How, exactly, can I check if a specific phone model supports google cardboard?
Basically, I’m looking for a cardboard device, and the cardboard site seems to be a bit cryptic about which devices are supported.
when buying developer phones, we just googled and checked what people had success with : /
then went with a safe pick, samsung s4-5-6 phones…
if you want to go gearvr later, then maybe should get those s6 and later.
https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/mobilesdk/1.0.4/concepts/mobile-reqs/
Might be interested in checking this out
https://freeflyvr.com/
It has a Phone Compatibility page as well.
It uses Cardboard or you can use their own VR Scripts.
It even has a bigger FOV than the Rift, pretty amazing Headmount… Pretty comfortable as well.
But as I always recommend to people, always research stuff before making the purchase.
I haven’t used it in quite a bit of time, but when it first came out, it did support Cardboard stuff. Things may have changed, idk.
But I can certainly rec it for comfort and amazing FOV. its so big you can’t even see everything, you have to turn your eyes like in real life to see stuff around you.
Erm, I’d like to clarify situation. Basically, it is possible that I’ll need a cheap-o VR device (hence cardboard) to experiment with some stuff. Galaxy family phones cost more than what I’d be willing to spend on a phone, so I’ll be going for something significantly cheaper.
So what I’m looking for is minimum set of features a Cardboard device is required to have. Online sources suggest certain API level, gyroscope + some sources for some reason mention NFC being present. Is there anything else in addition to that?
I honestly can’t think of anything else other than the size of the device you want to use being the biggest concern.
Each type of VR headmount has its own specs to the size of Phones… But you could always just import the VR Plugins for Cardboard into Unity and you can see which devices are supported (well - sorta). There is an Enum drop down, they adjust the way the screen looks to specific devices…
But if I were you, I’d just drop the whole idea of using cardboard and just start doing stuff with Day Dream, as that’s where they are going to start putting all their resources into now (Sorta like how Unity works - they may maintain some older versions for now, but the newer stuff will get the brunt of it). But then again - how many people have the 3-4 devices that even support Day Dream? So you’d automatically loose a lot of customers using that.
Guess it’s one of them things where you have to pick which is more important for your needs.
But yeah - Phone Size (as in width, height, etc) is the only other thing I can think of based on your question.
Oh also - DO NOT get a Moto Z Play phone, I haven’t tried recently - but Cardboard was un-useable completely in a build… 95% of each eye was covered in black artifacts… And of course - nobody can reproduce it on Unity’s end. So it may just very well be the device doesn’t like Cardboard drivers.
But I haven’t tried in 2017.1 or sense the Moto Z Play has had an update the other day. So it may work now as well.
I checked out the prices, and at this pricepoint I think it could be a better idea to just get vive or oculus rift instead.
The stuff is for “R&D” and mostly for me. So customers are not a concern.
Guess it’s one of them things where you have to pick which is more important for your needs.
So, gyroscope, certain android api level and that’s pretty much it? Hmm, alright.
Yeah I would just start doing stuff with Rift or Vive, but also keep in mind, there’s tons of more people with mobile VR, so if there any interest in profits ever after getting experience with it, it’s probably in mobile because it’s easy to access for normal folk which hundreds of thousands if not millions of people already have - at least on paper have… I’m sure a lot of them are collecting dust because the initial rush is gone.
But yeah, I can’t honestly think of anything else, only things I can think of is optional stuff - such as good screen resolution, maybe Leap Motion (Use your hands) in the game. Not sure if it is for Mobile, but it’s pretty cheap, might can check it out though, pretty interesting stuff…
But I’d wait to see what others think, there might be something else. I just never really thought about it before, so there could be some other feature that I am missing.
Pretty much any Android or iOS phone will work for simple mobile VR testing if you can get your Unity project to run on them. You can cut one yourself or get those cheap plastic 4-6 inch phone cartboard clones for $10 and some of them even come with a bluetooth remote.
Well, I have an aging tablet that can run Unity projects but doesn’t support Cardboard VR.
As for cutting the headset myself, I thought about that, but the problem is I don’t know where to get the lenses locally (ordering them from optics store will probably cost much more), and I definitely saw plastic headsets on sale for comparable price in one of the local stores.
@neginfinity About 2 months ago I saw some cheap sub-20 dollar Head Mounts at my local walmart… They were made for Cardboard… Might want to check into it… They at-least at my Local Walmart were right on the isle (on the outside by the walkway) sitting on shelf…
EDIT: They are plastic. Cheaply made obviously, but nevertheless - plastic lol.
No wallmarts here. However it is possible to get stuff from asian websites.
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