Google Daydream View: Mobile VR, One Year Later (Premium)

Google's most elegant mobile VR solution doesn't get a lot of attention---in my home or elsewhere---from what I can tell. So maybe it's time for another look.

My Daydream View arrived one year ago. Like Windows Mixed Reality on PCs, this headset raised the bar, in this case for mobile-based virtual reality (VR). But its limitations were, and still are, frustrating. And one year later, I'm not sure the needle has moved all that much.

Which is a shame, because VR can be quite immersive and entertaining, and you can lose yourself even in the often fuzzy and always low-resolution experiences it offers. I feel like we're so close. But not quite there.

The issues with VR on mobile are many: Daydream View, like other mobile VR solutions, relies on your phone for its processing power, and it can drain the phone's battery very quickly. Worse, it can heat up the phone alarmingly; if the phone gets too hot, which it can, it might literally shut off as an emergency life-saving measure.

Mobile VR is also hampered somewhat by imprecise controls. On Google Cardboard, for example, you have exactly one hardware button with which to interact.

But Daydream View, like PC-based VR solutions, adds a controller, which in this case looks like a small remote control and adds a few more hardware buttons, plus movements and gestures. This all adds up to a more complete package, and it allows for far more sophisticated experiences.

(In the PC VR space, and with HoloLens, hardware makers have likewise realized that some kind of controller is necessary; Windows Mixed Reality headsets, for example, come with two Motion controllers, and you can of course use an Xbox controller too.)

But the biggest issue with Daydream View, and with mobile VR in general---actually, with VR, period---is that it's still hugely inconvenient. Daydream View, in particular, is compatible with only a few handsets, and if your handset has a mono speaker, still painfully common, you're going to want to break out the headphones. Too, you may need to remove your phone's case, which can be awkward. (The Star Wars: Jedi Challenges AR headset I recently wrote about also requires you remove the phone's case, and that device can be complex to use too.)

The payoff for all this pain is a slowly-growing collection of content. Which may or may not be of interest to you, depending on what you're looking for.

In the PC space, this is less of a problem. There, VR will always have a viable niche with gaming, and that the other experiences can evolve alongside that as the technical capabilities improve. Microsoft has raised the bar nicely by making Windows Mixed Reality part of the platform, and by putting room sensors right on the headset, removing a lot of the complexity. But there's still complexity to be had, of course, and the perceived resolution is still too low. The headsets are big and bulky, too, and have to be tethered to a fairly beefy computer. All that will contin...