Fab Gear!

2014 was a banner year for WebGL and my wallet. The consulting business took off and I even started seeing royalty checks from my O’Reilly Books (beer money FTW)!

So with the tax year end looming, I thought I should take a few more write-offs. I decided to drop serious coin on VR hardware, including a ridiculously powerful new Windows laptop (derp) that is only slightly smaller than my Prius, and a Samsung Gear VR with a companion Galaxy Note 4 phone that I would otherwise have zero use for. ($1000 dollars – cheap!) I made these purchases with some reservation – after all, I am Mr. DIYVR, and I’ve been quite vocal about the need for devices that anybody can afford. Well, right now I can afford ’em, so – there it is.

I had seen a few early demos of Gear VR and was pretty impressed. But I wasn’t prepared for how much I was going to love the retail version. Here’s me in our kitchen, enjoying my first postprandial trip through this mobile version of the Oculus Rift. Somewhat surprisingly, I kept my dinner down just fine. No motion sickness to speak of. And I stayed in there longer than I have ever stuck around in a Rift, playing games, flying through space and watching movie trailers.

Design-wise, I know, I know: I’m just another White Guy Wearin’ a Rift.  But this thing is way more sleek than that bucket they call the DK2. And look Ma: no wires.

But this isn’t the important part. It’s what’s inside that counts. Instead of blindly groping for a keyboard, or wildly waving my arms in front of me, I simply tapped the touch pad on the side of the headset to interact with the games and apps. Instead of continually removing the device to select a new game to launch, I merely swiped the touch pad to move through a gorgeous interface they’re calling the Oculus Store. It’s simple and beautiful, like the Xbox interface but in full 3D:

Now this is the shit. I need to make the interface to Third Eye as good as this – but for browsing the whole web. So that’s my new mission. Wish me luck D-)

In the meantime, kudos to Samsung and Oculus on making the first high-production, consumer-ready VR for realz. If they can get the price down, then we’ve really got something. This fab device is, well, “it’s gear.”