Making a Google Daydream Headset for free*
*If you have a brand new phone, a pair of lenses, some cardboard and an old cell phone lying around
I drop my phone a lot. Probably once or twice a month on average. Recently I dropped my phone for the (N+1)th time (where N is the number of times my phone can be dropped without breaking). Therefore I purchased a shiny brand new phone for the first time. The Samsung Galaxy 8.
Immediately after purchasing the Samsung Galaxy 8 I started getting ads about the Daydream app. Now, Daydream is the new Google VR platform that uses your phone as a screen. On top of needing a new phone (latest iPhone or Samsung Galaxy 8), you also are encouraged to purchase the $80 headset and controller that Google created for the platform.
They are so darn stylish
Given that I had already purchased a Samsung Galaxy 8, expense was not really a consideration for me. However, when I wandered to the Best Buy to see if I could get immediate gratification in purchasing a Daydream headset and controller, the only thing they had for sale was an old Cardboard viewer.
Close enough I guess...
Google Cardboard has been around for a while. Like the Daydream app, it uses your phone as a screen, but you need to have a viewer with special lenses in order to actually get the VR effect. It is possible to make your own Google Cardboard viewer for free. I was more interested in saving time instead of money, so I purchased the adorable pink party Cardboard for the exorbitant price of $8.
It has lenses and everything
When I got home I tried out some of the old Cardboard apps. It isn't hard to see why Cardboard has yet to catch on in a big way. Of the apps I tried, about half of them left me vaguely nauseated or gave me a piercing headache. These kinds of effects are common, and are labeled as "VR sickness". Google claims that the effect is increased by attaching the viewer to your head, which is why the old Cardboard viewers do not come with any straps. However, my anecdotal experience and the fact that the Daydream viewer has straps lead me to believe that the issue is actually the poor processing power of the phones that Cardboard is meant to run on. They just can't produce a high enough quality of VR to get a real immersive experience.
So of course I wanted to see if I could use my $8 Cardboard viewer to enjoy the higher quality Daydream VR apps. I immediately ran into two issues. 1) Since the Daydream is higher quality, the expectation is that I will have a strap and not be holding the viewer and 2) All Daydream exclusive apps require the controller, which I did not have.
Problem 1 was pretty easy to fix. At first I tried to create a headset using string. This took about an hour and resulted in a strange mask that felt a little more like bondage than a headset. However my cat really enjoyed it.
At least it was good for something.
After that I took a piece of elastic I had lying around (are there people who throw away boxes and random pieces of junk? That is super weird). As luck would have it, the color was perfectly matched to my adorable party Cardboard, producing an attractive and stylish final product.
My cat liked playing with this too. Really all straps make good toys.
For Problem 2, it turns out that Google actually has a tutorial for setting up a controller emulator if you happen to have a spare phone lying around. And although I had managed to break my old phone (a Nexus 5x) to the point that it could no longer phone, it still was able to download apps and do all the phone things I needed to turn it into my controller.
"Waiting for connection" is what it says about 80% of the time I try to use it.
Generally Google's tutorial for the emulator works pretty well. I had connectivity issues several times. Generally turning off the emulator and then starting it again fixed my problems. However, on a few occasions I had to turn off the Nexus 5x completely and then restart it. Overall using the emulator for the controller is a mediocre experience, but it does let me interact with the Daydream apps and experience nausea free virtual reality. For free*!