Virtual reality (VR) isn’t a far-off concept anymore. The technology which will transport you to a special digital world from the comfort of your lounge room is here to remain . you’ll not have encountered it, but you’ll, because headsets are shooting up in stores and online everywhere the planet.

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Virtual Reality headsets Reviews

What is virtual reality?
Virtual reality headsets put your point of view within the center of a Digital space, which may be a Photograph, a Video, and Animation, or a bit of software like a computer game. Once you set on the headset, you’re liberal to rotate and appearance at everything within the virtual sphere.

Say you are looking at footage of a farm on TV. there is a lovely green pasture ahead, but if you switch around and appearance over your shoulder, you will see your lounge room. In VR, you’ll watch equivalent footage, rotate, and see a herd of cattle behind you. this is often referred to as 360° content.

Passive vs active
There are two sorts of VR experiences: passive, which involves kicking back and searching at a 360° photo or video from a hard and fast perspective, and active, which allows you to interact with the content and alter your perspective. One example is plugging during a keyboard and mouse to play a racing game – you are still using traditional controls, but rather than watching the car on a 2D screen, you’re sitting inside it when you’re wearing the VR Headset.

Your body will react to passive and active content, as either option can trick your brain into believing you’re within the Digital Environment. Riding a VR Rollercoaster, for instance, can offer you an equivalent feeling within the pit of your stomach, albeit you’re nowhere near a topic park.

How does VR work?
The quality of the image, and therefore the headset’s capabilities, depend upon two factors: the technology and build quality of the Virtual Reality Headset, and therefore the device won’t power it. None of the headsets on the market are self-contained, all of them require an external device like a smartphone, PC, or games console. Prices start at around $30 for entry-level models and may go as high as $1400 for top-of-the-line kits.

Dual lenses inside the headset Simultaneously process two images to make the illusion of depth. Motion-tracking tools, either built into the headset (or the device powering it) or connected externally, pick up head movement and in some cases body movement.

VR quality depends on what’s powering the Headset. Most fall under one among these categories:

Entry-level: Headsets that act as a case for a smartphone. you’ll use any smartphone in an entry-level headset within the manufacturer-specified size limit. Examples: Google Cardboard, Cocoon.
Mid-range: A far better quality image that needs a selected smartphone, like a Samsung Galaxy model, or games console to run. Examples: GearVR, Sony PlayStation VR (PS VR).
High-end: Advanced, powerful headsets capable of manufacturing a high-quality image, which needs a top-tier PC. Examples: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive.
A headset device that needs an $800 phone or $550 console to figure might not sound “mid-range”, but this is often the case within the grand scheme of VR. Top-tier headsets cost over $1000, additionally to a required high-end PC which will set you back a minimum of $2000.

Sit down, stand up
There are several ways you’ll interact with the digital space when you’re immersed in a lively experience. Most mid-range Headsets allow you to connect a game controller to the device powering the VR software. during this case, you’re essentially playing a game within the same way you’d on a console or PC, but with a special perspective. Higher-end models, like PS VR and Oculus Rift (base model), use one camera and motion-sensing controls, which may detect full-body movements within a little, fixed space. you cannot quite walk around, but you’ll get up, sit down, crouch, lean, rotate, and so on.

Room-scale experiences are subsequently intensified. These require a minimum of two cameras placed a couple of meters apart, to make a VR play space that detects your entire body, so you’ll walk around the digital space. once we tested VR, the HTC Vive was the sole room-scale headset on the market, but Oculus has since released motion controllers and a further camera for the Rift, which adds an equivalent feature. the sort of controllers required comes right down to the software developer, but most will offer you a variety of options to settle on from. Many Vive games, for instance, offer you a choice of employing a keyboard and mouse, an Xbox controller, or motion sensing.

All the bits and pieces
High-end headsets demand more equipment. Most of the essentials are available the bundle, but PS VR doesn’t include the specified PlayStation 4 Camera ($89). Other first- and third-party peripherals, like motion controls, are sold separately, but they seem to be a must-have addition in some cases. PS VR for instance doesn’t ship with the PlayStation Move motion-sensing controls, which detect hand/arm movement to be used within the VR environment. albeit you’ve got one from previous PlayStation motion games, you will need two for VR, which suggests buying another two-pack. Similarly, the Oculus Rift base kit doesn’t include the Touch motion controllers (which ship with a second camera for room-scale gameplay).

Bear in mind that although full-body and room-scale options can provide a far better experience, they’re harder to line up. this is often one area where mobile VR has a simple use advantage. Most VR doesn’t require tons of ‘working’ space though and you ought to usually have enough room for your headset of choice unless you would like to undertake the Vive’s room-scale setup. Games, software, and entertainment
Good Software can make or break a VR brand, and while we didn’t look at specific program titles in our test, we found that there still aren’t many “killer apps” that make a convincing case for VR. That’s to be expected though, as it’s still early days for VR after all, and a lot of content appears to be aimed at the gaming market. However, these headsets can do a whole lot more than gaming.

You can find software for Education, real estate, tourism, and online shopping, to name a few categories. Tourism is particularly fun, as VR lets you ‘travel’ to another location, without leaving your home. You can even make your travel content, with consumer-grade 360° cameras. Branded versions of Google Cardboard are also well-liked promotional items, from companies such as eBay. These are more or less the same as a standard Cardboard, just with a different coat of paint.

There’s plenty of 360° video online as well. YouTube is just one famous service that supports VR, and most headsets have their own 360 video libraries. You can even watch 2D content in a VR headset if you want to. Oculus and Vive use their shopfronts (e.G. PlayStation Store), and Steam online (store.Steampowered.Com), while PS VR and GearVR lock things down to their digital stores. All other mobile-based headsets are a little less centralized, so it can be difficult to find fun apps unless you know exactly what you’re after.

Most brands give out software online (aside from PlayStation, which sells PS VR games in retail stores), and this can be a problem, as Australian internet speeds are still pretty average. You may have to wait some time for the software to download, as well as system updates and drivers before you can do anything with your headset.

Although there’s a wide range of software available for each tier, you’ll find that the headset quality and experience are indicative of the kind of software it supports. An entry-level, smartphone-based headset, for example, is best used for short, simple, submissive experiences with average image quality.

Health and safety
Given that it’s still early days for VR, most manufacturers are taking a cautionary approach to health and safety. No one knows what will happen if you use VR for hours at a time, every single day, though it is generally advised against. Most manufacturers recommend regular breaks. Sony, for example, recommends 15 minutes rest for every hour inside PS VR.

You’re likely to experience some discomfort after a while, especially with the top-end models, as they’re quite heavy. Straps, and padding between the headset and your face, are the main contact points that cause discomfort and irritation. The lenses on some models will fog up after a while as well, especially during full-body and room-scale experiences.

VR may even make your stomach churn at first. The sensation can be similar to motion sickness. While technology improvements, such as higher video refresh rates, have reduced the likelihood and impact of nausea, you may still feel a little queasy after an extended or vigorous stint in VR.

There are too many variables including brand, software, and level of immersion, to say exactly how you’ll be affected. However, our testers have increased their tolerance after repeated use over several weeks. This, of course, isn’t to say you’ll be affected, or that you’ll adapt if you are, but our experience suggests that it’s possible. The best way to tell is to use a headset yourself. You’ll know fairly soon if you can handle it.

Not quite a child friendly
VR seems like the perfect gift or holiday distraction for Children, but only to a point. All manufacturers put an age Restriction on their headsets, and while we haven’t Inspect every single model out there, the brands we looked at in our VR test had the following limits in place:

Cocoon: 14+
GearVR: 13+
Google Daydream: 13+
Oculus Rift 13+
PS VR: 12+
Fly360: 3+
Google Cardboard (and licensed variants): No age specified. Health and safety command say “Cardboard is not for use by children without adult supervision.”
HTC: No age specified. Health and safety instructions say “the product was not designed to be used by children.”
Most brands don’t specify why these restrictions apply, though we might expect this has to do with protecting young and still-developing eyes. We spoke to Professor Frank Martin and head orthoptist Sarita Beukes from the Sydney Ophthalmic Specialists about this, and they both agreed that limiting exposure is an important precautionary measure that parents should follow, until experts know more about the long-term effects of VR.

General limitations of VR
VR is an emerging technology, and there are a few technical shortcomings that affect all brands. The most prominent problem is the ‘screen door effect’, which is faintly visible horizontal and vertical lines appearing in the picture. The resolution is also well below 2D television. Even if the headset has the same number of pixels as an HD TV, for example, they are rolling out across two lenses to create the VR image, effectively halving the horizontal resolution.