Google Cardboard

Basics

• A Cheap(ish) way of SORT OF? (insert definition snobbery here) doing VR and to an EVEN LESSER capability AR and MR
• Uses a Smartphone and a headset with lenses and a head mount system to make a rudimentary All in One HMD
• Granted due to the display not being an optimized geometry quality is lesser, also depending on headset quality lenses may be bad (see the headset reccomendations section below)
• Also uses only Accelorometer-Compass-Gyroscope Dead Reconing for tracking and thus suffers from drifting in tracking overtime
  • ALSO this limits the system to 3DOF unless an add-on like NOLO VR or PSVR Emulation is used
• It can be a HMD PC Tethering setup with the correct software, but most Smartphone IO is insufficient for high speed data transfer
• Also screen resolution is reduced when magnified and stretched etc by the lenses so ever 1440p looks more like 720p or a bit less
• Issues like the Screen Door Effect also arise due to the screen issue
• Overheating may be an issue due to most programs essentially maxing out the smartphone's hardware, but propper passive and/or active cooling aleviate this

Main Use Cases

VR Content

• Viewing Steroscopic "Flat" Videos and Images ("3D Movies" etc)
• Viewing Panoramas
• Viewing 360 Videos
• Viewing 3DOF VR Pictures
• Viewing 3DOF VR Videos
• Google Earth VR perhaps?

Telepresence

• Perhaps some sort of tethered cobot/telepresence bot camera's display?

Intro to VR

• There is some debate as to if a low quality experience will "scare off" non-early adopters, but it is a VERY cheap place to start if one has a good smartphone already and 10-60 USD to burn