Google Cardboard and touch

Questions & Answers
1

We are developing an Android VR application that has some touch interactions before we put the cellphone in the Cardboard.

From my understanding, the Cardboard SDK captures touch events and forwards them to Unity using another Android activity. On the first touch the status bar appears and the event is not forwarded to the application. If a second touch is performed while this status bar is visible, it is then sent to the application. Waiting some time hides the status bar, and then the same behavior occours as in the first touch.

Therefore I would like to know the following:

  1. Why does the status bar shows on touch when adding the Cardboard SDK? Is this a Cardboard Setting? Can it be disabled?
  2. Why does the touch event only work when this status bar is visible? Can they be always forwarded?

Edit:
This is the single activity in the Android manifest:

<activity android:name="com.google.vrtoolkit.cardboard.plugins.unity.UnityCardboardActivity" ... >
    ...
    <meta-data android:name="unityplayer.UnityActivity" android:value="true" />
</activity>
2

If your phone’s version of Android is older than 4.4 (API level 19, KitKat), then this is what happens, because Android did not add the “immersive” mode till then, which is what lets fullscreen apps receive touches without the status bar showing up first.

3

It turns out Fibrum has an SDK as well which is compatible with touch, so we ended up using it to solve the problem.

4

Hello everyone! I solved this problem! You must install these settings when VR is not needed.

Cardboard script

CardBoard SDK

alt text

5

Following on from what @dolims said, I have been having the same problem with the latest version of the cardboard SDK with Android 4.3.

commenting the line:

<meta-data android:name="IMMERSIVE_MODE" android:value="true"/>

in the AndroidManifest.xml found in the Plugins->Android folder appears to have solved the problem.

Thanks @dolims for pointing me in the right direction.