Google Announces Daydream ‘View’ VR Headset for $79

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Oct 4, 2016

Google today unveiled its first Daydream headset called ‘View’, a high-quality mobile VR headset that works exclusively with Android’s integrated VR support.

Google announced several big hardware bits this morning at its ‘Made By Google’ hardware event including the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, a 4K Chromecast, and the VR belle of the ball, the company’s first Daydream VR headset.

The headset is called View and aims to being a touch of comfort to the VR experience. The device works with Daydream certified phones, connects and uses NFC to detect your phone is present wirelessly (no connectors) and uses auto alignment to allow quick and seamless entry and exit from VR – informed by capacitive pads on the View headset, where they touch the screen, tells the phone how to orient the image.

Hands on With Google's Daydream View Headset (Video)

Clay Bavor, lead of Google’s VR team, stated that the team took a look at other VR headsets that were out there and decided that for their entry, the look and feel should not only be comfortable, but “simple, friendlier, and more accessible.” This lead to the headset’s unconventional, fabric covered design that Clay said looks more like something you’d wear in every day life.

Glasses wearers can also rejoice, as Bavor announced the View’s facial interface “fits nicely over eyeglasses.” The padded faceplate interface itself is detachable, and is said to be breathable and hand-washable, possibly making way for the possibility of multiple inserts.

The headset will arrive in three colors; slate, snow, and crimson.

Google Announces First Daydream-Ready VR Phone

The headset was announced alongside’s Google’s new flagship phone Pixel, which was pushed as the perfect partner for VR. Pixel represents the company’s first Daydream ‘certified’ phone.

The headset ships with the Daydream controller in November for $79, available at Google’s online store, Best Buy and from Verizon, the exclusive US wireless carrier of Pixel.

This story is breaking – we’ll add more information as we find it.

Mario Baldi

Hum, from the video it doesn’t look like it has positional tracking… and the headset lacks of a hole for the camera.
Bummer :(
OgreTactics

So no 4K or even 2.5K resolution, no Tango so no AR, no environment tracking, no external interaction, no external head and body tracking and still no higher FOV?

A pyjama textured dumb-HMD with a fucking cap and a strap, A FUCKING STRAP in 2016 when everybody has understood that VR should be a put-and-look design?

Seriously what the fuck are they doing with their billions of budget wasted on untalented dorks un-fucking-capable of taking one sensitive conception decision? WTF is going through their minds so that they don’t grasp basic conception conception are still un-fucking-capable of taking good decisions to compete with Apple?
- Bryan Ischo
  
  Jesus christ, calm down. It’s a very inexpensive device, I am sure that none of the features you want could be realistically supplied for $79.
  - OgreTactics
    
    Yeah that’s why millions of people fork in 1000s of dollars for crap iPhones, they give a shit about price…
    
    This headset is a let-down for ANYBODY invested in VR, there’s literally no point, and NOBODY intrigued by VR is going to be impressed by it. Then a few months down the road, everybody has forgotten about this shit underwhelming HMD that didn’t make VR step forward one bit.
    
    Millions spent, the crooks at Apple have all their time to come on top of that, if not, VR is continuously sliding towards the end of its momentum when everybody has accepted that “okay it’s cool, but meh, it’s useless/there’s shit content/too expensive for the value” and there goes another 10 years in oblivion before a better iteration like the Oculus comes-up.
    - Justos
      
      Daydream is a letdown, but VR will flourish. Just wait for the next gearVR if you want new tech. Looks like daydream is taking the catchall approach instead of innovating. That 3dof controller looks cool for pointing at things but thats about it.
      - OgreTactics
        
        That I can more or less agree with. Except the certitude that VR will flourish NOW and not in 10-15 years because of shit like that while momentum is running out.
        
        If they didn’t integrate what they should of in Daydream and Pixel, there’s no reason why they would in the Galaxy S8 and next GearVR. Also it’ll be too late in terms of momentum.
    - David Herrington
      
      Tell us how you really feel… haha. But seriously, I am glad you finally understand the real problems to VR are “shit content/too expensive for the value” when before you were certain that it was only because hand tracking wasn’t available.
      
      Augure: “Content, is not really a topic…”
      http://www.roadtovr.com/metro-devs-4a-games-ready-to-reveal-oculus-touch-title-first-glimpses-here/
      - OgreTactics
        
        Do you know what are “quotes” for? “okay it’s cool, but meh, it’s useless/there’s shit content/too expensive for the value” didn’t sound like I was quoting people to you? I still am set on my point, you can laugh now and cry later (if you even remotely work in digital or VR that is) as you’ll see the momentum for VR completely fall and stall after christmas has passed…
      - David Herrington
        
        I’m sorry to state the obvious, but do you know what quotes are for??? You have used them very ambiguously at best. But I will reiterate what I have said before with more quotations as anyone who reads what you write may still be in confusion of what you are trying to say.
        
        Augure: “Do you know what are “quotes” for? “okay it’s cool, but meh, it’s useless/there’s shit content/too expensive for the value” didn’t sound like I was quoting people to you?”
        
        ^————- what people are you quoting?
        
        Augure: “…VR is continuously sliding towards the end of its momentum when everybody has accepted that “okay it’s cool, but meh, it’s useless/there’s shit content/too expensive for the value” and there goes another 10 years in oblivion before a better iteration like the Oculus comes-up.”
        
        So you are saying that other people may believe this but doesn’t this also mean that you believe this as well?? Or else why would VR “completely fall and stall.”
      - OgreTactics
        
        Yes. That’s the best answer I can give to your hypocritical questioning of the use of quotes.
      - David Herrington
        
        I assume you are responding to my last question as to if you believe the issues hindering VR adoption are mainly cost and content. Thank you for finally agreeing with me.
      - OgreTactics
        
        You obviously read my previous comments and what VR problem’s is. Again, for me it’s not price or content, it’s ergonomic design and lack of external tracking.
        
        In short and as a better statement: VR has you know it now, is NOT a finished product and will NEVER take off.
      - David Herrington
        
        Ah yes, but we were talking about what would make VR fail. Not what you want.
        
        What is your measurement to how VR is doing? You talk about people’s momentum and so I assume it is total sales. Because VR hasn’t made it unless the common man can attest to how it has affected their lives. Then the more people that have it, the more that VR has made it, right?
        
        So PSVR has slightly worse tracking and lower quality than both Vive and Oculus, right? Not to mention that it does not have any sort of hand tracking. All things that you say are absolutely necessary to make VR. But because of its lower cost and backing from content providers it will outsell both the Vive and Rift by the end of the year. http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2016/10/04/psvr-sales-superdata-playstation-vr/
        Even if PSVR sales are HALF of what they expect they will still outsell Vive and Rift COMBINED. So by definition, PSVR is a finished product and has made VR finally take-off.
      - OgreTactics
        
        Momentum = Social activity x Sales x Usage tracking X Content (Quality/Production) / months over months.
        
        PSVR WILL out-sale Vive and Oculus and save sometimes to VR, and somehow yes PSVR does what it’s supposed to do, because so does the PS4 sitting in a social living room.
        
        In 6 months from now to a year, if no new headset is announced, it’ll take dust, the momentum will have greatly slowed down, which means that whatever they announced next will have less impact than now and people will have even less interests x more expectations by then.
        
        In other words, about EVERYBODY civilised has heard of Virtual Reality and seen or read about it. Why is it that most people aren’t rushing to buy it, that so few people have one despite it costing anywhere between 25 (cardboard), 100 (GearVr, DayDream) and 600$? Because VR HMDs as amusing as they are for amateurs and as promising it is for people who see the bigger picture, are NOT finished product.
        
        Imagine, again, if 10 years ago, Steve Jobs release a smartphone but that had no high resolution TFT screen but a dumb LCD one, no touchscreen but a single stylus touch interface, no antenna band but an external antenna stick, no iOS but a dumbphone OS…? Yeah that would be a Palm and NOBODY would be using it to this day (Google the studies about what would have happen if Steve Jobs didn’t release the iPhone).
        
        VR HMDs are at this point this unfinished gadget from 25 years ago (do we have to fucking remind it) that is impressive because someone had the idea to use a single…smartphone screen, yet it doesn’t do any of the NATURAL shit it’s supposed to. What is the first thing that most people try to do when putting on the headset and looking around (which is the only that works)? Looking at their hands. Then moving their heads towards something (which doesn’t work on mobile). Then move around (which they can’t freely because of fucking cables, or because it can’t).
        
        And what about the usage? Imagine if using your smartphone required to take it out of a bag or shelve because it doesn’t fit elsewhere, then removing a cover or hatch, then plugging some cables or some screen module, then strapping bands to your arms, then adjusting the screen IPD, then waiting for it to load a menu…that’s the other reason why VR HMDs are unfinished products and all of those I know who own some HMDS that are not used for testing purpose, are taking dust on shelves because of that.
        
        Do you get the bigger picture? It’s not just content or just external tracking. It’s the product itself and the mediocre untalented manufacturer slacker who are doing the exact same mistake as 20 years ago and release “funny”, “interactive”, “gadget of the future” that nobody is using in really life once they’ve played a dozen or hundreds of mostly crapy experience and incompatible games…
      - David Herrington
        
        I agree with you that VR has not reached its full potential. For VR to reach its potential it should be mobile without bulkiness or cables in a small form factor like a magical pair of sunglasses that you put on. It should also still retain the capability to run high end PC games. But that reality is 20+ years away. We just don’t have that kind of tech right now. So to say that it will fail because it isn’t to its full capacity is short-sighted.
        
        When television came out people didn’t care that it was black and white and only on a screen that was 15 inches wide. They bought it because it provided them with an experience that they couldn’t get anywhere else. VR is the same way. But it doesn’t matter if you sell the best magical VR sunglasses in the world, if they cost 1 million dollars, then no one will buy them.
      - OgreTactics
        
        No, again you’re short-sighted and don’t understand half of what I’m saying. I never said it hasn’t reach full potential, I said it has not even reached a usable device state and there’s only so much momentum timeframe before people get bored, unimpressed and dub it as yet another failed gadget fad.
        
        Except what you improvised and felt as being “VR full potential” in a mobile form-factor (I’m only talking GearVR form factor with a better slide and put design), without cables (which mobile VR already is), with the capacity of running high-end game PC, meaning having wireless image feedback (like it was already created by one fucking single amateur with Riftcat)…and of course all the rest that I added about external tracking, minimum high-FOV, and I actually think the 2.5K resolution of the S7/Note is good enough.
        
        The first television were not only affordable but they also were exactly what they were supposed to be: a box with moving image, a on-/off button and a dial. Again, my iPhone/Palm example should’ve been explanatory enough, but sure let’s go the TV road: imagine if the first TVs had to have their screen put inside the box, and 11 fucking cables has to then be plugged, and you had to implement an external tracker to know where to display the image, and the image was so low in resolution and not that big that it quickly gave the impression to look at a muddy mess, and you didn’t have button and dials but had to plug another controller with these buttons (like external keyboard or controller today) instead etc…it would have never taken of as such. TVs like radios were a brilliant design, yet the technology had been around for long just before someone actually knew how to fucking make it a usable product.
        
        And again, if you actually did so prospection or intelligence survey of the technology, R&D, company portefolio of these companies you would know that not only higher-FOV, high-resolution, external-tracking components, hand/body/environment tracking software, low-latency wireless buffering etc…ALL already exist, sometimes inside the same companies that do VR, sometimes single amateurs did it their way, and when you have billions of dollars of budget, thousands of engineers, and you want to take the responsibility of launching a new market as important as VR, it is simply unacceptable and just straight stupid that they do not do their conception job. And it’s not the first-time it happened, wether for HD-DVD, 3D TVs, 8tracks or…VR in the 90s.
      - David Herrington
        
        “and the image was so low in resolution and not that big that it quickly gave the impression to look at a muddy mess…” Oh yeah yeah, you mean the first TV that was a mess of flashes and contrast problems which was on a resolution of 60-line electromechanical system in July 21, 1931. 5 years after that we were mass producing MUCH better TV’s with 405 lines of definition.
        
        Here’s a clip on one of the more advanced versions in 1936 that had a whopping 5 inch screen! Sorry for the quality as this was the best they had at the time…
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJYCWjt0rkk
        
        “…and you didn’t have button and dials but had to plug another controller with these buttons (like external keyboard or controller today) instead.” Oh you mean a remote control? Wow that didn’t come around until 20 YEARS LATER around 1951 and the first ones WERE connected by cables. See this picture here. http://www.tvhistory.tv/1950_Zenith_Wired_Remote.JPG
        
        “The first television […] were exactly what they were supposed to be…” That’s exactly my point. People saw the value of the TV even though it was truly crappy at the time and invested in it. It didn’t need to be 65″ widescreen in Ultra HD for them to buy it.
        
        You see, since you live in this generation of technology, you don’t have any perspective on how technology must mature. The TV’s we have now, took 80 years to get this way. So don’t expect that kind of maturity out of a brand new product. A lot of the things you want will come in the near future but there isn’t enough time and technology to get it all into one package in year ONE of the VR craze.
        
        What you don’t seem to understand is that the first VR HMD’s are EXACTLY what they are supposed to be. I guarantee ANYONE who tries one for the first time will get an experience they have NEVER had before. It will blow them away. That is the whole objective. To make them get that feeling. I can tell that YOU had that feeling too, because there is no other reason you would be so emphatic about VR in your writing.
        
        But what we need right now isn’t better more expensive HMD’s. We need cheaper ones with the same high quality that we already do and content to use on them so that every household has at least one High quality VR system in their house.
    - Lionel Townsend
      
      Daydream isn’t for us tech folks who are willing to out more for a better peripheral. It’s to recapture the Wii casual crowd. The headset meant for us was canned. They focus their efforts on the people who need convincing which isn’t us and are far more numerous.
      - Lionel Townsend
        
        I’m okay with this. It probably better in the long run for the health of vr. We already have options. I just hope those options become more financially reasonable.
      - OgreTactics
        
        For any market, in any given epoch, you need the professional, tech, amateur and creative crowd, to get the mass going. Even the iPhone didn’t escape that rule, though the iPhone was a “perfect” finite product as such.
        
        Do you think that people who got into mobile VR with 95-100° FOV and 1080p/2.5K resolution entries a year or two before will think “look this is step back, and doesn’t fix any of the shit reason why it’s now taking dust on the shelves”, and the rest of people who still haven’t tried or gotten their hands on one will say “oh look, a way more expensive but still ugly smartphone, with a VR that no-one is particularly recommending, let’s order one”, only for them to put it on the shelves a few months after as well?
        
        Product conception is EASY as fuck, that’s just a fucking JOB, with rules: for exemple the fact that this headset STILL has a strap and a hatch, when it’s clear in 2016 that the only “plug-n-play” design that can make HMDs an everyday tool is the put-n-look design of the PSVR that has now been adopted by Intel Alloy and another upcoming headset for very good reasons, is design non-sense.
        
        Then there is the usage: having tested most HMDs including the Fove, OSVR and StarVR, and deconstructing their usage case, how they fit in the landscape of everyday device we use, it seems clear that the best route VR can go first, especially mobile, is a portable cinema/experience device. Except at sub-4K (ie. Full-HD per eyes) and with this horrible design, there’s no sense. And then? Well there’s NOWHERE to go, not even video-games and interactions if headset don’t fucking include external depth gears like Intel RealSense, Google Tango, or even NimbleBit. The difference with most companies being, Google FUCKING owns and created Tango.
  - VirtualBro
    
    Dude, it’s a plastic shell for $80. That’s expensive, IMO.
    
    If this thing were $10 I’d be singing a different tune
- craylon
  
  Actually I see some tiny silver linig in all that dark:
  
  a) they do a ton of marketing and convince the consumers that its good => the consumer gets a cheap movie viewer and maybe wish for more
  b) they give them away with phone orders because its cheap => the consumer gets a cheap movie viewer and maybe wish for more
  c) they spend a ton of google $$$ to produce content for this cheap device => we all get some content hopefully (like pearl whitch imho wasn’t half bad)
  
  As a Vive owner, my favourite content would be truly immersive environments and games of course but actually this is the responsibility of every tech journalist and vive/ rift owner to inform people that cardboard < daydream < psVR < rift/vive in terms of a full VR experience
  - OgreTactics
    
    I don’t know, you are talking about experience, and except for a few experience (remember Sensa Penso?), I’m talking about VR has a casual, consumer or work tool.
    
    And because “high-end” HMDs iteration are so slow to evolve that it VR would die before they get to the third one. Mobile is the platform that can make it evolve where it needs to be faster, for example GearVR already has 100° and a 2.5K resolution, there are mods to push it to 120° FOV easy, and of course, that fucking wasted Tango that can only be developed on the community scale so much it implies many software development.
- Hanjie Tang
  
  “Augure: So no 4K or even 2.5K resolution, no Tango so no AR, no environment tracking, no external interaction, no external head and body tracking and still no higher FOV?”
  
  You are so clueless.
  This is a BUDGET product. It’s not trying to overpower Vive or PSVR.
  Why would it require 4K or 2.5K resolution when phones cannot drive the resolution? Do you realize this is Mobile VR we are talking about? Do you realize PSVR is only 1K? Do you realize low frame rate is much much worse than low(1K) resolution for VR experience?
  
  Nobody ever claimed this is an AR solution. Would you require Hololens to come with a box that turn it into a VR headset as well? AR is not ready for mass market yet, there’s no need to jam pack it into current phones.
  
  You slide your phone into Daydream, and then use it anywhere you wanted. Requiring people to have dedicated space to install “external head and body tracking” would be Terrible standard feature for mass adoption. Third parties can continue to work on such things, google should NEVER make that a required feature for daydream platform.
  
  It would be great to have better FOV. However, let me remind you again you are looking at a 2016 phone screen, which is flat for the most part. I don’t expect Google to REQUIRE screen that curves around your face for daydream standard in 2016.
  
  You can dislike the design all you want, it’s just the first daydream viewer, companies will release their own version of it.
  - OgreTactics
    
    STFU mediocre scum, people like you are the reason we’re old down in terms of technology. Both the Galaxy S7 and Note 7 have 2.5K resolutions produced by Samsung, would also announced their ready 4K mobile screen. Framerate? Seriously STFU you don’t what you’re talking about, displayed resolution is not rendered resolution. You’re so fucking clueless and ignorant and I don’t have patience for the few calories my fingers would waste typing a full answer.
    - Hanjie Tang
      
      Smh.
      Are you complaining about the Pixel base phone or Daydream??
      
      It’s 2.5K if you use Pixel XL. It’s going to be compatible with all the daydream ready phones. According to my source in Samsung, S8 will be daydream compatible as well.
      - OgreTactics
        
        I “complain” about the fact that both are sufficiently shit, that Daydream and maybe even Pixel will be failures, thus Google with the responsibility of billions of budget and thousands of employee is taking unacceptably hysterically dumb decision. It’s like they hate money.
      - Hanjie Tang
        
        You do realize daydream sets the minimum requirements and almost everything is on the phone right? All the other companies can build on top of it, just like android ecosystem.
        
        Daydream does not need to blow Vive out of water right away at all. Too much high requirement will work AGAINST mass adoption. Daydream will definitely fail if they sell as many as Vive or Rift. They have a good chance is they sell 50X, or even 100X as many units.
        
        The beauty and advantage of Mobile VR is it’s flexible. Unlike Rift, Vive, and PSVR, which are STUCK with 2K resolution until you drop another $600 for the next generation, daydream is evolving with phones, which you upgrade every year or two anyways.
        
        Google cannot force Samsung,HTC,LG etc to move to 4K or 8K screens unless the market is ready. Google cannot require snapdragon 850, 1000 unless they are available. At the same time, other companies are free to make better controllers, better everything along the way.
        
        Nexus One(2010) only had 800×480 screen, 512mb storage etc, Did it stop android from getting 70% market share today? The phones will continue to get better, so will Daydream.
      - OgreTactics
        
        It would fail if it sold even 300K units 2 years after the original GearVR. It doesn’t need to blow Vive out of the water, it needs to be a decent VR HMDs that neither Vive, Oculus or Gear are for it to be consumer and professional adopted.
        
        But Google MADE the Pixel shit phone and Daydream VR, NOT Samsung, who already had a better Galaxy and Gear a year ago, and have a 4K VR screen ready in their pipe.
      - Hanjie Tang
        
        That’s why Daydream is open to all manufacturers. Daydream headsets made by various companies will sell way more than pixel phones. I will be surprised if they don’t sell 3-8M units in next 2 years.
        The 4K VR screen samsung is cooking will most likely be Daydream compatible. If not, someone else’s 4K phone will be compatible.
        
        The openess of Daydream is the biggest reason why it will outgrow GearVR and have a much bigger future.
Me

It looks like a cardboard premium version. But maybe this is what people need to get into VR and then move up to the full experience ?
- OgreTactics
  
  Not this is not, this is worse than the GearVR relative to it’s date of release.
  - OOLuigiOo
    
    I see you have a huge stick up that ass. You forget the feeling of being in another world shall rid many folks of their resolution worries and w/e else you are bitching about. They may not even notice considering it’s another world vs a tint screen :)
    
    Even if the screen were 50 inches, VR would still be way more amazing despite the lower resolution. Many may not even notice.
    
    There is something for everyone who is not you :)
    - OgreTactics
      
      I doubt it
  - Andrew Jakobs
    
    oh please get real.. GearVR is one of the best smartphone HMD’s there is.. And that’s what’s needed to get VR to the masses. Standalone headsets will stay too expensive for a long time, as they also require very expensive PC’s. Not everybody has the money to spend on a dedicated VR machine..
    - OgreTactics
      
      Way to completely miss the point.
Glenn Rubin

If your phone is not plugged into the headset then what is actually powering the headset? Is there a rechargeable battery or regular batteries of some type?
- Hanjie Tang
  
  The headset is like a google cardboard, It just holds the phone in front of your face. There’s no need to power it.
  Unlike GearVR, which has a touchpad on the side, daydream uses a wireless controller instead.