showing is what it could do

[@RusticRonnie]

my school did something similar we had a tour of a space shuttle and also the moon. we also had one where we went to a med evil village that last one actually not being interesting at all as it was basically a picture show

[@putai1234]

My elementary school did something like this called google expeditions. I later tried to sideload the apk onto my quest only to find out the quest doesn’t support daydream apps. I think you can now use daydream through pcvr and an android emulator but I didn’t have a working pc back then

[@mildsoup8978]

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.

[@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.

[@thebush6077]

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...

[@Marcos42563]

I mean, we haven't exactly reached truly cheap VR yet, 300 USD is still a lot of money for something only one person can use at a time and which lacks much of the usefulness a phone has. Most people outside of 1st world nations still see 'real VR' as a pipe dream at best. But it is definitely miles better than it was half a decade ago, when the market was much, much smaller. It's kind of like laptops, in a way. They only really started seeing widespread use around South America in the mid to late 2000s when they had been available and popular on the global market for over a decade by then. Maybe in another 10, 20 years the same will happen to VR..

[@aturchomicz821]

And now its time to wait for quality software right :) ? 2022 right :) 2032 right :) 2042 right :I 2052 right :(

[@colin3ds1]

@@Marcos42563 $300 is good for a standalone device with a display And with tools for work ,play and social aspects

[@Marcos42563]

@@colin3ds1 My point is VR is currently accessible, but not yet cheap or globally accessible. Whether or not a Quest 2 is worth its price depends entirely on a person's priorities and biases and is irrelevant to what I was trying to say.

[@uku4171]

Cambria won't be cheap.

[@bigcrouton829]

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

[@Herrikias]

Death to the Hobo! Long live the Stuffed Cat!

[@solidcap50]

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.

[@anton-exe]

In my Irish Secondary school (i think it's like a combination of American middle and high school) i saw some first years playing on a Quest 2 this week. Meanwhile, I'm in 3rd Year and haven't went on a single school trip yet because COVID.

[@lipnoodle117]

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.

[@funnyberries4017]

Meanwhile, the oculus quest runs android and has full head tracking. The quest 1 has the processor of a Samsung S8, and can play lots of great games. Apple has invested so much money and effort into tracking ar with just 1 camera. If google and Samsung kept going with this they would be a lot further along with a vision pro competitor.

[@dave5194]

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 :(

[@joaovitormatos8147]

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

[@Hau5test]

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

[@MisterTipp]

I didn't know the cardboard had more use cases than this

[@treebush]

This

[@guitarsomethin]

Hell yeah it was!

[@uku4171]

Now they're making VR porn games with like titty jiggling physics and stuff. Or so I was told...

[@TroyLucia55]

First thing I did with mine lmfao

[@blueishdergon]

I left my cardboard in the rain and it dissolved :( Give me back my money

[@mokarokas-1727]

@Guys look 👇🅥 - botspam

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

Lol

[@meanolduncleeli904]

You mean your mum’s money. Haha! Actually… that was mean to say. Sorry.

[@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.

[@SnrubSource]

get a real vr headset like the quest

[@VJETRA]

@@SnrubSource is it around 5$ like the chinese phone vr headset?

[@SnrubSource]

@@VJETRA no, but it's real VR instead of fake 360 phone "vr"

[@VJETRA]

@@SnrubSource i mean if i can buy a nice car i wouldnt ride my old scooter wouldnt i?

[@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.

[@taddersauce3672]

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.

[@AuroraNemoia]

For all that 3DOF left to be desired, I bought an Oculus Go when it released. And used it for SteamVR on my PC with games that supported using a controller. Or games that worked fine with the 3dof vive wand emulation. And if it wasnt for that, I dont think I wouldve bought full PCVR a few months later. I now have 10k+ hours in SteamVR. Thank you Oculus Go. You're now resting in a drawer, ready for me to experiment once in a while with the rooted image.

[@fireaza]

Man, you must have had an iron stomach to play games in 3DoF!

[@DiThi]

@@fireaza Or a good fit for the neck model. All 3DoF headsets used a neck model to simulate the head position with a stationary body. With Oculus DK1 we could configure it, but it was not the case for the Go as far as I remember.

[@AuroraNemoia]

@@fireaza you can throw me on a jetpack at 15fps jittery stuttery hell and I won't feel sick. I'm completely immune.

[@pessoaanonima6345]

What can you do with a rooted Oculus go?

[@Tyler-gv6zf]

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.

[@walli6388]

Nice

[@SatanasExMachina]

Here to see what happens

[@narke-y]

Hooking up the quest 2 to pc is actually quite easy. You can actually use the cable that came with the headset or any type-c cable that carries data for that matter. USB 3 cable is preferred, but by no means necessary. The app will walk you through the process, so it's nothing difficult. Too bad that you need a Windows pc but I am sure you knew about that. Games that I would recommend: 1. Resident Evil 4 (quest) - fun zombie shooter, not too scary. 2. Red matter (quest/pc) - a very good puzzle game. A bit too short tho. 3. Hand physics lab (quest) - basically a hand tracking demo, but very fun still. You need to enable hand tracking to get the whole point, but that is easy to do in headset settings.

[@batterypwrlow]

I use mine without wires. An app in the store you can buy for the quest 2 called virtual desktop. $20 bucks and it uses wifi to connect to your pc. It can take some tinkering and playing with settings suggested by KZbin videos to get it perfect. I just strap a 5000mah power bank on the back of my head strap and play for like 6-8 hours straight. Heres a big recommendation anyone who buys a quest 2 will agree with. Buy an aftermarket head strap. You will not regret it. Even the cheap plastic $20 dollar ones are better than the cloth strap you get with your headset.

[@narke-y]

@@batterypwrlow if you want to use your q2 wirelessly you should have a decent router. They are not expensive though. And I wholeheartedly agree with your recommendations. Virtual desktop is legit awesome for playing pc vr games, and an aftermarket head strap is going to make the headset so much more comfortable

[@cccoolbucket1285]

I had this when I was younger and it's what eventually got me into PCVR. If it had controllers, a headstrap, and some better marketing, I think it might have done a lot better.

[@undergroundman1993]

I used a VR headset and saw a 3-D printer for the first time the same week in early 2013. My friend had gotten an Oculus Rift dev kit and brought it over to demonstrate. I tried out Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft (MC didn’t work properly due to a bug). It made me sea sick the first time I tried it but I heard that was common in the early Oculus models with 720p screens. Also you had to connect two dvi cables to video cards for the thing to work so there was really no way to move wile using it. You could basically sit in a chair and look around, though even that was a pretty cool novelty at the time. All the programmers I knew at the time said it would never catch on because the headsets were so expensive that no one would want to develop anything good for them.

[@Prince_Of_Fish]

although im an index user, i love the quest 2. it made vr accessible to people. so accessible they didnt even need a gaming pc to go with it. if phone VR was a glimpse into the future, the quest 2 is the future it was glimpsing at.

[@randomdude1194]

I have become intimately familiar with every single one of these primordial froth models of headset from their inception. The amount of loathing I feel for each one from DK1 to Cardboard, Quest, Gear, and Go is astoundingly palpable. Never again.

[@hummuscrow1401]

I had one of these when I was younger, and I loved it. Yeah, it was cheap, but it was fun. Watching KZbin on my own private home theater was a dream, and, given my mental unstableness in middle school, it was amazing for just putting on headphones and disappearing during a meltdown.

[@n00blyn00b]

The GearVR was my first VR headset and it absolutely blew my mind… for about 2 weeks. To its credit, it’s the reason I decided to spend a bunch of money on a VR-ready PC and an Oculus Rift back in 2016.

[@Hebdomad7]

I honestly think google cardboard and others like it did more damage to VR adoption than good. Six degrees of freedom is very very important to the overall experience.

[@theloner6063]

VR is about depth, scale, presence.....6dof is very important, but not just that stuff....

[@friendlycanadianYT]

It damaged it for me when phone VR first came out. But then I tried the quest 1 when it came out and it made me realize that phone VR was more damaging than good because it wasn't true VR. I now have a quest 2 and VR is probably my favorite platform to game on.

[@technoturnovers7072]

To be honest, you have to be kind of stupid to have it where a proof-of-concept product that they basically give for free make you think, "this sucks, the entire concept of VR must suck!" When I used Google Cardboard, I *knew* its limitations, and I knew that an actual VR headset would be a billion times better.

[@friendlycanadianYT]

@@technoturnovers7072 When I had phone VR. Which was around maybe 2015-2016 give or take. I only had phone VR because back then VR headsets would cost you 1,000 dollars for even the cheapest ones that was 6dof. Like the oculus rift and vive. But the only thing of VR that I could experience WAS phone VR. To some people, if you keep on getting exposed to only one version of that thing especially when you are younger. you start to believe that you can only experience that thing in one way. Like I thought "wow since I've had phone VR.. this means this is what VR is." When clearly it isn't. People who got phone VR thought that that was what all of VR had to offer. It was only popular because it was during a time where cheaper alternatives that were actually good like the quest did not exist. And now since we have better VR standalone headsets that are affordable. Phone VR has no place to exist anymore, at least to me.

[@mondaysinsanity8193]

​@@technoturnovers7072 yeah but alot of people really didnt understand what vr was at the time. its really really hard to get across to soneone who hasnt experienced it

[@Cow-J]

I actually got my headset for free at a local festival where some big company (I think it was a health insurance company) was giving them out if you filled out a survey. I thought it was amazing at the time, mostly because I was in fourth grade.

[@derekisludicrous9203]

A go? Because my buddy got the same

[@gregorymirabella1423]

this brings me back to when i tried to start a youtube channel and did a review on this thing. thank you for bringing back those unfortunate memories.

[@brickman409]

I remember my first cardboard headset. It was a pretty decent one that I bought off amazon for less than $15. It was made of plastic and had a fairly comfy head strap. You could also adjust the IPD and focus on it, something that VR headsets today don't even have. It looked a bit like the Rift DK2. It was absolutely worth it. There was some really cool experiences and it just made me want more. I eventually shelled out $400 for the Rift CV1 when the price dropped on it, even though I didn't have a powerful enough PC.

[@jimster1111]

Why is nobody talking about how the channel name changed

[@okeechobeeblowjobs5099]

I still have my gear vr, I got it for "free" for buying a new phone. It was fun for about a month. It was just too cumbersome for me.

[@EllaBananas]

I absolutely adored google cardboard. It inspired me to have a play around with unity and game making, just so I could create my own spaces to explore and show off to my friends at school. It was nothing but a piece of cardboard and a couple lenses, but it was fluid, had usable tracking, and, just worked!

[@0therun1t21]

I haven't even had a chance to try any of this but I definitely will if I can. Your channel name cracked me up, thanks.

[@frozenpancakes]

That weird moment when you’re subscribed to both Knowledge Hub and Whimsu

[@sethrc1756]

I was just thinking that lol

[@cameronn3312]

Knowledge husk*

[@Yo-Uncle]

Double the Fun

[@ClellBiggs]

My first experience with VR was on the original Vive and it blew my mind. After watching this I'm really glad I never tried any of these phone VR things. They may have turned me off to VR for good.

[@Gaia_Gaistar]

Still waiting on an affordable standalone VR headset that isn't owned by facebook. I almost bought a Quest 2 when I had my government freebie but, ya know. It's got that facebook tumor.

[@ClellBiggs]

@@Gaia_Gaistar Yeah, I'm not buying anything made by FB. Fortunately I already had a gaming PC so the entry cost was a bit lower.

[@vvgr409]

Actually it could be otherwise - getting glimpse of VR you could want even more to try something real.

[@nickcashman2908]

i forgot this was a thing. a first couple minutes in i was super impressed by the project. i bet it would have been really fun to be the team that came up with this idea

[@EnRandomSten]

Aaah seeing hawken being played on the oculus dev kit brings back memories... It was a good game that became amazing in vr. It was the game that sold me on the idea that vr could work for keyboard based games to just increase immersion

[@qliphalpuzzle5453]

KnowledgeHusk: A true case of ultimate ego death

[@sirwannabeguy4886]

The channel feels like it makes videos that should get 7.8k views tops but thanks to his previous buildup he is able to retain a hefty audience

[@Sorrowdusk]

That feels more like some Terrence McKenna stuff

[@JJAB91]

I feel like I'm the only one who misses old KnowledgeHub. Back when he made educational videos.

[@photonaut_8875]

phone VRs were such a craze back in the day that I remember getting a phone VR kit with my New Balance shoes.

[@BenjaminK123]

this was a great trip down memory lane, what a great video thank you good sir

[@Big_Blorpo]

Man, I love the Soundcloud music you put in your videos. Just thought you should know.

[@ErrorJan]

I saw the google cardboard and the gear like a kind of demo version of vr and I loved it. I knew that real vr had a lot more potential and I just had a really bad version of it. I used the cardboard and later gear vr as a test for me, if I would like vr and that is what really got me excited for vr. Its still expensive for me, but if the steam deckard actually happens, i might actually consider buying it

[@bernardusmuller1109]

It actually got a lot of people into VR, it was the stepping stone for a lot of people.

[@Steve-ln3kl]

I remember briefly using one, but was the wrong size for my phone & didn't really cooperate with glasses, but as a cheap way of letting a lot of people experience VR, it was pretty interesting to try.

[@takeeto9894]

My first VR experience was the Gear and it hooked me instantly. I have a rift s now and am saving up for a quest 2

[@jason9875]

My first VR experience was with Google Cardboard. My Middle-school gave it out at an event. It was interesting. Other than the demo, I watched some KZbin videos in VR. (Yes that was an option on the YT app back then)

[@wednesday122]

It still is, actually.

[@SrNibb]

What a throwback when I got my galaxy 7 in like 2016 maybe 2017 I remember there being a inbuilt vr app it just sat there until one day I decided to check it without any fancy headset thought it was cool then uninstalled I think the gimmick of vr on smartphones more so as a gimmick since you don’t even need the set to experience most applications

[@theloner6063]

Even 3dof VR is NOT a gimmick. It´s about depth, scale, presence......using our imagination!

[@ValseInstrumentalist]

Such memories with phone VR. My first experience was taking a pano photo of my room and then viewing it in VR. I still lived with my dad back then, and rushed to show him how cool it was, but forgot I was looking at a digital version of my room and not real life, so I ran straight into a wall. Then I got a Theta 360 cam and would take all kinds of 360 photos at work and show them to people with cardboard. Then I started learning Blender and figured out how to export flythroughs of my scenes as equirectangular videos, which I'd view in VR. Got Daydream and it was so awesome, there were so many great experiences that worked well with that single controller.

[@NoName-ik2du]

My first experience with VR was Disney Quest in Chicago in 2001 shortly before they closed the joint. It was awesome, but they had big elaborate areas set up to use the VR, so you could physically interact with stuff. There were several rides or games or whatever you want to call it, but the ones I remember were a pirate one where you were on a ship and had to run around and fire cannons at attacking pirates, and an Aladdin one where you could fly around on a magic carpet (if you looked at your friends/family in that one, they were all monkeys in the virtual world). I remember these VR phones as well. My cousin had one and brought it to a family party, and we all had fun with it. It definitely fell into the novelty category, though. I've also used some proper VR that allow six degrees of freedom. Main issue with that is finding the space to do it (and trying not to smash the controllers into the ceiling). I also found that if the game allows you to move without having to move your body in real life, I get some very nasty motion sickness that lasts a couple hours. One of the "games" solved this by allowing you to teleport if you wanted to move a distance larger than your physical playing space, that way you never "moved" while standing stationary in real life.

[@peteranderson037]

People have been trying to find the "killer app" for 3D since stereoscopes in the 19th century. Maybe one day someone will finally find one.

[@Stupididiot67]

Half life alyx or boneworks is the killer app right now

[@alw2839]

4D MINECRAFT is real. 4D games let's do it 😆.

[@fireaza]

If you think VR is simply "3D" and that's all, you really know nothing about VR.

[@ChrisGuerra31]

I loved my cardboard! I could watch KZbin laying down

[@CreeperGamer_Shorts]

Thanks for keeping me up at 3 am 😁

[@stproducciones9140]

Love the underlying cardboard snuff film sprinkled all throughout the video

[@bearcatben4762]

The samsung gear VR was a pretty good set for what it was, I have fond memories of watching f is for family on Netflix in the void theatre

[@milanors4609]

I Love it when I first try these type of VR , and I starting to hate it after my phone turn into a toaster and burn my hand.

[@jfuthey]

The b-roll of all the ways you can eff up a cardboard is just perfect 👌

[@BarkleyBCooltimes]

I remember around the time seeing so many adverts trying to push VR on their phone as if it was the coolest thing ever but I never saw anyone using it in real life.

[@DavidTurner-Tripmonkey]

Cardboard was a proof of concept for the masses. It let the normal people know what kind of thing VR had to offer. In that respect it worked wonderfully. It's not cardboards fault that people expected too much from it. LEAVE CARDBOARD ALONE! :P

[@UFOhunter4711]

Justice for cardboard

[@bland9876]

Now this is how you play Half-life Alex Another funny joke I thought of was imagine wearing a VR headset and then having the VR headset displaying the Avatar movie in full 3D as if you were in the theaters. That would be interesting.

[@halfsine]

"wow I love playing half-life:alyx!" *shows a playthrough of the game playing on their phone*

[@zwenkwiel816]

You can watch 3d movies in a virtual cinema in a VR app called big screen.

[@sgtsquank]

Or the best. Like others mentioned, this was my first taste of VR. And it was a cheap, easily accessible way to experience a taste of it with a phone I already had. But cool video bro.

[@clarkem4119]

Phone-holder headsets likely set VR adoption back several years. "THIS is VR? No THANKS!"

[@Pepe_Le_Pew_Pew]

Side note I love how years later knowledge hub is still dunking on ALF

[@EnRandomSten]

ALF?

[@alw2839]

@@EnRandomSten Alien life form An American sitcom from the 80s.

[@elbiggus]

Having lived through a few previous "VR is the wave of the future!" eras I remain highly sceptical of the technology as a whole. Sure, they've solved some of the more mechanical issues that plagued earlier attempts - displays are better, tracking is better, rendering high quality high frame rate 3D is trivial, etc. - but there are many problems left that are still a long way from being solved. Haptic dissonance (lack of physical feedback from interaction between the user and the virtual environment - touch and mass from objects, inertial input from motion, etc) is a tough nut to crack, simulating anything that isn't a confined space introduces difficulties with locomotion, and a bunch of other "making it not feel like you have a thing strapped to your head while you wave your arms around in the air" hurdles. Perhaps the biggest problem of all, though, is the question nobody seems able to answer: what's the actual point of it as a consumer product? It has countless scientific, engineering, medical, and educational uses, sure, but out of the hundreds of VR things I've tried over the years Beat Saber is about the only one that I've come across that offers anything approaching a justification for VR as a consumer experience. (Anyone who says "the metaverse" gets a slap.) That said, I'm a grumpy old man, maybe I'm not meant to understand.

[@0x0michael]

I doubt you have used VR recently, ever heard of Boneworks? Look up videos on KZbin

[@narke-y]

For consumers - games mostly. Sure, there are some nice vr creative tools and social apps (notably VRChat) but not much else. Locomotion issues have had been solved a long time ago. I really like the HL Alyx approach where you can walk with your own feet, walk with an analog stick, and teleport. As per the haptic feedback - not really an issue, but in boneworks there definitely is a bit of a dissonance. Game just wants you to pretend that heavy objects are actually heavy so that it's physics don't spaz out. The whole "wearing a thing on your head and waving arms" thing - as soon as you start interacting with objects in vr it goes away. And you are very right to be sceptical about the "metaverse". In fact, I always avoid apps that advertise themselves as such - that just means that the developers don't really understand what it's supposed to be and are just trying to make a quick opportunistic buck on unenlightened masses.

[@elbiggus]

@@narke-y @Kinemania Never played BoneWorks, but when it comes to "not played VR recently", I dust my headset off every month or so so it's not like I'm completely out of the loop. Personally I find "interacting" with the environment *increases* the sense of disconnect; as soon as I'm picking something up that provides no feedback - I can't touch it, there's no weight to it, and the only way I can tell if it collides with another object is visually - the illusion breaks. Pressing E to interact with an object in a traditional pancake game may be "less realistic", but it's a damn sight easier, less awkward, and less intrusive than the "trying to thread a needle with a boxing glove" sense that I get from VR. Alyx is a perfect example of what's wrong with VR locomotion. Smooth visual movement with no momentum or inertial feedback feels unnatural and faintly nauseating (it's kind of "inside out seasickness"; my eyes tell me I'm moving, every other sense disagrees), the teleportation mechanic is jarring and voids any sense of being in a real place, and unless you have a play space large enough to contain the entire game world the manual movement is of limited usefulness - fine for walking round a table, useless for getting from A to B. Gaming is the only real consumer use for the tech, but it always feels like "the best answer we could come up with for a question that didn't need asking" - they made the tech with no idea what to do with it, and playing games is the least bad justification. For me (beyond Beat Saber) I have yet to find a VR game that even remotely sells me on the technology, and I have played literally hundreds of them; most of them are awkward to play and feel like early Wii games that just put poorly implemented motion controls in because it was expected, the vast majority would work as well (if not better) in pancake mode (Alyx being a perfect example: it's basically a slow FPS/explore-em-up with awkward movement and an annoying reload mechanic; it might look nicer than Half Life, but it's nowhere near as engaging or immersive), and as soon as I have to navigate or interact with the environment any "immersion" afforded by VR vanishes. TBH I've had more fun with the non-interactive "VR experiences" than anything else, but they're far from a compelling reason for the technology to exist.

[@MrJr1976]

@@elbiggus It might just be an "old man" thing. Although, I have a friend who is in his late-50's who plays Beat Saber more than anyone I know and absolutely loves it. You have to program yourself to NOT expect physical feedback. But in experiences like The Lab, it's so mind-bending to finally see these characters and locations as if I were there. To pet Dogmeat after spending over a thousand hours playing Fallout 4. Once roomscale VR became a reliable technology, I finally tried it. It's not the weight of the headset nor is it the resolution that takes me out of the experience. It's the wires. So the Q2 will be my final evolution into the VR space as I don't really need a higher resolution.

[@ThePowerLover]

@@elbiggus This.

[@stitch2k1]

I remember trying an Oculus in 2013, when I went to Minecon. It was an early dev kit I think or maybe the original Rift. You couldn’t wear glasses so it was pretty bad for me, I couldn’t see a thing. But it was a gateway drug.

[@kxdsh]

I recall people were confused as to how the button worked years ago and I finally learned how and I have no idea how those people couldn't figure it out all those years ago

[@TROUBLEGAMINGSHOW]

Cardboard was ok. They just killed Tango too early, but as a " specialist " you know that I guess. Be happy that it was cardboard not resin.

[@BryanVonFriently]

I think "Phone VR" has still got potential, not as the VR processing machine itself, but simply as the gdisplay for the VR by virtue of your pc doing 100% of all the work and just having your phone display it the end result. It could be as little as just buying controllers that you connect to your pc, pc streams to phone, phone can be in something as modest as a cardboard. Would it be as good as a proper purpose built VR headset? No lol but given those are still absurdly expensive, hey ho gotta have something. Because seeing all of this i thought to meself; "hey, i've got a good pc rig now and haven't checked vr headsets in like 10 years, i oughta check em out, after all, if the mobile vr died they oughta be good" Aaaaaand they're still 300 dollars at the bearest basic. 1000+ for something good. Maybe in another 10 years i guess

[@alw2839]

😔

[@lolpota]

The gear vr is what got me into vr. I remember I used to play on it every day and take it to school to show my friends. I'd usually play till my phone over heated, so I would fill a zip lock back with water and put it between the shell and my phone to keep it cool.

[@boggo3848]

I had one of these I got from a hackathon. I messed around for a weekend trying to get Skyrim to stream to my phone with a 3D mod. It worked and it was absolutely incredible but I absolutely annihilated my eyeballs trying to tune the various parameters for inter eye distance, etc.

[@fl0atpvnk]

Ugh. I had the gear a few years ago just to see what it was like..it wasn't good lol. The video on your other channel isn't viewable though since it's private

[@Rabbit-the-One]

Husk? Did I miss something? How did I get here?

[@mokarokas-1727]

@Guys look 👇🅥 - botspam

[@DrHotelMario]

I really took my first leap into VR a few years ago when I bought a used Lenovo Explorer, simply to play Half Life Alyx. Honestly, i'm still not sold yet. The tech is so fiddly, and really needs some QoL changes. Dealing with the bluetooth controllers not pairing properly, the required play space, and general touch and go nature of it, 90% of the time I'm using it, I just want to rip it off and use my mouse and keyboard. It's great when it works, truly, but only when it works.

[@nthnglsn]

This thing is historic for me. I remember getting it in the mail and brought it to work to put together during lunch because I was so excited

[@TheWhiteDragon3]

I remember the Gear VR. We ended up getting free ones with every device we upgraded, and I _really_ liked it and used it a lot. It may have had limited usability, but I got a helluva lot of usage of Temple Run 2 VR. And lemme tell ya, when my little pubescent mind found the VR pornography, it absolutely rocked my world, and still does.

[@MonkeyspankO]

I remember putting those giants VR headsets people at an amusement park I worked at in the 90s. Now, same tech, smaller size. I finally splurged and got a 50% off vive, from its already reduced price and at that price point is kinda fun to mess around with. But I feel bad for people who bought it full price. There are a couple cool games, but overall its still pretty disappointing, relative to the rest of the games space. Its not gonna be a thing, til its so light you don't notice wearing it. We're talking eye glasses range. Until then, jsut a cool gadget, but not mainstream imho.

[@MrJr1976]

As an owner of the Vive for 4+ years, I'm still finding new experiences on the headset. I understand that wireless IS the way to go and a Q2 will be the next step up. But I somewhat feel like you are trying to put this thing in a box it doesn't fit in. From Bigscreen to Skyrim and more. You have to kind of just look. I would HIGHLY suggest Bigscreen (free application).

[@MonkeyspankO]

@@MrJr1976 Sorry if I came across as dismissive, but I'm pretty new to the VR space. I will get the wireless attachemt once it comes down a bit. Right now, you're right I'm just sort of looking at VR from a jaded PC gamer POV. Bigscreen looks cool...BTW, do you happen to know if there is a way to play old 3D blu rays, without ripping anything, on VR? Seems like this should have been a no-brainer for VR right out the box!

[@MrJr1976]

@@MonkeyspankO I'm not certain there is a way to directly play them without ripping. But you can torrent them or buy an external drive to rip them. Another cool experience with Bigscreen is that friends can join you to watch. Pull up your desktop, YT, even flat screen games like FM6 Apex at night in the home theater are downright religious experiences.

[@MonkeyspankO]

@@MrJr1976 I hear that! 3D is ded, but Its just a shame with all the hype surrounding it, they never linked it with VR. Oh well, 4K is betar anyway.

[@MrJr1976]

@@MonkeyspankO It is quite odd how 3D has somewhat of a resurgence thanks to Bigscreen. So instead of paying out the nose for a decade-old TV, I can just use a $300 headset and transport myself to a private 3D movie theater. And what's even better is that I can invite up to 15 friends/family to watch WITH me! VR is so much deeper than you think it is. Even just with Steam VR environments. There are a couple where you can basically bring out a lawn chair and fall asleep at the beach or play with brushes in an infinite canvas. One last thing. Idk if it's just me, but (with some mods OF COURSE) Fallout 4 VR is just so relaxing. Being able to dome a super mutant with a sniper rifle myself while the Wanderer is playing just feels so right. Not perfect, but it's totally a vibe.

[@skiptoacceptancemdarlin]

thank you for your service. great channel.

[@jonlanghoff]

The Alf still image analogy got me.

[@zacharyharrison9612]

I've been a vr enthusiast for some time now, and honestly, the Gear Vr was impressive. I believe with today's mobile devices we could see a real resurgence in mobile VR tech

[@Spartan2818]

The small amount of people still using this are definitely using it to watch... movies...

[@alw2839]

Special......movies.......

[@cantin8697]

I remember my parents used to get me a similar headset - piece of plastic you put your phone inside. The kicker is.... It would be years until I got my first smartphone! The phone I had could barely even access the internet. I used it mostly as a music player, as it came with some music. But yeah, I couldn't access the apps needed for the thing! Though, I remember trying it once on hat I think was my dad's phone... It was some roblox-looking rollercoaster thing. I felt so dizzy. It wasn't pleasant. And I have that problem with vr in general, I've come to learn...

[@takeeto9894]

It's jarring watching a video essay about history that I experienced, like, I was there, I remember most of this. A very different feeling than watching the history of things from before I was born.

[@JoeyfilmingTv]

I got a samsung gear as a gift some years ago, and honestly I had no idea what to do with it. I don't have any interest in bland phone games and right now with few exceptions, vr games feel right at home on the app store. Sure there are some cool novelties but for the most part the tech seems more intent on selling itself as an "experience" than as a consistently usable and worthwhile piece of hardware that is consistently worth the price of entry.

[@Marcos42563]

I don't think it's fair to say only a "few exceptions" don't feel like mobile games at this point. Especially with games like Onward, Blade & Sorcery, NeosVR, and of course Half-Life: Alyx being out there and having been out there for years now.

[@aturchomicz821]

Bad opinion

[@0x0michael]

That's an outdated piece of plastic, what's the point of watching the video if you don't understand that was a joke of a VR device. Quest 2 is 299 and Boneworks will blow your mind

[@aturchomicz821]

@@0x0michael right?

[@vilosey2013]

This confused me from day one.

[@diogo763]

This is what got me into VR seeing everyone with an oculus ou vive, this was all I had. Years later I got the rift so it was worth it

[@aaron6235]

I remember playing minecraft on the gear vr and was blown away. It's what made enthusiastic about the tech. Now owning the quest 2 allows me to see the software maturing

[@QuestionBlockGaming]

I'm a person that's pretty deep into tech (or at least, I used to be) and when Google sent me a Cardboard for buying my Galaxy S5, I was impressed. Not because of what the technology looked like on my phone, but because I *knew* that this was a limited look at what the potential of VR could be. It was the limitations, it was the asterisks that made VR more attractive. It was like "Imagine how cool THIS is, but with the full horsepower of your PC behind it. Imagine what it would be like to have proper tracking and immersive audio and a facial interface that doesn't cut into your face... It's a TASTE of the future, but definitely nowhere near the potential of the full thing. Buuuut if you were a luddite, if that was your first exposure to VR, you'd assume ALL VR was like that, and you wouldn't be invested. Like when your mom cooks brussels sprouts and you assume that ALL brussels sprouts are tasteless, mushy and gross and just receptacles for butter and black pepper. Yes. Google Cardboard is Brussels Sprouts.

[@tremarley9648]

Google Cardboard was awesome

[@BoyProdigyX]

All that POV footage of you abusing that Google Cardboard is killing me! The puddle is especially sad.

[@naner69420]

3:31 is pre-boneworks boneworks scenery. awesome to learn how old that level really is!

[@Yodalemos]

I don't understand why they wouldn't just allow you to connect your VR phone headset to your PC in order to play actual VR experiences. I bet the biggest use of google cardboard was VR porn.

[@narke-y]

And you'd be right. You can actually connect the phone headsets to pc, but it's a big hassle and ultimately - not worth it.

[@thekingofmoab1181]

I remember looking at both daydream and cardboard, and thought that considering the price I should take the cardboard. Also, the astronaut game was pretty fun

[@michaelcarter6928]

I remember back in the very early 90's Timezone had a vr game or two which was my first experience with vr.

[@kevinw729]

Always a pleasure @KnowledgeHusk to watch your videos - very insightful. One question the GearVR / Oculus Go split - any reason why you did not touch on the spat between Oculus and Samsung that led to the dropping of the GearVR2 project?

[@madcat789]

You and Whimsu posted a video at the exact same time on Google Cardboard.

[@mokarokas-1727]

@Guys look 👇🅥 - botspam

[@SatanasExMachina]

......what a coincidence 🤔

[@TheLaLeeee]

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Google Cardboard The Cheap? I thought not. It’s not a story the Gamers would tell you. edit: The title got changed so my joke doesn't make sense anymore :( (Original title: The Tragedy of Google Cardboard)

[@noeldev]

I was a huge fan of gear vr back in the day when i owned it when i was younger, i remember playing that game i forgot the name of where you would shoot balls at blocks of glass and they would break, i really liked it, i remember really wanting to play a proper fps game in vr, well nowdays i own a proper desktop headset and i really enjoy using it, so i guess the first impression i got from gear vr was actually quite good